1.

0 INTRODUCTION This section consist of background of the study, statements of problem, purpose and objectives of the study, research questions, significance of the study and scope of the study.

1.1 Background of the Study Internet is a global computer network providing a variety of information and communication facilities, consisting of interconnected networks using standardized communication protocols. Nowadays, the growing popularity of internet users more attracted to social networking sites that help peoples to communicate and socialize with each other. Today, 1.5 billion people across the world have their profiles in social networking sites. The three most popular social networking sites are Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Based on Alexa Global Traffic rank, the estimated monthly visitors for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are about 750, 250 and 110 million respectively. Time spent on Facebook, for example, is over 700 million minutes per month (Squidoo, 2012). The social networking revolution was born. It is because just about everyone who uses the Internet is a member of at least one and often many online social networks. With such widespread adoption, it is no surprise that social networks have impacted the way people live and socialise. Apart from the social benefits, social networking sites can be used to document school research, promote artistic talents and experiments with other forms of content creation. Along with these benefits come some risks. Social networking is a prominent tool for communication and self-expression for students. Although the online interaction is just for fun, it is also consist of some danger that they not realized.

1.2 Statements of the Problem Widespread use of internet has led to a kind of addiction. The present study examined the use of Internet and addiction of the social networking sites and its impact on intermediate level students. Based on numerous psychology studies on social networking sites, it was found that the students have positive tendency towards the useful and easy reflections on internet and a greater tendency towards getting addicted. However, this new form of capital and the easy access to unlimited online exposure has had an overall negative effect on students academic performance (Karpinski & Duberstein, 2009; Canales et al., 2009 cited in Sana Rouis, 2012). Thus, further studies are needed to investigate the social networking problem among the students.

1.3 Purpose and Objectives of the Study The study investigates the social networking problem among the students, as the social networking sites nowadays becomes a reason for anxiety and addiction. Therefore, the study attempts to achieve the following objectives: a) To determine the social networking involvement among students. b) To assess the level of awareness of the effects of social networking sites among students.

1.4 Research Questions a) What is the level of social networking involvement among the students? b) What is the level of awareness of students regarding to the effects of social networking sites?

1.5 Significance of the Study Recently, social networks have become very popular for all of the generations in the worldwide. Its social implication can be varied. The social networking has tremendously developed in this era and nowadays, it become vital in the daily lives of people. Social Networking Sites had given a new space for communication which nowadays it can be two ways communication either one-to-many, many-to-many and collaborative communication. Thus, the people mostly choose the social networking sites as their communication because of these kinds of interactivity. As nowadays, we are living in Cyber the role of social networks in discussion and dissemination of information need to be given a serious through particularly among students because the students is a highest community of social networking sites. This is because the social networks contribute either positive or negative impacts for them without realized it. Thus, in this study it gives a various dimensions and problems that students faced when logged onto Social Networking Sites and that why the tittles given as Social Networking Problems among UiTM Shah Alam. The findings of the study would provide information on social networking problems among UiTM Shah Alams students. This will bring benefits to the Network Division Centre for Integrated Information System of UiTM Shah Alam, so that they can restrict the internet usage that can lead to networking problems among the students. 1.6 Scope of the Study This study was only carried out in some faculties in UiTM Shah Alam areas, with the issue of social networking problem among students. The study has only 30 respondents, since it is only a piloted study. The respondents were randomly selected between ages of 18 30 years old. The data were collected in a questionnaire that has been distributed from 26th November 2012 to 3rd December 2012.

