Social Interaction of University Students on Facebook: A Developing Country's Perspective

Use of social networking sites, such as Facebook, has become part of daily lives of millions of young adults around the globe. While there exists considerable literature on the use of these sites in developed world, little is known about how much, why, and how these sites are used in the developing world. In this study, 400 undergraduate students from various universities of Pakistan completed a survey relating to their daily time spent and typical activities on Facebook. Results of the study indicated that students communicated on Facebook using a one-to-many style. Students spent more time actually posting content than observing content on Facebook. Facebook was primarily used as a medium of social interaction with friends with whom students had a pre-established relationship offline. Students used both classic identity markers of emerging adulthood (such as religion, political ideology and work) and media preferences (such as favorite books, movies etc.) to express their identity on Facebook. Implications of social networking site use for the development of identity and peer relationships are discussed