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Social networking sites (SNSs) have established an important presence in our daily lives and at work. This study explores how public service professionals use SNSs and how they perceive the potential of SNSs. This study further examines the relationship between the use of SNSs and social trust and civic participation. Last, this study identifies the challenges and opportunities facing public administration practitioners who use SNSs to build collaboration and promote public interests. Based on the nationwide survey results, this study provides a broader understanding of SNS use among public service professionals. Furthermore, it also provides management recommendations on how public service professionals can make full use of SNSs to facilitate their interactions with other public service professionals and citizens, and foster collaboration to pursue public interests.

Social media experience a rapid rise in recent years and steep into almost every aspect of people's lives by altering their lifestyles and creating an impact on their wellbeing. The purpose of the present study is to examine the influence of SNSs on life satisfaction among university students by first exploring what are the key gratifications which motivates them to engage in SNSs and then focusing on the psychological outcomes including social overload and social benefit from using SNSs that affects life satisfaction among the university students.

Theory of social influence and uses and gratifications theory were used in this study to examine the motivations for using SNSs, and the impact of psychological outcomes associated with SNSs usage, i.e. social benefit and social overload on life satisfaction among university students of Pakistan. Partial least squares-structural equation modeling is used to analyze the data.

The outcomes indicate that the need for maintaining interpersonal interconnectivity, entertainment value and social enhancement value derives the students' participation in social networking sites through which they encounter social benefit and social overload. The presence of social benefit enhances life satisfaction while social overload results in decreasing life satisfaction of students. Using social networking sites influences life satisfaction in the presence of social overload and social benefit while there is no direct influence of social networking sites on life satisfaction was evidenced.

The present study investigated the needs that drive the use of social media through the lens of UGT & Social influence approach. The other potential determinants of social media usage intention should be analyzed by employing variables of the other models.In this study social media was examined as a general platform used by the university students of Pakistan. In future researches the driving needs should be examined in the context of specific social networking sites.

The presented findings embraces the implications for the authorities of higher education institutions and policy makers as it provides the useful insights about student 2019s motivations and participation behavior in SNSs which would help in developing strategies for desirable results.

Educational institutions can utilize the research findings by incorporating social media tools in the academic system, student's interaction with their mentors will lead towards enhanced involvement of students and intellectual skills along with upgraded academic performance which will positively influence life satisfaction of the students.

The scarcity of findings was observed in the local environment specifically in the context of SNSs usage and well-being of the higher education students. This study addresses the motivational factors of SNSs usage and their psychological outcomes simultaneously and focused on the investigation of social media usage drivers and its outcomes among the university students of Pakistan.

This paper investigates the mechanics of multimedia tie maintenance, with a particular emphasis upon social network sites (SNSs) and their uses and gratifications. We present results from a national sample of American adults (N = 571) of all ages, investigating the associations of several attitudinal and social variables with multimedia tie maintenance. We find that Facebook is used to maintain social ties at rates comparable to other media and is increasingly used to connect with close ties, contrary to previous literature. We also uncover highly significant patterns of “expressive” and “instrumental” engagement, isolating distinct expressive/instrumental orientations toward digital media in general and Facebook specifically. Respondents who displayed an expressive pattern of engagement with Facebook did not use non-SNS media to maintain ties any less frequently than those who do not use Facebook expressively. Respondents who displayed an instrumental pattern of engagement with Facebook meanwhile, supplemented their lack of SNS use to maintain ties by using other media more frequently for this purpose. This paper contributes to the literatures of media multiplexity, networked individualism, uses and gratifications theory, and social capital through SNSs. It makes a significant contribution to understanding the psychological and social gratifications of digital media, and their relationship to patterns of multimedia tie maintenance.

This paper aims to explore the usage of academic social networking sites (ASNSs) among the research scholars in Central Universities of Delhi, India.

A structured questionnaire was designed and personally distributed among 200 research scholars in Central Universities in Delhi in May 2016. Of this, 180 filled-in questionnaires were personally collected by the investigator, eliciting a response rate of 90 per cent.

Findings of the study reveals that research scholars have knowledge of ASNSs. ResearchGate and Academia are the most used ASNSs among research scholars. ResearchGate is used the most for connecting to other research scholars, and Academia is used for sharing and following research. Additionally, ASNSs help research scholars in research and learning and to share research ideas and experience. Finally, research scholars find ASNSs time-consuming and have cited data security as main concern for using academic social networks.

The findings of the study show that potential uses of ASNSs in Indian libraries are slow compared to the libraries of developed countries and some of the developing countries. It is suggested that universities under study may realize the benefits of ASNSs and incorporate these tools in their websites to enhance faster transfer and retrieval of information.

