1

Table of Contents
Introduction, Background 2-3
Hypothesis 3
Data Presentation and Analysis 4-14
Secondary Research 15-19
Summary of Findings, Limitations, Conclusion
References

21

20

2
Introduction
Once upon a time, people used to write letters or only cherishing memories of their
dear ones; while letters used to take a pack of weeks to reach from one place to another, but now
days have changed so much that memories take place only in devices and machines and websites
created by human. Technologies of connecting people is now advanced in such a way that
everyone can connect with multiple people at the same time; and the miraculous thing that
changed our lives drastically is social networking sites like, MySpace, Facebook, Cyworld. My
topic is about the social networking sites and if it is making todays youth vulnerable or not.
My research focus will be upon thinking of people especially youth feeling unsafe while using
the social networking sites. I have faced some difficulties and feel unsafe while using those sites
and now just interested to find out what other thinks about this.

Background
The aspects of my research are mainly the primary research and the secondary research. Primary
research mainly is the randomly selected sample survey of young people aging 18-28 year with
some relevant questions about their experience and thinking towards social networking sites.
After accumulating the sample survey result, the secondary result included web journals, quotes
of specific important people and search engines about what other surveys, journals say about this
topic and if the result is reflecting or conflicting those sources. After that I could have reached a
decision.
In my research I have tried to investigate the impact of social networking sites on youth. My
research contains the following question1. What is social networking?
2. People of which age group are used to using social networking sites more than any other age
groups people think?
3. Is it preferable to use the social networking sites as the medium of being connected with
people?

3
4. Are social networking sites really growing social networks or it is just a means of sharing
private information for being social?
5. Are people there really trustworthy enough to share personal information?
6. If there is any bad experience about violence of privacy; what is that?
7. Is it free and safe always socially networking with the people around us virtually?- If yes
then why?
These questions were meant to find out what young people think about the sites and their usage.
They use it excessively or not and if it has brought any bad experience for them. How much they
trust those people to whom they are used to get connected. All these questions actually pulled me
to the answer of my research topic- if social networking sites make youth vulnerable or not.

Hypothesis
Social networking means getting connected with people very often we want to do it. In my
opinion, it can be both physical and virtual as well; but now-a-days, people are really fond of
getting connected by the social networking sites which is really easy to do, time saving and takes
the most little effort to do it. Youth people are getting lazy by it and more and more getting
involved in it. I think, mostly the teenagers and the young people (18-30) likely to use social
networking sites; but now this medium has become very popular among all ages of people. Now
if we want to be social then we have to share our photos, information and phone number as well.
As far as I know it does not happen in face to face socialization. People often face violence of
privacy, uncertainty of being secured virtually. I am hopeful about that, by my research, people
will get to know about how information disclosing, location disclosing, last done histories make
people (especially youth) unsafe, what are their feelings towards happening this etc.

4
Research Methodology
For my primary research, I have conducted a survey of representative sampling of the youth
people in Dhaka and have interviewed people who use social networking sites and felt their
privacy has been disrupted or had bad experience about anything related to social networking
sites. To the end I have designed a questionnaire with different types of questions so as to get a
range of useful data which will help me to answer my research questions.
For my secondary research, I have used resources of the Internet browsing and specific articles,
journals relating the topic, quotes of important people etc.

Organization
My research paper has be divided into several sections, the most important of which are theIntroduction, background, data presentation and analysis, and summary of findings. Within the
sections my organization will be based on my research questions.

