Social computing by students: A means to
establish youth identity
Aditya, Guruprasad Singh* and
Basavaprabhu Jirli
Department of Extension
Education, Institute of Agricultural Sciences
Banaras Hindu University,
Varanasi – 221 005
*Professor, Krishi Vigyan
Kendra, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi – 221 005
Abstract
Since
their introduction, social network sites (SNSs) have attracted millions of
users, many of whom have integrated these sites into their daily practices.
While their key technological features are fairly consistent, the cultures that
emerge around SNSs are varied. Most sites support the maintenance of pre‐existing social
networks, but others help strangers connect based on shared interests,
political views, or activities. Some sites cater to diverse audiences, while
others attract people based on common language or shared racial, sexual, religious,
or nationality‐based
identities. Sites also vary in the extent to which they incorporate new
information and communication tools, such as mobile connectivity, blogging, and
photo/video‐sharing. In this
backdrop, the present study on social media was conducted in Banaras Hindu
University, Varanasi to study the duration, online activities, topics, websites
under different functionalities, benefits of social media and the values
associated with the respondents involved in social media. The study gives a
broad outlook of the expectation and understanding of the present e-savvy
generation towards this potential element of Information and Communication
Technology (ICT). The study was conducted during 2010-11 in Banaras Hindu
University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India. Using random sampling technique, a
total of 400 undergraduate and postgraduate students belonging to faculty of
science and Institute of Agricultural Sciences were selected from Banaras Hindu
University. A total of 530 students were selected through the method of
proportionate random sampling. Out of them 400 schedules (200 from each
faculty) which were complete in all respects were finally selected for
analysis. The study reveals that family occupation and career orientation of
the student is significantly related to the awareness of students at the 5 per
cent level of significance. The z-test regarding the difference in social
networking aspects between the U.G and P.G students revealed that the
difference was mainly attributed in the career orientation of the students. The
usage of social media tools by youth participants transforms Web pages from
being static documents to front-end interfaces for computing platforms. The transformation implies the browser
transitioning from a document interface to a computing interface. While various
application software systems have used the browser as front end so as to enable
universal and uniform access, the social software and Web 2.0 trends go beyond
that, as in many cases the browser itself becomes the locus of computation.
This transition could represent the beginning of a series of changes in the
desktop computing environment the culmination of which can profoundly change
the educational structure. Social Computing and online communities have ushered
in a new era of the web, where information and communication technologies are
facilitating organized human endeavor in fundamentally new ways. The broad
impact of social computing in diverse domains and the complexity of features
that span diverse disciplines pose new challenges for Information Systems
researchers. Information Systems research should expand its scope and adapt
theories and methodologies from even more disciplines to address this
challenge. This phenomenon has diverse theoretical connections and bridges
social and technical aspects.
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