The paper gives a snapshot of the kind of issues that mold the making up of the social media on the web. Five issues are brought out based on the literature survey. One, young people are very conscious and strategic in their visual self-presentation on Social Networking Sites (SNSs) with regard to building their profiles. The ‘ideal self’ or the ‘ought self’ guides the SNS users to present and make up their profiles in SNSs by photo selection for visual impression management. Two, singles present more photos of themselves and display higher numbers of friends, more group memberships and more wall postings on their SNS online profiles than persons who are in a relationship. Popular serves as an indicator of social attraction. Three, privacy concerns of the SNS users are increasingly becoming sensitive as a majority of users change the default privacy settings into more restrictive settings. Four, average Internet usage time is rapidly increasing, the starting age of Internet user is steadily decreasing. Parents, psychologists, educators, technology creators and lawmakers must become aware of the potential risks and rewards of this phenomenon. Five, cyberbullying is another undesirable phenomenon in SNSs. There could be many other issues. But for a basic study of the trends with reference to social networking websites, we have considered a snapshot of five issues only within the framework and scope of our study of the existing literature. Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation Behavior (FIRO-B) value computation with reference to web-based interpersonal relations is found as an open area having potential for researchers. We conclude that existing literature failed to come up with revised FIRO-B scale in the context of SNSs. Hence, our future research work will be in this direction.

The Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation-Behavior (FIRO-B) is a social behavior assessment tool which uncovers reflective insights into the motivations of basic behavior. It can be used to identify and resolve interpersonal relationship issues.

FIRO is a theory of interpersonal relations. It was introduced by William Schutz in 1958. FIRO-B value is a measurement of a person’s characteristic behavior toward other people in three different areas. The instrument consists of six scores, viz., Expressed Inclusion (EI), Wanted Inclusion (WI), Expressed Control (EC), Wanted Control (WC), Expressed Affection (EA) and Wanted Affection (WA) in the three areas of behavior expressed (E) (they are Inclusion (I), Control (C), and Affection (A)) or shown to others and similarly in the three areas of behavior Wanted (W) or preferred from others.

Inclusion refers to an interpersonal need to belong to, to establish and maintain satisfactory relationships with people, in general. In other words, it measures an individual’s general social orientation.

Information Technology Journal, Social Networking Site (SNS), Interpersonal Relations (IPR), Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation Behavior (FIRO-B).