Data Presentation and Analysis

My primary research contains a public survey on young aging people (18-30). I have done it in
various places respectively to get a mixed random sample of selected specific people. I have
done this survey on 50 randomly selected people and those people have given different answers
individually. After that the work was about accumulating all their opinions on the questionnaire
that had been made for them. The following questions were on the questionnaire those they have
answered-

5
Questionnaire:
1. Do you use social networking sites to get connected with people?
i.
Yes, always
ii.
Yes, very often
iii.
Yes, I think it is easier to interact with people through social networking sites
iv. No, I just use it for my time pass
v. No, I do not do that.
2. People of which age group are used to using social networking sites more than any other
age groups you think?
i.
Teen (<18)
ii.
Young adults (18-28)
iii.
Middle aged (29-39)
iv. Seniors (>39).
3. How many people do you know by the social networking sites you use?
i.
Less than 10%
ii.
10% - 40%
iii.
About 50%
iv. 50% - 70%
v. More than 70%.
4. How many people have you met personally whom you know through the social
networking sites?
i.
Every one of them
ii.
Some of them
iii.
About half of them
iv. Very few of them
v. None of them.
5. Are those people trustworthy enough to you to share personal information?
i.
Yes, I trust them completely
ii.
Yes, but I have not shared anything personal
iii.
I maintain strict privacy on my personal information
iv. No, I do not trust them completely
v. Others.
6. According to you, is it free and safe always networking with the people around us
virtually?
i.
Yes, I feel safe completely
ii.
Yes because nobody can harm me in anyway
iii.
No, not always actually
iv. No, I never feel safe
v. Others.
7. The current settings of social networking sites are slightly violence of privacy
i.
Strongly agree
ii.
Agree
iii.
Disagree
iv. Strongly disagree.

6
v. Others.
8. Do you allow each and everyone to access your account/private information?
i.
Yes, I feel there is nothing to hide
ii.
Not always
iii.
In special cases
iv. Only when in need
v. Never ever.
9. Have you ever had any bad experience using social networking sites?
i.
Yes
ii.
No.
10. If the previous question answer is yes then what was that (one sentence)? (you can
answer indirectly- just what happened)
Answer:

11. Social networking sites really growing social networks or it is just a means of sharing
private information among people? - select the most appropriate one you think from
below.
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.

Yes, it is growing social network

It is doing both I guess
It is just a means of sharing information
It is harming us more than making social
Others.

Those were the questions on my research questionnaire.

After accumulating their answers for those specific questions, an appendix has been made on the
survey answers and it is given belowAppendix
Options
1
2
3
4
5
Total
Options
1

Question No.
1
2
3
19
11
11
13
37
9
11
1
6
6
1
15
1
9
50
50
50
Percentages (%)
38
22
22

4
8
9
6
11
16
50

5
7
15
21
7
0
50

6
9
5
32
3
1
50

7
6
22
6
0
16
50

8
0
9
11
13
17
50

9
10
40
50

10
-

11
23
20
3
4
0
50

16

14

18

12

20

46

7
2
3
4
5
Total

26
22
12
2
100

74
2
2
100

18
12
30
18
100

18
12
22
32
100

30
42
14
0
100

10
64
6
2
100

44
12
0
32
100

18
22
26
34
100

80
10
0

40
6
8
0
100

Data Analysis
Q1: How frequently people use social networking sites and about their opinion while using it.
Here a column chart is given below to understand the percentages of different answers-

Column Chart
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Percentage

Percentage

Options

Here, we can see that 38% people of the sample survey always use social networking sites in
every way; and after that the number is constantly decreasing. 26% of people very often, 22%
people use because it is easier to networking through those sites. 12% use just for time pass and

8
only 2% of them never use those sites. The sample survey is showing how much young people
are dependent on those sites for social networking.
Q2: People of which age group are used to using social networking sites more than any other
age groups they think?

Doughnut Chart
2%
2%
22%

Teen

Young adults

Middle aged

Seniors

74%

We can see above from the doughnut chart that about 74% are young adults who use social
networking sites the most. There are 22% of teenagers who use those sites and only 2% of
middle aged and senior people use those sites as the survey results.
Q3: How many people they do know by using those social networking sites?
A bar chart is given below to understand the amount of percentages they hold.