2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW This section consists of 2.1 Theoretical Perceptive of Social Networking Sites In the last decades of the 20th century, world saw the rapid advancement of information and communication technologies. Today, the communication revolution had brought us together without no boundary and limitation. From time to time, we invented new communication technologies for better individual. Until recently, internet has been perhaps the outstanding innovation in the field of communication in the history of mankind. Furthermore, the rapid expansion of internet worldwide has changed the whole scene. It makes all the information available about any sort of things in the universe known to mankind is at our fingertip. Right now, internet is used for communication, entertainment and information. The internet offers a wide variety of communication tools. Most of the peoples use facilities such like e-journal, e-book, internet banking, social networking, e-newspaper, shopping and many more. Thus, it can be concluded that internet is an essential communication medium in our personal life. In addition, among of these various tools, Social Networking is a very popular phenomenon. Millions of the peoples had been engaged with social networks. According to Wikipedia, an online encyclopaedia, there are more than 300 Social Networking Sites and almost 1.5 billion members worldwide. And recently, Facebook is one of the leading social networking sites, which added over 200 million users in just 12 months. Besides, online social networking is increasingly the subject of almost researches. Scholars in many fields have begun to investigate the various aspects of social networking services and the effect of social networking sites. Many studies have been conducted around the world which is to investigate how these sites may play into issues of privacy, social, youth culture, performance and education. This review of literature is allow us to study the similar studies that had been conducted before which is in the same field. This will consist of the information that had been established by previous studies and there are some information added which leading to the expansion of knowledge. Through there are negative perceptions about the possible effects of Social Networking Sites on students academic performance, some studies showed that students 4

found it quite appropriate for a teacher to use Facebook, and for teachers and students to socialize by this means (Baran,2010). Students also believed that such tools could allow them to share knowledge in formal education contexts. According to Churchills study (2009), it showed that the use of weblogs or blogs (social publishing) in education facilitated a useful learning atmosphere. Studies of adolescents use of Social Networking Sites showed that their profile contained a wealth of intimate, candid, and publicly available information on a wide range of social issues. According to Williams and Mertne (2008), university students are often found to be obsessed with their Facebook profile or Twitter page. The researchers matched this path of identity exploration and role experimentation to Erik Eriksons developments stages (Erikson 1968). Eriksons theory suggests that adolescents between the ages of 13-18 will experience a period of psychosocial crisis- identity versus role confusion. While undergoing this development stage, adolescents become conscious about sexual identity, peer relationships and other social interactions. Williams and Mertne (2008) also suggested that the over-dependency on these media may affect a students attendance at school. DeBell and Chapman (2006) pointed out that adolescents and young adults are the heaviest users of computers and the internet. Social Networking Sites become the latest online communication tool that allows these users to create a public or private profile to interact with people in their networks (Boyd&Ellison, 2008).

2.2 Issues of Social Networking Sites Over the years, social networking among the college students has become more and more popular. Nowadays, it is a fastest way to make connections, not only on campus but also with friends outside the campus. Social networking is a way that helps many people feels as though they belong to community. While it is important to acknowledge the risks that may be arise from the students user, the most experts have been concerned to point out that we should not to overlook the potentially significant benefit that may arise from the use of networking technologies. But along with these benefits, it also comes some risks such as cyber-bullying, sexual harassment, academic performance, addiction and many more. In the technology era, social networking is now just a part of students daily routine. According to University of New Hampshire (U of NH, 2009), it concluded that a majority of students used social networking for social connections and entertainment, but are also using it for education and professional reasons. Social Networking Sites can also affect the academic performance if the time management is not correctly spent. According to the previous researcher named Karpinski which focused on the relation between the academic performances of students with the time spent on Facebook (M.San, 2009). The overall finding indicated that the grades slightly down when more time spent on Facebook because the time supposedly used to study had been spent on Facebook. Furthermore, nowadays the students preferred to access the social networking sites only by using smart phone. So as the conclusion, the students can access the social networking sites anytime, anywhere and everywhere although they are in class. Furthermore, the world right now faces a new kind of addiction which is Internet addiction after drug and alcohol. Besides, social networking sites influences such as people to get mad behind it. This is like the people being immersed in virtual world and forgetting about the real world around them. According to Florida Times-Union (2010), it reported that a mother named Alexandra V. Tobias from north Florida killed her own child because the boy crying that make her anger while playing FarmVille on Facebook. Thus, based on our finding, it is consistent with this kind of addiction where mostly of the students will get mad and depressed once the connection to social networking sites is failed. In addition, Social Networking Sites are built on the sharing of information which are included posting a comments, photographs and video images. Thus, all the information would be exposed to others online. But mostly, the young people may be less cautions about posting 6

