College Students Online: An Exploration of the Benefits and Risks of Social Networking Sites

The purpose of this study was to explore the benefits and risks of social networking sites. College students' general use of social networking sites was described and the relationship between social networking sites and friendship development, disclosure, social intimacy, and cyberstalking was explored. Also, whether or not university personnel discussed the sites with students was determined. Of the 612 participants, 498 students were social networking site members. Frequency data showed that students' most often logged onto the sites from a personal home computer and typically logged onto the sites multiple times a day. Frequency data also revealed that the number one reason for joining the sites was because a friend suggested it. The majority of social networking friends were close high school or college friends. Additionally, participants were not likely to recall having been warned of the risks or advised of the benefits of social networking sites from university personnel. A standard logistic regression showed that concern for cyberstalking was a significant predictor of whether or not participants had experienced an incidence of cyberstalking. Also, there were significant positive correlations between online social intimacy and intimacy of face-to face friends, total disclosure on social networking sites, the number of social networking site friends, and the agreement that social networking sites aide friendship formation. Qualitative coding revealed common categories for how social networking sites assist with the friendship formation, reasons for disclosing equal or unequal amounts of information among multiple sites, and establishing the benefits of being a member of university affiliated groups. This study provided implications for how universities should discuss social networking site use with college students. Limitations and future research were discussed.