9
Bar Chart

Other

(50-70)%
Percentage
50%

(10-49)%

<10%
0

10

15

20

25

30

From the above bar chart we can see the results are very fluctuating in different cases. 30% of
people who know about (50-70)% people by using social networking sites. That means young
people now days are used to talk or network a lot on their never seen faces found from the social
networking sites. Only 22% of people know less than 10% of their site mates. Rest (10-49)% and
50% site mates are known by those sites to the 18% and 12% people respectively.

Q4: How many of people they have met personally whom they know through the social
networking sites?
Answer: As given in the appendix, about 16% of people met every one of those people to whom
they regularly get connected by the social networking sites. About 22% of people met none of
their site mates. Rest of the 52% of people met some of their site mates as the sample data. So
the 74% of people are facing risk of getting fraud at different levels.
Q5: Are those people trustworthy enough to share personal information (photos, address,
phone numbers etc.)?
A well-designed pie chart is given below to understand the amount of percentages-

10
Pie Chart

14%

14%
30%

42%

Trustworthy enough
shared nothing personal
maintain strict privacy
not trustworthy enough

Here from the pie chart we can see that, maximum number of percentage of people hold strict
privacy on their networking site accounts, 30% of them share nothing personal in their accounts
to anyone, 14% believe to trust all and 14% believe to trust none of those sites. So, it is obvious
to say that the maximum number of surveyed people do not feel their site mates trustworthy
enough.
Q6: Is it free and safe always for them networking with the people around virtually?
Here is a column chart given below to explain the answers of the survey have been found. From
the column chart it seems that 64% of people answered that they do not feel safe always while
using the social networking sites, 6% of people never feel safe, 10% do not take any risk. Only
18% of people feel safe completely while using those sites. So, people really feel unsafe.

11
Column Chart
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

Percentage

Q7: If the current settings of social networking sites are slightly violence of privacy to peopleA pie chart can give a better understanding to the found results of this question-

12
Pie Chart

12%
32%
Strongly agree

Agree

Disagree

12%

Strongly disagree

Others

44%

From the pie chart above, 44% of people are agreeing that the current settings of social
networking sites are slightly violence of privacy, 12% strongly agree on that statement and, 12%
of people are disagreeing. 32% of people are saying other things about this statement. The pie
chart gives a very obvious result of youth opinion about this statement that, current settings of
those sites are slightly violence of privacy.

Q8: Do people allow anyone to access their account/private information?

Answer: Here, 34% of people never ever let access their account by anyone else, 26% let it do
only when in need, 22% in special cases and, 18% of people sometimes let others do that. This is
actually balanced among people if they are letting it or not.

13
Q9: Is there any bad experience while using social networking sites?
Here is a pie chart to represent the answers-

Pie Chart

20%

Yes

No

80%

Here, 80% of people answered no they have been asked if they have gone through any bad
experience related to the social networking sites while 20% of people said yes to this question.
Those people have also answered the question actually what happened and most of the cases
were account hacking, harassing, defaming and privacy related.

Q11: If the Social networking sites really growing social networks or it is just a means of
sharing private information among peopleHere is a bar chart given below-

14
Bar Chart

Others

Harming more
Percentage
Just sharing private information

Doing both

Growing social network

0

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

Here, total 14% of people said social networking sites are harming us and just doing nothing but
sharing our information to people, 20% of people are in support of doing both and, rest 46% of
people answered that it is growing social network. Though these sites have a big threat still
people want it to be a part of their life now.

These were the result and graphical presentations of the primary data results. This was a random
sample of 50 young people.

