A Study on Social Computing aspects on the Students of Banaras Hindu University

Since their introduction, social network sites (SNSs) have attracted millions of users, many of whom have integrated these sites into their daily practices. 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 in the year 2010-11 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 important findings in the study relate to the growing addiction of the social networking trait among the students but so far it has an immense opportunity to bring the students under a common platform for educational up gradation and development. The importance of these sites can be further judged from the finding that the majority of time spent in surfing the net is spent over SNSs. The growing openness and sharing phenomena is also widely acclaimed by the students in the current scenario.