A study on the usage of social media by people in the sector of Information Technology

Abstract

Information Technology (IT) can be considered as a major trend in the modern world. At present social media creates a better platform for communication and create public relations within people. Media ethics and media literacy help people for a good communication. This paper examines the need of social media for people in IT sector. The research question of this study is to understand the reasons for the need of social media to the people in IT sector. The first part of this study discusses about the current problems and the strengths of social media. The author used only Skype, Twitter, LinkedIn, Slack and YouTube as social media. The main objective of this study is to examine the factors related to the communication and social media in IT industry. In addition, this study aims to analyze the relationship between human factors and technical factors in communication, to identify the basic practices, ethical behaviors and how the media literacy helps people to continue good communication. The literature review discusses the theoretical models of presenting research topic. The methodology of this research study discussed about the identified variables; human factor and technical factors. The conceptual framework developed with an identified framework and indicators. A questionnaire was developed to cover all identified indicators. The target sample size is hundred people from both IT undergraduates and IT employers. The collected data was analyzed with Minitab statistical software. The results of this study shows majority of the people in the IT sector are using YouTube for IT development activities, Skype for industrial discussions and video conferences, LinkedIn for professionalism, research publications and academic works and Slack for official tutorials and webinar in the organizations and Twitter to get latest acknowledgments. Finally, it presents the need of Skype, LinkedIn, Slack, YouTube and Twitter for the people in IT industry and how they use the particular social media for their dayto- day communication activities.