15

16
Secondary Research

1. Ybarra, M.L., Mitchell, K.J.(2008).How Risky Are Social Networking Sites? A Comparison
of Places Online Where Youth Sexual Solicitation and Harassment Occurs, Vol- 121, pp. e350
-e357.
Objective: Recently, public attention has focused on the possibility that social networking sites
such as MySpace and Facebook are being widely used to sexually solicit underage youth,
consequently increasing their vulnerability to sexual victimization. Beyond anecdotal accounts,
however, whether victimization is more commonly reported in social networking sites is
unknown.
Participants and Methods: The Growing up With Media Survey is a national cross-sectional
online survey of 1588 youth. Participants were 10- to 15-year-old youth who have used the
Internet at least once in the last 6 months. The main outcome measures were unwanted sexual
solicitation on the Internet, defined as unwanted requests to talk about sex, provide personal
sexual information, and do something sexual, and Internet harassment, defined as rude or mean
comments, or spreading of rumors.
Results: Fifteen percent of all of the youth reported an unwanted sexual solicitation online in the
last year; 4% reported an incident on a social networking site specifically. Thirty-three percent
reported an online harassment in the last year; 9% reported an incident on a social networking
site specifically. Among targeted youth, solicitations were more commonly reported via instant
messaging (43%) and in chat rooms (32%), and harassment was more commonly reported in
instant messaging (55%) than through social networking sites (27% and 28%, respectively).
Conclusion: Broad claims of victimization risk, at least defined as unwanted sexual solicitation
or harassment, associated with social networking sites do not seem justified. Prevention efforts
may have a greater impact if they focus on the psychosocial problems of youth instead of a
specific Internet application, including funding for online youth outreach programs, school antibullying programs, and online mental health services.

17
2. Livingstone, Sonia and Brake, David R. (2010) On the rapid rise of social networking
sites: new findings and policy implications. Children & society, 24 (1). pp. 75-83.
Social networking sites have been rapidly adopted by children and, especially, teenagers and
young people worldwide, enabling new opportunities for the presentation of the self, learning,
construction of a wide circle of relationships, and the management of privacy and intimacy. On
the other hand, there are also concerns that social networking increases the likelihood of new
risks to the self, these centering on loss of privacy, bullying, harmful contacts and more. This
article reviews recent findings regarding children and teenagers social networking practices in
order to identify implications for future research and public policy. These focus on the
interdependencies between opportunities and risks, the need for digital or media literacy
education, the importance of building safety considerations into the design and management of
social networking sites, the imperative for greater attention to at risk children in particular, and
the importance of a childrens rights framework in developing evidence-based policy in this area.
New opportunities tend to be associated with new risks (Livingstone and Helsper, in press). The
UKs Home Office (2008) identifies a series of risks to childrens safety associated with social
networking - bullying, harassment, and exposure to harmful content, theft of personal
information, sexual grooming, violent behavior, encouragement to self-harm and racist attacks.
Anxious headlines Knife a Pal on Facebook (Clench, 2008), Facebook spells end of lasting
friendships, says expert (Smith, 2008), MySpace Invaders: Evil Lurks on Teen Sites (Webster
& Edwards, 2007) - certainly overstate the problem, but there are grounds for genuine concern.
Such research findings as exist link social networking with a range of content, contact and
conduct risks to children and young people, including some perpetrated by children themselves.
The UK Children Go Online survey of 9-19 year olds found that, among those who used the
internet at least weekly, 57% had seen online pornography, 31% had seen violent and 11% had
seen racist content. Further, 31% had received sexual comments online and 28% had been sent
unsolicited sexual material. A third had received bullying comments online and 8% had gone to a
meeting with someone first met online (Livingstone & Bober, 2005). Two adolescent practices
are likely to exacerbate online risk the disclosure of personal information and the experimental
nature of peer communication. Yet it seems teenagers are fairly though not entirely careful when

