Introduction

INTRODUCTION Twitter is an online social networking service and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based messages of up to 140characters, known as ” tweets”. It can be easily downloaded as an app on your gadgets like iPod, iPad, Smarthpones or Android phones. You can also log on to the site using your laptop or PC. It is a widely used social networking site with over 500 million subscribers worlwide. With this, the researcher aims to look into the study habits of students who are subscribed to the said SNS. Technological advents have almost revolutionized the ways and patterns of personal and professional lives today. Among all these changes, evolution of internet has encompassed almost all areas of human life. A network that was basically developed for U. S military purpose has become a pool of knowledge and entertainment. Besides internet has also been serving as a strong communication medium. Development of social networking sites (SNS) has boosted the tremendous growth in internet usage. Two-third of total internet users worldwide are those who visit blogging or social networking sites and consume 10% of internet time (blog. nielsen. com). 65% of internet usage comprise of SNS usage (www. socialadblog. com). Any network used to connect individuals or institutions through a specific type of relationship forms “ social network”. Millions of online communities are connecting together via SNS and are providing the means to share information and diverse cultural values (Nethistory. info). Classmates. com was instituted as being the 1st official SNS in 1995. The basic aim to create this website was to facilitate the students to avail connectivity services in or at the achievement of their degree (Classmates. com). Following that, in 1997 SixDegree. com was formed. Which opened the way of the series of appearance of Cyworld(2001), Friendster (2002), Skyblog (2002), Orkut (2004), Myspace (2005), Yahoo 360 (2005), Twitter (2006) and Facebook (2006) (Social networking sites and its positive effects). The flourishing and biggest SNS site is the Facebook which is the advance site. Assessing the background of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg provided finance to Facebook. In 2003, Mark Zuckerberg established a site “ Facemash”. The administration school closed this site and heavy fine was charged from M. Zuckerberg for privacy issues. By paying the fine, “ The Facebook” was established again in February 2004. In 2005, word “ The” was slumped from its URL and it taken the form of “ Facebook (www. webhostingreport. com). In July 2010 Facebook gained above 500 million users. Facebook high school version was commenced in September, 2005, to attract students. With the passage of time, the users of facebook increased tremendously i. e. Facebook had 100million users on Aug. 26, 2008, on the other hand it attracted 500million on Jul. 21, 2010 and growth rate was 153% during the last year (blog. Facebook. com). SNS provided advanced facilities to human being. These sites provided connectivity to million of users and leads towards the thought of global village. People at far away places instantaneously communicate through these sites, which ultimately brought social capital and provide success to people as well society. On the other well each technical blessing brought some negativity. As a result theses sites are also causing some damaging effects in students. The flourishing rate of SNS sites requires complete monitoring of students through parents, teachers etc. In September, 2005, the percentage of users (18-29 years) 16%, which goes to 86% on May, 2010 (www. marketingcharts. com). The rank of Pakistan in internet usability is 7th in the 1st ten Asian internet states having 17. 5 million internet users (Internet Users in Pakistan hit 17. 5 Million Mark) percentage of student as internet users was 50% of total internet users (www. pewglobal. org). The increased use of these sites affects the educational performance of the students. It attracts the attention of researchers but in Pakistan it is an “ unexplored Area” and this research is an attempt to fill this gap. The present research focused to find out the relationship between SNSs usability and educational performance of the students. Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and by July, the social networking site was launched. The service rapidly gained worldwide popularity, with over 500 million registered users as of 2012, generating over 340 million tweets daily and handling over 1. 6 billion search queries per day. Since its launch, Twitter has become one of the ten most visited websites on the Internet, and has been described as ” the SMS of theInternet.” Unregistered users can read tweets, while registered users can post tweets through the website interface, SMS, or a range of apps for mobile devices.