As we are currently in the modern and digitalised world, no one can live without internet. I would like to share some useful information, which gives us an clear idea about what is the current situation of social media in India. India has a population of over 1.17 Billion. India is also ranked second after China in terms of population. Can anyone Guess how much importance do people give for social media and how many hours do people averagely spend in the social networking internet websites perday ? Well I am sure it is a lot more than you expect. Have a look at the image below which gives you a clear picture of the question asked earlier ?
Image Source : http://www.internetmarketingjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/social-media-india-2.0011.png
This gives a clear picture and as I said earlier you can see there are 52 Million active internet users in India in the year 2009. There are 20 Million Indians who use internet everyday. They spend most of their time in social networking websites such as Orkut, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and so on. As this survey was done two years back now we can say that Orkut in India has become more outdated as facebook has more users than orkut and hence there has also talk that facebook was likely to buy orkut but still they have not given any official announced regarding that issue because, in 2009 Orkut had more users than facebook and so they did not want to be taken over by facebook. But currently in 2011 I am pretty much confident that the number of users of facebook has crossed over 10 Million in India.
As we can see a dramatic change in the increase in number of people using these social networking websites daily, the IT companies started to feel the pressure and hence decided to ban the usage of social media at work. They thought this will help the employees to concertrate more in the work that they do rather just getting diverted because of these social networking websites. To be exact, almost 96% of IT companies in India have banned the use of these social networking websites at work time. This has led to a slight fall in the number of people using social networking websites in India.
But this is not the downfall of social media in India, as social media is emerging with a new trend and different dimensions day-by-day it attracts more people towards it. Now a days, children at the age of 5 are taught how to use computers in schools which helps them very well in exploring the world when they are growning up. These social networking websities lay as a strong platform for these children not only for their future but also to be in touch with the current world around them. Hence, these children are brought in such a way but once when they start to work, they are literally forced not to spend time in these social media websites.
When we look the other side of it, we can also see an increase in number of people using internet for educational search, general information search as well as to listen and watch music/video. I believe only this gives them a vast knowlegde and understanding rather than just books and lectures. To conclude with, I am quite sure that even though there are some drawbacks in India in using these social media it will standout itselves and improve more and will also increase as the years come by.
kvigneshwar 