18
communicating online. A content analysis of a random sample of 2423 public MySpace profiles
produced by under 18s found that many provided personal photos (57%), but only a few
discussed alcohol consumption (18%), showed images of friends in swimsuit/underwear (16%),
provided real names (9%), discussed smoking (8%), showed themselves in swimsuit/underwear
(5%) or discussed marijuana use (2%) (Hinduja & Patchin, 2008). A USA survey found that
while boys and younger teens are more likely to post false information, older teenagers
(especially girls) are more likely to reveal detailed personal information: overall, 49% included
their school and 29% their email address (Lenhart & Madden, 2007). An Irish survey of 10-20
year olds found that while 49% gave out their date of birth, only 12% gave their mobile phone
number and 8% their home address (Anchor, 2007). Since social networking sites are designed
for teenagers to provide at least their name, birth date and photograph, such personal disclosures
are unsurprising. There is growing evidence that personal disclosure facilitates communication
risks. While mild peer-to-peer problems may include teenagers teasing each other by posting
embarrassing pictures, concerns are growing about cyber-bullying (Patchin & Hinduja, 2006):
a 2006 survey found that, although 69% pupils were bullied in past year, only 7% said they had
received unpleasant or bullying emails/IM/text messages (Bullying UK, 2006), although another
survey found 20% had been cyber-bullied (NCH/Tesco, 2006). Higher levels of cyber-bullying
are reported in the USA: 72% of 12-17 year olds, an online survey found, had been bullied
online in the previous year, and 85% had also been bullied in school. Although from a selfselected sample, these figures show how online and offline bullying are linked (Juvonen &
Gross, 2008): Hinduja and Patchin (2009) found that 82%of those bullied online knew their
perpetrator and 42% who reported being cyber-bullied were also bullied at school.
Much research tends not to distinguish modes of communication - email, text, chat room, instant
messaging or social networking. While 33% of 10-15 year olds contacted in the USA reported
being harassed online in 2007, they were more likely to be harassed through instant messaging or
chat rooms than via social networking sites (Ybarra & Mitchell, 2008). Ybarra etal (2007) argue
that teenagers who communicate in multiple ways online are most at risk of online victimization,
as are those who seek out opportunities to talk about sex with unknown people and who have
unknown people in their buddy lists (see also Internet Safety Technical Task Force, 2009).
Having found that lower self-esteem and well-being is more common among teenagers who
particularly seek opportunities to talk to strangers online, Valkenburg and Peter (2007a) argue

19
that chat rooms favour such interaction with strangers more than instant messaging. For social
networking, a key factor might be whether a teenagers profile is set to public or private and
whether he or she is careful or casual in accepting unknown contacts as friends. However,
research has yet carefully to disentangle the workings of these different factors forms of online
communication, conditions of use, characteristics of the young users, and possible adverse
consequences.

3. Livingstone, Sonia, lafsson, Kjartan and Staksrud, Elisabeth (2013) Risky social
networking practices among under-age users: lessons for evidence-based policy. Journal for
computer-mediated communication, 18 (3). pp. 303-320.
European self-regulation to ensure children's safety on social networking sites requires that
providers ensure children are old enough to use the sites, aware of safety messages, empowered
by privacy settings, discouraged from disclosing personal information, and supported by easy to
use reporting mechanisms. This article assesses the regulatory framework with findings from a
survey of over 25000 9- to 16-year-olds from 25 European countries. These reveal many
underage children users, and many who lack the digital skills to use social networking sites
safely. Despite concerns that children defy parental mediation, many comply with parental rules
regarding social networking. The implications of the findings are related to policy decisions on
lower age limits and self-regulation of social networking sites.

4. Livingstone, Sonia (2008) Taking risky opportunities in youthful content creation:

teenagers' use of social networking sites for intimacy, privacy and self-expression. New media
& society, 10 (3). pp. 393-411.
The explosion in social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and Friendster is
widely regarded as an exciting opportunity, especially for youth, yet the public response tends to
be one of puzzled dismay regarding a generation that, supposedly, has many friends but little
sense of privacy and a narcissistic fascination with self-display. This article explores teenagers'
practices of social networking in order to uncover the subtle connections between online

20
opportunity and risk. While younger teenagers relish the opportunities to recreate continuously a
highly-decorated, stylistically-elaborate identity, older teenagers favor a plain aesthetic that
foregrounds their links to others, thus expressing a notion of identity lived through authentic
relationships. The article further contrasts teenagers' graded conception of `friends' with the
binary classification of social networking sites, this being one of several means by which online
privacy is shaped and undermined by the affordances of these sites.

