Effects of Social Networking on Malaysian Secondary School Students: Attitudes, Behaviours and Awareness of Risks

There is a plethora of social networking systems that allow individuals to meet and chat online with each other nowadays. This paper describes a preliminary study that investigates the effects of Social Networking (SN) on a group of Malaysian Secondary school students from an elite school. It explores their attitudes and behaviour towards SN: how it affects their social lives, and to what extent they are aware of the risks involved. A focus group interview was conducted on these students. The students were shown nine scenarios (one at a time) depicting various situations that portrayed the negative consequences of SN such as cyberbullying, texting and online predation. The students were asked to give their opinions regarding each scene as well as opinions regarding social networking in general. The findings revealed that the students generally have a favourable opinion of social networking and are aware of the benefits and the risks involved in using SN sites. On top of that, they are anxious about the negative effects of the SN sites due to their bad experiences but they still use the sites actively and habitually.