private information compare to the older users. Besides, they are also tend to ignore to read the term and condition for some of social networks such as Facebook, Yahoo Messenger, Twitter and many more. According to Community Attitudes Survey that had been conducted in 2007, it can be concluded that young people more generally lower levels of awareness in their privacy (Research into Community Attitudes towards Privacy in Australia, 2007). Due to the lower level of awareness among the users, it contribute 100 million profiles had been hacked in Facebook according to Ron Bowles as online security consultant ( D.Biswajit , 2011). At started, social networking sites invented to make contact with people and also built a network of healthy relationship in society. But nowadays, it seems offer a cybercriminals to take advantages by targets their victims by online. In this era, students and younger are the majority users for this kind of sites. Thus, with this facilities, the younger and students easily to become the victims of cybercriminals such as rape, bullying and murder. Teens easily believe in love with the person they met online but actually they are falling to the trap of sexual predators. According to Steenhuysen,2008, it stated that majority of cases involve a young teenagers mostly 13-, 14-, 15-years old who are targeted by adults on internet who are straightforward bout being interested in sex.

2.3 Relevant Studies From time to time, many studies had been conducted in these same fields of study with almost the same goal and purposes. Most of the studies are used to investigate the services of social networking site and the impacts that faced by the students when logged onto the social networking sites. Thus, this study is carried out to investigate the Social Networking Problems among students. The relevant study that consists of previous researches with the same field is taken as the guideline and it had been added with new information to give a proper direction to the work and leading to the expansion of knowledge. Besides, it showed the strength and the weaknesses of the previous studies. Social Networking Sites recently labelled as the vital communication due to their ability of interactivity with the other peoples. As stated before, Social Networking Sites had been used for the student for education and professional purpose (U of NH, 2009). But if the use of Social Networking Sites is uncontrolled it can affect the academic performance of the students. Several studies had been conducted regarding social networking and grades. San Miguel, Renay (2009) conducted a study, tittles Study on Facebook and Grades Becomes Learning Experiences for Researchers, to understand the relation between times spent with the grade in academic performance. In this research, the researchers found out that more time on Facebook equals slightly lower grade. Besides, it also found that the Facebook users studied 1-5 hours per week while the non-Facebook users would studied 11-15 hours per week. Although many researcher aware that Facebook is not only thing that possibly taking away study time but 55% of those surveyed access their pages several time a days or at least once a day but in a long period of time. Thus, it directly had taken the time of study. In addition, Social Networking Sites also affect the academic based on the Paul A. Kirschnera study, tittles Facebook and Other Online Social Network Site Can Lower Grade. In this research, it stated that students who multi-task between social networking sites and homework are likely to have 20 percent lower grade than student who does not have social networking sites. This is because while they are carrying out their task, may be their email or instant messaging constantly running and it directly make them unfocused with their study. Based on the awareness of privacy sharing, that kind of studied had been conducted by Catherine Dwyer, Starr Roxanne Hiltz and Katie Passerini (2007). In this research, it is about on how trust other members in a particular sites can affect users willingness to share 8

information and develops new relationship. This situation mostly happened on the younger user which has a minimal level of awareness in term of privacy and information sharing. This study had been used Facebook and MySpace as their subject of comparison. Thus, the result showed that the online friendship can develop in this sites where the protection of privacy is minimal. Thus, with this kind of situation, they are easily falling with the cybercriminals such as murder, rape, bullying and many more. Based on the social networking addiction, psychologist Micheal Fenichel had been described that FAD (Facebook Addiction Disoder) as the situation where the Facebook usage overtake the daily activities such as eating, sleeping, working, playing and more. According to Dr. Mohamad Hussain Habil, director of University Malaya Center of Addictives Sciences, he concluded that the children that addicted to the internet who is obsessed with virtual activities, they are willing to forego their meals, sleep, responsibilities and leisure activities. This objective is same with the survey in US where 56 percent users check Facebook at least once a day. The research also stated that people under 25 years old are more likely to lose sleep by keeping an eye on their friends post (Peoples addiction to networking sites on rise, 2010). The study that is present is similar with to some of studies that stated above. The relevant studies enabled the researchers to gain a better understanding and also the perspective of the subject.