5. Staksrud, Elisabeth, lafsson, Kjartan and Livingstone, Sonia (2013) Does the use of
social networking sites increase childrens risk of harm? Computers in human behavior, 29
(1). pp. 40-50.
Although research findings have been equivocal as to whether the use of social networking sites
(SNSs) increases experiences of online risk among children, the affordances of SNS lend support
to this possibility, attracting much policy and public concern. The present article examines
whether the use of such services increases the risks that children and young people encounter by
analyzing data from a random stratified sample of approximately 1000 internet-using children
aged 9-16 years in each of 25 European countries. Four hypotheses were formulated and tested.
The first hypothesis, namely that children who use social networking sites will encounter more
risks online than those who do not, is supported by the data. The second hypothesis stated that
SNS users with more digital competence will encounter more online risk than those with less
competence; this was also supported, despite being counter to common assumptions. Thirdly, we
hypothesized that SNS users with more risky SNS practices (e.g. a public profile, displaying
identifying information, with a very large number of contacts) will encounter more online risk
than those with fewer risky practices: this too was supported by the data; thus what matters for
risk is how SNS are used, a useful point for awareness-raising initiatives. The fourth hypothesis
stated that SNS users with more digital competence in using the internet will experience less
harm associated with online risk. The data did not support this hypothesis, since digital
competence did not reduce the probability of children saying that they have been bothered or
upset by something on the internet. Finally, the study found that, although this had not been
predicted, whether or not risks are experienced as harmful depends on the specific relation
between risks and platforms (website, instant messaging, gaming or social networking). We call

21
on future research to explore how particular affordances sustain particular communicative
conditions and, in turn, are responded to differently by children. The research and policy
implications of the findings are discussed.

Summary of Findings
All the question answers of my primary research, the resources of secondary research lead
towards the research questions and my desired findings. Primary research questionnaire
represented maximum number of people answering about feeling unsafe while using the social
networking sites. the secondary research article and journal references also supported my topic of
point that- Social networking sites make youths vulnerable.

Limitations
Well, carrying out my whole research project was not at all an easy task for me; it was
really difficult for me to cite the secondary sources in APA format. I carried out a survey on 50
NSU students which is not a satisfactory number of people to conclude the result of my survey
with great validity. If I had more time my sample size would have been quite larger, and I would
have carried out a survey outside North South University, on the general young people currently
studying in other universities. I had a wish of taking personal interviews relating to this research
paper work, but due to insufficiency of time I could not do it. I hope that my limitations will be
forgivable.

Conclusion
After this research, I really hope that it will be helpful to the youth to know how the excessive
use of social networking sites can make them unsafe. Moreover I also want to conclude that
social networking sites are really very helpful for todays world; but not excessively.

22
References

1. Ybarra, M.L., Mitchell, K.J.(2008).How Risky Are Social Networking Sites? A Comparison
of Places Online Where Youth Sexual Solicitation and Harassment Occurs, Vol- 121, pp. e350
-e357.
2. Livingstone, Sonia and Brake, David R. (2010) On the rapid rise of social networking
sites: new findings and policy implications. Children & society, 24 (1). pp. 75-83.
3. Livingstone, Sonia, lafsson, Kjartan and Staksrud, Elisabeth (2013) Risky social
networking practices among under-age users: lessons for evidence-based policy. Journal for
computer-mediated communication, 18 (3). pp. 303-320.
4. Livingstone, Sonia (2008) Taking risky opportunities in youthful content creation:
teenagers' use of social networking sites for intimacy, privacy and self-expression. New media
& society, 10 (3). pp. 393-411.
5. Staksrud, Elisabeth, lafsson, Kjartan and Livingstone, Sonia (2013) Does the use of
social networking sites increase childrens risk of harm? Computers in human behavior, 29
(1). pp. 40-50.