The results also stress upon the responsibility of research supervisors to accord knowledge of ASNSs among research scholars and encourage them to join and use ASNSs efficiently and effectively for building professional connections and collaborations in their research area.

The study is significant because it represents one of the earliest works to shed the light on the current level of use of SNSs and ASNSs by research scholars in Central Universities in Delhi, which are in primitive nature. They provide space for self-expression, research updates, expert advice, connecting with fellow scholars, creating and joining events and discussions, presenting their views on a particular topic, finding collaboration on projects, finding jobs and much more.

ASNSs have further promoted the open source movement. The paper apprises the academic stakeholders about the unique features, adoption, acceptability and usage of ASNSs for research work, exchange of information and collaborations, so that more productive and quality research is produced. The findings will also guide research scholars to find popular ASNSs, so that they can build more academic connections.

Social networking sites (SNSs) offer people the possibility of maintaining larger networks of social ties, which also entails more complex relationship maintenance across multiple platforms. Whom to “friend” and via which platform can involve complex deliberations. This study investigates the relationships between users' perceived friending affordances of five popular SNSs (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and LinkedIn) and their friending behaviors concerning strong ties, weak ties (existing and latent ties) and parasocial ties.

An online survey using Qualtrics was provided to participants (N = 626) through Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk). The survey asked their SNS use and their friending behaviors with different ties on each of the sites.

Users' friending decisions are dependent on an interplay of socio-technical affordances of each SNS and specific needs for the ties. The authors found that the affordances of bridging social capital and enjoyment are aligned with friending weak and parasocial ties, respectively. The affordances of bonding social capital were not valued to friend strong ties.

The study extends the affordance and social capital literature by assessing users' perceived, contextualized SNS affordances in relation to actual communication behaviors in friending different social ties. This approach provides contextualized insights to friending decisions and practices on SNSs.

The purpose of this paper is to help us better understand if it is beneficial for individuals to use social networking sites (SNSs) to expand their networking opportunities, translating into greater career success. A significant key to career success is networking. SNSs are changing the way employees develop their networks with businesses and with other individuals.

This study uses archival data including academic records for 1,182 accounting alumni from a large Canadian public institution. This dataset was expanded by obtaining social network information (presence and use) for each individual’s record.

After controlling for a number of indicators of career success, the study found that presence on SNSs such as LinkedIn and the amount of activity therein has a strong and consistent association with metrics of professional success not found with non-professional sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.

This study provides empirical support for the value of social networking as a proxy for the development of social capital. Support is in establishing the link between a group of social network profile characteristics and metrics of one’s career success. Distinguishing LinkedIn as chiefly connecting to alumni successes may be reflected in the weights attached to the profile characteristics as opposed to information coming from other sources.

Social networking sites (SNS) are changing the methods of social connectivity – and what it means to be public. Existing literature hints at competing perspectives on how the public nature of these sites impacts users. The question of how the perceived publicness of SNSs influences users' self‐disclosure intentions is debated in the literature, and the aim of this paper is to answer this debate.

This paper theorizes competing perspectives on the role of publicness on self‐disclosure. Competing perspectives are tested using data collected via an online survey.

The study finds support for the perceived publicness of a SNS negatively influencing users' self‐disclosure intentions. Additionally, exploratory analysis of self‐disclosure items ubiquitous to most SNSs found that perceived publicness negatively influences users' intention to self‐disclose items related to users' likes and affiliations.

Variables of the study were self‐reported and, as such, are subject to the typical limitations of cross‐sectional, survey‐based research. Future research should seek to examine how perceived publicness and other variables impact self‐disclosure in SNSs over time.

Business models utilizing social networking technologies rely on users' willingness to engage in self‐disclosure. This research provides a theoretical link between the public nature of a social networking environment and users' willingness to self‐disclose. Highlighting perceived publicness as an important aspect of an environment could be one way to address the need to elicit and manage users' self‐disclosure.

The paper utilizes a unique, but established, method of competing hypotheses to understand the role of the public nature of SNSs.

The purpose of this study is to describe the usage of Social Networking Sites (SNSs) by the faculty members of the School of Library and Information Science (SLIS), at the College of Basic Education, the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training (PAAET), Kuwait.

A survey conducted to collect data from 33 faculty members of whom only 21 members were using SNSs, representing 63.6 per cent of the total sample, and 12 members were not using SNSs, representing 36.4 per cent of the total sample. This study revealed that SNSs are used moderately by the faculty members.