3.0 METHADOLOGY This section consists of 3.1 Introduction This section discusses about the methodology of the research. The main objectives or purposes of the research are to investigate the problem faced by university students when logged onto the social networking sites and to access the level of awareness of the effects of social networking sites among students. To assess and evaluate the objectives, students from UiTM Shah Alam was chosen. Data for the research were collected through the questionnaire. 3.2 Background of the Respondents The respondents of the study were the students from the different courses at University Technology Mara (UiTM) Shah Alam. In November 2012, a total of 30 questionnaires were distributed to students at the different faculties of the university. All the questionnaires from the various faculties had been collected. Based on the questionnaires, 9 were male students while the rest, 21 were female. 3.3 Research Instruments This research utilized only the quantitative research methodology. The instrument used to collect the data was questionnaire. A set of questionnaire that containing 25 questions had been divided into 3 sections based on a questionnaire used previously by another study and a few questions had been added into it. Different question-types such as ranking yes-no, listing, category and scales were used in the questionnaire. The different sections of the questionnaire were: i) demographic information, ii) frequency of social networking sites visit and, iii) awareness of the effect of the social networking. The questionnaire was checked to the lecturer to assess its validity before it was distributed. 3.4 Research Procedure Before the actual data collection period, the questionnaire is checked by the lecturer to assess the validity of the research instrument. A total of 30 students were involved in the pilot study chosen at random at various places of the university.

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During the actual study, questionnaires were distributed at various locations on campus, such as bus stops, several faculties and in the library. Furthermore, questionnaires are familiar to most of the people. Nearly everyone has had some experience in answering a questionnaire. Its easier for researcher to summarize and analyze the date due to there is standard questions and format for questionnaire, researchers own opinion will not influence the respondents to answer the question in a certain manner. 3.5 Data Analysis To analyse the data, a total of 4 variables were taken into consideration namely addiction, ignore of responsibilities, and less of confidents and awareness of social networking. All the data were entered into the computer using Statistical Packages for the Social Science (SPSS) software. Results were presented through frequency counts and other descriptive statistics.

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4.0

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION This section discusses the results of the research on the social networking problems among UiTM Shah Alam Students. The findings will be divided into two important two important topics found from the survey received from 30 students of UiTM Shah Alam.

4.1

Demographic Information From the 30 respondents, 21 of them are female. Ninety percent of the respondents are below 27 years old and most of them are between 18 to 20 years old.

4.2

Problems faced by UiTM students on Social Networking Sites (SNS) This part will present the problems faced by UiTM students on SNS such as addiction, ignorant on responsibility, and also confidence level. 4.2.1 Addiction

After drugs and alcohol addiction, if the world is facing a new type of addiction disorder, then that is Social Networking Sites (SNS) addiction (Bisjawit, 2011). A survey conducted among 30 students of UiTM Shah Alam, 26 of them are members of social networking sites. In addition, only 6.7 percent of the respondents logged on to their favorite SNS less than once in a few days. Besides that, 66.7 percent of them surprise with the time spent on the SNS. As a consequence, the take too much time on the SNS until effect the time for academic purposes.

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Time spent on SNS in a day

13% 20% 37% 1-2 hours 3-4 hours 30% 5-6 hours more than 7 hours

Figure 1: Time spent on SNS in a day In general, it can be seen in Figure 1 that most of the students spent the time on SNS more than 2 hours. Thus, the time for them to do the assignments are decreases just because of too much time on SNS. Based on Dr Joanna Lipari, a clinical psychologist at University of California says there are five clues that show you are addicted to Facebook in article Are you suffering in 2010 (Bisjawit, 2011). You start losing sleep over Facebook and that hampers your daily activity. Spend more than an hour on Facebook. You become obsessed with your old loves and start visiting their profile. And gradually it starts to affect your current relationship status. You tend to ignore work and use Facebook in office hours. When you think of going a day without Facebook, it causes stress and anxiety to you.

