The Academic Usage of Social Networking Sites by the University Students of Tamil Nadu

The growing popularity of social media has influenced researchers to start investigate the communication and interaction between people using these media. University students are active users of social media for academic purpose as well as for personal use. As this social media phenomenon is continuing to grow at a faster pace, it is important to understand the effects it has on students. Given its popularity, researchers have considerable concerns about the effects of social media on students. Many studies gave an overview of social media and its popularity, usage, and impact among students. Since each day new technology evolve in social media, this study shall also examine the components and factors that influence our students' present social media usage and its impact. The social media needs to be understood more comprehensively for better understanding of factors that influence the usage, acceptance, and behavior of the Indian students. Despite the widespread use of social media, little is known about its impact on Indian students; hence this study will provide a better knowledge about the perception and impact of social media. The study envisioned to examine the academic use of social media applications by university students, and to study the usage of various academic applications of social media by the university students. Survey method was employed to study the academic usage of the social media by the university students and exhaustively collects samples from the state universities of Tamil Nadu. The population of the study consisted of thirteen major discipline of students in Doctoral, M Phil and Master Branches. The sample size of the study comprised of 482 students selected through convenient sampling technique. The structured questionnaire was used for data collection.