Social Networking Site Services: A Study on Commerce Alumini / Ae Association Members of St. Joseph’s College (Autonomous), Tiruchirappalli.

This paper, studies the social networking among the alumini of the commerce department in St. Joseph’s college, Thiruchirappalli. It is a descriptive study. The researcher uses stratified randam sampling. It dwells on the activities on social networking site(SNS), social relationships, beliefs of contacts, communication style and personality traits. The usage of SNS could be termed common if not excessive. They could be easily contacted over the SNS. The SNSs seem to be very helpful for continuing their social relationship with their classmates. The users of the SNS is) predominantly trust their “Friends” on their contact lists, ii) are continuously exerting pressure on others to fall in line with their likes and dislikes at the same time they seem to be vary of being influenced by others in their own choices, iii) seem to be very much craving for approval and they are into aping their “friends” to win their approval.

Hence, in this paper, we propose that user acceptance of hedonic SNS differs substantially from utilitarian SNS and it would be unjustifiable to apply utilitarian-oriented theoretical models to hedonic-oriented SNS. In short, we argue that user acceptance phenomenon is context driven and should be appreciated by scholars, unlike equating all web sites to broadly "information systems".

Statement of the problem:
Very few studies have researched impacts on human behaviors regarding general purpose social networks involving public online interaction. This leaves the question as to why people participate in SNSs making these online communities successful. And how we will believe other without knowing their face? Are any motivating factors are their in the online service? How much end how for this social networking site will be helpful and useful to the members and groups?
Scope of the study The scope of the study is to know the social networking among the alumni of commerce department in St. Joseph's college, Tiruchirappalli. This study has been undertaking to know and analyses the factor influencing the social networking of the merits and demerits.

Objectives
The over all objectives of the study is to know the social networking among the alumini of the commerce department in St. Joseph's college Tiruchirappalli. The following are the specific objectives of the study; 1. to find out the general usage pattern of SNS; 2. to find out the social relationship on the social networking sites; 3. to analyze the belief of others contacts on the social networking sites; 4. to identify the communication style of the students; and 5. to know the personality traits of others; Methodology of the study The study requires both primary data and secondary data which were collected online. The researcher collected the address books of old students of St. Joseph's college that was distributed to them at the time of their convocation. 750 alumni of B.Com, M.Com, and M.Phil. were sent a request. The researcher got 150 respondents.
The questionnaire was sent by e-mail to 150 students, after 10 days a reminder was given. At that time 99 respondents were sent the fill the questionnaire through the mail. While scrutinizing their entire questionnaire, 20 questionnaires were not filled completely. So the researcher rejected the 20 questionnaires. Thus, 79 respondents were considered for this study.
The secondary data can be collected from the magazines, journals and internets. This study is descriptive in nature. The data analyzed SPSS 17.0 version and presented in the form of tables, charts, necessary tools for independent T-Test, ANOVA and so on.

Limitation of the study
Any research is prone to limitations owning to some reasons. In this study were some demerits on the part of the research; 1. Time and cost are the major limitation of the study. 2. Many researcher respondents did not want to fill the questionnaire as they said it fetched them no gain or they had done the same thing to some other researcher. 3. The information given by the respondents are subject to bias.

Literature review
Boyd and Ellison (2007) SNSs are defined as: web-based services that allow individuals to construct a public or semipublic profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of ReseaRch PaPeR other users with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. Kulviwat, (2009). SNSs have been referred to as information systems in the literature. However, any information systems could be classified as utilitarian or hedonic nature based on the value proposition offered by the respective web site.
Adler, (2002). Facebook users are using the mediated communication device that is Facebook to accomplish many of the same social goals as face-to-face communication: for pleasure, for inclusion, for escape, for relaxation, or control. Lewis, B.( 2005). defined, social networking sites are webbased services that allow individuals to construct a public profile and articulate a list of their contacts with which they share a social network.

ANALYSIS of Data and Findings
Participants had reported that on an average they have been using this site for over three years and three months. As for the frequency of daily use among social networking site users, participants have reported having used the site of their choice five times per day on an average. In terms of the amount of use per day, participants used their selected social networking site for an average of more than one and a half hours (1.7 hours).
Among the respondents are using Social Networking sites.60.8 per cent are male and 39.2 per cent are female.
Among the respondents who are using SNS 34.2 per cent have contacts with their close friends, 25.3 per cent have contacts with their classmates, and 20.3 per cent have contact with their relatives.

Activities on social networking site:
Among the respondents 59.3 per cent are interested in searching existing friends. 64.6 per cent are interested in using textual profile, 52.8 per cent in Visual profile, 63.2 per cent in using application, 59.5 per cent in reading news feeds, comments on the wall. 51.9 per cent are interested in making new friends, and 67 per cent are interested in chatting. Beliefs of contacts on the social networking site 68.4 per cent believe that most contacts on their "friends" list on the SNS can be trusted. 59.5 per cent feel confident about having discussions with the contacts on their "friends" list on the SNS. 56.9 per cent of the respondents believe that the contacts on their "friends" list on the SNS will do everything within their capacity to help others. 60.7 per cent of the respondents believe that they trust most contacts on their "friends" list on the SNS.

Usual activities of social networking
Communication style on the social networking site 65.8 per cent of the respondents say that they often persuade their contacts on the SNS to buy products that they like. 50.6 per cent of the respondents say that their contacts on the SNS rarely come to them for advice about choosing products. 64.5 per cent of the respondents say that their opinion of the products seems not to count with contacts on the SNSs, 60.8 per cent of the respondents say that when they consider new products, they ask their contacts on the SNS for advice.
Personality traits. 65.9 per cent of respondents agree that they rarely purchase the latest fashion styles until they are sure their friends approve of them. 65.8 per cent of the respondents say that it is important that others like the products and brands they buy. 62.1 per cent of the respondents say that when buying products, they generally purchase those brands that they think others will approve of, 68.3 per cent of the respondents say that they achieve a sense of belonging by purchasing the same products and brands that others purchase.

Suggestion:
The news, pictures from jpg, messages, photos, and draft is very open. This limitation can be overcome by giving a secret code to open the news, messages, photos, pictures, drafts and so on. This will reduce the chances for misuse, and offence.
St. Joseph's College has its own reputation, name, loyalty, brand building capacity. So, the Alumni/age association can have a separate website exclusively for its Alumni/age association students.
Chatting through social network services is widely used by the members because it has a wide scope for conference chatting which is lacking in Yahoo.com, Gmail.com and so on. This facility can be used among the students at present to clean their doubts. This facility will enrich their knowledge in their subjects. The students to set their experience, expertise and become specialist are their subjects.

CONCLUSION
The usage of SNS among the commerce alumni of St. Joseph's College, Tiruchirappalli could be termed common if not excessive. They could be easily contacted over the SNS. The SNSs seem to be very helpful for continuing their social relationship with their classmates. The users of the SNS predominantly trust their "Friends" on their contact lists of the SNS. The users of the SNS are continuously exerting pressure on others to fall in line with their likes and dislikes at the same time they seem to be vary of being influenced by others in their own choices. The users of SNS seem to be very much craving for approval and they are into aping their "friends" to win their approval.