Another significant point that leads to addiction in SNS are when 70 percent of the respondents agree that they become frustrated or angry when SNS goes down or having internet connection problem. It shows that, the addiction to SNS may lead to emotional problems among the students. This case seems to be a serious case when it

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involved with emotional. Emotional is not a small matter in any case because emotional problems to others serious problems. 4.2.2 Ignorant of responsibility

Being responsible is a learned behaviour. It is not an accident and it requires patience and effort. In general, responsibility of a student is to perform-well in their academic and also co-curricular. From the survey, 76.7 percent of the respondents use mobile phone to access SNS. This may lead for the students to access SNS during class especially when they bored or feel sleepy in the class; thus, they do not focus in the class. Among 30 respondents, only 46.7 percent of them agree that they stay up late or wake up earlier to spend time on SNS. When it happens, they may sleepy in the class. As done by some researchers, a good quality time for us to sleep is about 5 to 6 hours. When less than that, our productivity in the next day will decrease, and we will feel tired easily.

Website Preferred
70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Games SNS Priority Blog Chat room Movies or Videos

Highest Priority

Less Priority

Least Priority

Figure 2: Website preferred From the bar chart, the main website preferred by the respondents are Social Networking Sites (SNS) and the least preferred website are games. This statistic shows that SNS is the favorite sites and the very famous sites among students. 14

Students join social networking sites because it gives them an opportunity to express their views, a feel of independency and self esteem. It is just a click way to create a virtual profile and connect with millions of users across the world, becomes more interesting because you can stay connected with old friends and family members. It is not a mistake for students to access SNS but they should know how to manage their time on SNS and study. They should know the things that more poetize.

4.2.3

Level of confidence

SNS tend to be less confident

33.3 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Agree Strongly Agree Disagree Strongly Disagree 10 30 26.7

Figure 3: SNS tend to be less confident The bar chart above (Figure 2) shows that most of the respondents agree that SNS may lead to be less confident in real life. Similarly, 19 of the respondents say that number of friends in SNS is more than in real life. In contrast, 22 of them prefer to interact with people face-to-face rather than on SNS only. These findings did not support Dr Bisjawits research on Social Networking Sites: A critical Analysis of Its Impact on Personal and Social Life. He says that SNS users face severe health risk because they reduce face-to-face contact and become addicted in a virtual world of relationships. Aric Sigman, fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, says social networking sites have played a significant role in making people become more 15

isolated. Lack of face-to-face contact could alter the way genes work, upset immune responses, hormonal levels, function of arteries and influence mental performance. This could increase the risk of health problems like cancer, strokes, heart disease and dementia ("Online networking harms," 2009) (Bisjawit, 2011). 4.3 Awareness of the Effects of Social Networking This section will discuss the awareness of the effects of SNS that should be concerned by the students. Among 30 respondents, only 11 of them read the terms and conditions when creating an account on SNS. Majority of them just ignore it and just click I understand and accept the Terms and Conditions. Terms and conditions are very important. With social networking sites it is important to strike the right balance between protecting people's data and still allowing them to use the sharing elements of social networking sites. The only reason Facebook can offer a free service to users is because of the money it makes from advertising. Many users do not mind this at all a few targeted ads could be a small price to pay in return for using the website. However, people do need to be made aware that when they sign up to a social networking site they are entering into a transaction with the site's owners. In the case of large social networking sites is keen to see far more transparency in the terms and conditions. Users should be told clearly what data is collected, who it is shared with, and how they can change their privacy settings. This information must be made available in an easy to read format and not hidden away in lengthy privacy statements requiring a law degree to understand (Which? 2012). The very important things that students should be aware are about Cyber bullying or cyber crimes.

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SNS contribute to Cyber bullying or Cyber crimes

50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 46.7 50

3.3 Agree Strongly Agree Disagree

0 Strongly Disagree

Figure 4: SNS contribute to cyber bullying or cyber crimes As can be seen in Figure 3, a large percentage of respondents agree that SNS can contribute to cyber bullying or cyber crimes. The beginning of social networking sites started to make contacts with people and build a network of healthy relationship in the society. But now it seems offering cybercriminals a great advantage to target victims. The major factor of cybercriminals is from the stranger friends on the SNS. When accepting friend request from strangers, we actually put ourselves at severe risk. The men at other side start exchanging words very cordially and within some days we have a faith on them. Then they start the mind game and start gathering more personal information. If they get to know our email address, they could go to email account and click on forget password. And the system will ask a security question like your favourite teacher, your first phone number etc. Unknowingly, you have already shared this information with them. So now they have access to your email account. This task will be much easier if you set your date of birth, school or college name as email password. Thus, students should not easily accept requests from anyone that they not really know.