This study showed that faculty members who were using SNSs tend to be males, aged between 41 and 50 years, PhD holders, ranked as assistant professors, full-time members, specialized in information technologies with a relatively new experience of teaching ranged from one to five years, and most of the faculty members who were not using SNSs tended to be also males, aged between 41 and 60 years, PhD holders, ranked as lecturers, full-time members specialized in organization of information with a teaching experience ranged from 16 to 20 years. More than half of the faculty members were using SNSs for three years to less than six years, and a large number of them were using SNSs several times a week and were accessing these sites more from their school office, home and school laboratory. There are no any statistical significant differences between the demographic data of participants (gender, age and education level) and either their use or non-use of SNSs. There are no significant differences between the academic rank, teaching status and teaching experience of faculty and their use of SNSs. However, there is a significant relation between the faculty’s area of teaching and their use of SNSs. Faculty members were interested in the use of SNSs. YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and blogs respectively were used mostly by faculty members, but Twitter, Facebook and YouTube were the most famous SNSs they have profiles on. Faculty members have adopted SNSs mainly for the purpose of communicating with others, finding and sharing information with peers and students as well. Tasks on SNSs made by faculty members were mostly to make communication, send/receive messages and find general and specific information. Faculty members’ profiles on SNSs were mostly on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs, wikis and podcasting respectively. Faculty members confirmed that the use of YouTube, Facebook, blogs, Twitter, wikis and podcasting respectively was at least effective and the use of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and Wikis respectively was at least fairly useful fairly easy to them. Faculty members are in general agreement about the effectiveness of SNSs especially for disseminating and sharing information, communication and informal collaboration. The study showed also that there is no gender-related difference among the faculty in terms of their usage of SNSs. The study revealed also that the time was the most important barrier both SNSs users and non-users faced at PAAET’s SLIS. Other barriers like trust about SNSs, training and skills were significant to SNSs users in this study, and barriers like interests in SNSs, awareness of them and trust about them were respectively the most important barriers to SNSs non-users. The study recommended that a further research is needed to examine more additional aspects of using SNSs among faculty members that may affect their use like the technical, legal, ethical and intellectual aspects. More information is needed to investigate why some faculty members do not use SNSs especially for educational purposes. A qualitative study of the perception and opinions of faculty members would provide much important data about that. A further research is also needed to specify the relation between the use of these sites and each area of study separately. Due to the lack of awareness and knowledge about the use of SNSs, shortage of language skills and training, this study recommended that SNSs non-users should be provided with necessary assistance to foster their skills towards such usage. A future study is needed to compare experiences of faculty members and students regarding the use of SNSs in educational practices and may look at how communicational uses of these sites have influenced educational uses.

This study involved a single and certain academic institution, namely PAAET. Therefore, findings, conclusions and recommendations may not be applicable and reasonable to be generalized on all Kuwaiti academic institutions.

This paper provides valuable insight into the usage of SNSs by a very important client group.

This study is the first one of its kind conducted about the usage of SNSs by faculty members at a library school of one of the two public academic institutions in the state of Kuwait to examine and investigate more specific information about SNSs and related innovative topics.

Online Social Networking Sites (SNSs) such as Facebook and Twitter have become increasingly popular in the last decade. Each SNS varies somewhat, with different forms of expression, communication and customization. Different sites may have different priorities, methods of interacting, social features and definitions of what it means to be ‘social’ on their sites.

This paper reports on 2 months of exploratory observations and interviews with participants using two of the most popular SNSs; Facebook.com and Twitter.com. Paying attention to the modal nuances of the sites and their effect on social interaction and identity portrayal, the focus of analysis is upon how these two sites are interacted with as ‘stages’ for identity performances, and how the varying aspects of design and modality on these interactive sites can result in different multimodal identity performances and social interactions.

Data revealed that youth are adeptly able to negotiate the different modal options presented to them online, yet the temporal aspects presented by the design of the site, the differing definitions and priorities in the framing of identity presented by the SNSs, and the modal choices present across the two sites resulted in markedly differing presentations of identity to markedly differing audiences.

This research demonstrates the impact of modality and design on how we act and interact, and highlights that as Digital Sociologists and Researchers, we should be careful not to treat all Online SNSs the same, but pay attention to the plethora of nuances these sites offer as stages for identity performances.

Drawing upon the knowledge sharing model, the purpose of this paper is to identify personal and environmental antecedents to information sharing on social networking sites (SNSs) and examines the interaction effects between the two factors.

Data were collected via online survey with college students. Hierarchical multiple regressions were performed to test hypotheses and examine research questions.

With regard to environmental factors, the more users perceive their audience to be a collection of weak ties, the more likely they are to share information on SNSs, independent of the size of their networks. Personal factors such as information self-efficacy, positive social outcome expectations, and sharing enjoyment feelings were found to be significant predictors of sharing activities. In addition, a significant interaction effect was found such that the effects of social outcome expectations on sharing activities on SNSs are manifested to a greater extent when users perceive their audience as weak ties rather than strong ties.

This study extends the knowledge sharing model literature by applying it to the SNS context and advances SNS research by taking into consideration both environmental factors and personal factors and their interactions.