Impact of Social Networking Sites on Human Basic Privacy Rights

Abstract

In recent era, Social networking sites (SNSs) have become an important source of communication and also became a matter of interest for researchers in several disciplines such as communications, technology and sociology. These Social networking sites including Facebook, Twitter etc. often reveal private data through the enclosure of public profiles, photographs, videos and messages send to the family, friends and general public. As it was not possible to conduct a survey in complete population, therefore sample of 250 respondents (50% males & 50% females) was selected from different universities and colleges of Lahore, city of Pakistan. In the process of survey, questionnaire technique has been used to obtain the quantitative data. The findings revealed that Social Networking Sites significantly violate the human basic privacy rights. Majority of the respondents were of the view that privacy rights are harmed by SNSs. 10.4% respondents were strongly disagreeing about the statement that Facebook privacy is a real problem, 18.0% were disagree, 20.4% were neutral about the problem while 38.4% said they are agreed and 12.8% were strongly agree. The results also suggested that social networking sites leak personal data and also become a reason for disclosure of personal information.