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5.0

CONCLUSION This research determined social networking involvement among students when logged onto social networking sites. Primary data were collected by randomly distributing questionnaires to 30 respondents. The objectives of our study are to identify the social networking involvement among students and to assess the level of awareness of the effects of social networking sites among students. The following conclusion can be drawn from the study: 1) Most of the respondents are did not realize the time they had spend on social networking sites due to the influence that comes from the network itself that attract them from not to stop using it. 2) Nowadays Facebook is the most popular networking sites among people and it will attract more people to use it according to most of them use Facebook as their communication stage. 3) This networking sites are used for communicate with their friends and families, to discuss the assignment they had to do and to find more information about their assignments. 4) From the data and findings, respondents are more preferred to interact with people by face to face compared to interact with people by using social networking sites because it is easier for them to communicate and cooperate. 5) By interact face to face, we knows their responds to our speech either they like it or not by their face expression, body language or by their objection. 6) Most of the students prefer to log onto social networking sites through mobile phone because it is easy for them to bring it where ever they go due to the size and the weight of the mobile phone. 7) The factors that influence students keep logged onto social networking sites day by day are because of the easy access and no limitation of internet at university and easy logged in through nowadays technology that is through mobile phone.

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However, these findings are only valid for students in UiTM Shah Alam only and cannot be generalized to other university students. The same study needs to be conducted with students from other universities to see if there are any similarities with the factors that will influence students problem when logged onto social networking sites

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6.0 RECOMMENDATIONS This section consists of 6.1 Recommendation based on Finding Based on the findings and conclusion of the study, here are several recommendations to be considered: 1. It is recommended that the Network Division Centre for Integrated Information

System of UiTM Shah Alam should block the social networking sites such as Facebook and twitter among the university students, so that students can focus on their classes. 2. Students should set their privacy setting on the account of their social networking

sites so that their privacy and safety will be more secure. 3. Students must be aware of the risk of social networking sites themselves so they can

prevent from cyber criminals. 6.2 Recommendations for Future Research Since the study only focused on students of UiTM Shah Alam, it is recommended that further studies can be carried out on students from other universities to see whether they are any similarities on the study. Furthermore, further studies could be more specific on their current community membership on social networking sites and compare the benefits of the community. It is because social network represents an effective platform for teenagers not only to socialize but also for doing goods. Furthermore, social activists all over the world have learnt how to spread word about their causes, enlist volunteers, embark on actions and raise funds. Other than that, it is recommended that further studies can be carried out on how social network is changing the way marketing is done. It is because nowadays,a lot of marketing on a products or services have be done using the social networking sites. It is slowly changing the way people marketing from traditionally to technologically.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Ramesh C.(2010) Social Networking Sites Among Students, Farouk College, p8 2. www.en.wikipedia.org 3. Boyd, Danah M. and Ellison, Nicole B. (2007) Social Networking Sites: Definition, History and Scholarship Online, Journal of Computer Mediated Communication (JCMC), Vol.13, Issue.1. 4. Dwyer, Catherine, Roxanne Hiltz, Starr and Passerini (2007),Trust and privacy concern within social networking sites: A comparison of Facebook and MySpace: Keystone, Colorado, Proceedings of the Thirteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems 5. Facebook statistics. (n.d) Retrieved from

http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics 6. Biswajit D. &Jyoti S.S(n.d) Social Networking Sites: A Critical Analysis of Its Impact on Personal and Social Life, International Journal of Business and Social Science,Vol.2,No.14 7. France, Anthony (2009, December 22). Facebook disrespect led to killing in street. Retrieved from http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2781029/Facebook-

insult-led-to-killing-in-the-street.html 8. Peoples addiction to networking sites on rise: study.(2010, March 25). Retrieved from http://www.economictimes.indiatimes.com/infotech/internet/Peoples-addictionto-networking-sites-on-rise-Study/articleshow/5721998.cms 9. Steenhuysen,Julie.(2008, February 18). Study rejects internet sex predator stereotype. Retrieved from http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1560642020080218)

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