Social Networking: Motives and Social Impact

Facebook or any other social networking site (SNS) is meant to have social interaction among individuals. The interaction via social networking has become an important part of an individual's life. The emergence of social networking sites has caught attention of psychologists leading them to study social capital, interpersonal relationship and motivation of facebook users. The aim of the present research was to understand the motivation for facebook use, how facebook enhances social capital, informational access and strengthens interpersonal relationship of its users. For this purpose, the most popular SNS in India was selected. 85 facebook users participated in the study out of which 62 were females and 23 were males. Data was collected online. Results indicated that motivation for using facebook is mostly maintaining offline contacts. SNS does not enhances social capital and informational access of its users. Not even it strengthens their interpersonal relationships. The correlational analysis revealed that with increase in the amount of time spent on facebook social capital and informational access also increases. And with increase in social capital informational access also increases.