research about social media in education

How Social Media is Reshaping Today’s Education System

by Lori Wade

There’s no denying that, ever since social networks and social media made way into our lives, everything is different. Beginning with the way we socialize, interact, plan for parties or even how often we go out. We won’t go into a debate regarding the ethical aspects of the way Social Media is influencing our lives. Instead, this article proposes to focus on the numerous ways in which social media is changing the way the education system works. So, stay tuned to find out what effects does social networking have on the way our children are educated both at school and outside of it.

Empowering Effects Starting from elementary school up until university graduation, social media has the role to empower parents, students and teachers to use new ways of sharing information and build a community. Statistics show that 96% of the students that have internet access are using at least one social network . What’s even more extraordinary is that, even though some of the students use the social networks for entertaining and other purposes, there are a lot of them that actually use it to promote a lot of positive and useful activities. From finding a summer internship, promoting a success story about how to win the student-loan battle or collaborate on international projects, everything is made possible.

Implementation in Schools? When it comes to social media, schools tend to adopt different positions. It’s a general consensus that they’re useful when it comes to sharing information or organizing the school tasks. And at the same time, the social networking is blamed for the lack of attention in students during classes.

But an increasing trend of adopting social media in school is starting to show. And since students already devote a lot of time for social media and connecting with others outside school hours, why not do it during school as well?

It’s a matter of practicability, really, because it makes perfect sense to use the online universe to communicate with your students since they’re already there most of the time. There’s no need for another case study about the usage of social media in schools. You simply need to walk through the hallways of any school or colleague to see kids of all ages totally immersed in their smartphones. Browsing their news feed, sharing photos on Instagram of sending Snapchat messages has become a part of their daily routine.

How Can Teachers Penetrate the Online World? Moodle and Blackboard are just two examples of learning management system that involves online learning for more than 10 years now. Slowly but steady, such systems will lead to the actual implementation of social media within classrooms. And the best tool available for teachers is social media itself. Only by being open-minded and using the technology themselves will they be able to really reach out to students.

“ The best teachers I’ve ever had have used technology to enhance the learning process, including Facebook pages and events for upcoming projects” – Katie Benmar, Freshman

  As the above statement emphasizes, students also react very positively when a teacher is willing to use their methods and adapt them as part of the educational process. And it makes perfect sense since a homework has a certain strictness about it, but an online chat discussing a certain book gives students the ability to open up and share their opinions.

Daring Teachers Of course, the examples of teachers already implementing social media in classes are far numerous that we can know of, however, there are a few that did such a great job that their students almost made them viral. For example, a biology teacher from Bergen County proposed a challenge to his students. They had to debate over the subject of meiosis on Twitter by using a specific hashtag. This is a great opportunity for students to have fun and learn at the same time. As you need to know your meiosis in order to compress it into 140 characters.

“ We live in a digital ecosystem, and it is vital that educational institutions adapt ”

Carla Dawson – Digital Marketing Professor at the Catholic University of Cordoba

Professor Dawson really has a valid point there as history showed us all that, no matter how strong the resistance, technological progress and new trends will eventually become a standard. Of course, this applies to developed countries that already have a well-structured traditional educational system. It’s a totally different situation when it comes to developing countries that are still struggling to find their way.

A Stronger Community Through Social Media The benefits of social media in the education process doesn’t have to stop at the teacher-student relationship. There are a lot of other benefits that can be extracted from the use of social networking at higher levels as well. For example, principals or administrators can find a new way to integrate social media. Like sharing school news via social networks, holding online meeting with the parents or even starting fundraising for different projects.

And social media can quickly become the only channel of communication since we’re living fast-paced lives, parents are usually busy with work and cannot attend school meetings. But this doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be in touch with events or be able to check on their kids every once in awhile. Just like in every other field, communication is vital and if it can be done easily with the help of social media, why not go for it?

It may not be criteria just yet, but soon enough questions like ‘Does this school have a Facebook page?’ could become just as important as the things that parents are asking right now. Like, how well equipped the library is or what are the optional classes their child can be part of.

Conclusions The bottom line is that social media is a big part of our day to day life and there’s no point of keeping it away from the education process. School, college and university staff should be encouraged to make use of technology for student and parent communication. This could easily turn into an argumentative essay topic for college . But the benefits are obvious, starting with healthier parent-teacher relationships and all the way to permanently changing the way our children will learn.

• Open access
• Published: 16 March 2020

Exploring the role of social media in collaborative learning the new domain of learning

• Jamal Abdul Nasir Ansari 1 &
• Nawab Ali Khan 1  

Smart Learning Environments volume  7 , Article number:  9 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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This study is an attempt to examine the application and usefulness of social media and mobile devices in transferring the resources and interaction with academicians in higher education institutions across the boundary wall, a hitherto unexplained area of research. This empirical study is based on the survey of 360 students of a university in eastern India, cognising students’ perception on social media and mobile devices through collaborative learning, interactivity with peers, teachers and its significant impact on students’ academic performance. A latent variance-based structural equation model approach was followed for measurement and instrument validation. The study revealed that online social media used for collaborative learning had a significant impact on interactivity with peers, teachers and online knowledge sharing behaviour.

Additionally, interactivity with teachers, peers, and online knowledge sharing behaviour has seen a significant impact on students’ engagement which consequently has a significant impact on students’ academic performance. Grounded to this finding, it would be valuable to mention that use of online social media for collaborative learning facilitate students to be more creative, dynamic and research-oriented. It is purely a domain of knowledge.

Introduction

The explosion of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has led to an increase in the volume and smoothness in transferring course contents, which further stimulates the appeasement of Digital Learning Communities (DLCs). The millennium and naughtiness age bracket were Information Technology (IT) centric on web space where individual and geopolitical disperse learners accomplished their e-learning goals. The Educause Center for Applied Research [ECAR] ( 2012 ) surveyed students in higher education mentioned that students are pouring the acceptance of mobile computing devices (cellphones, smartphones, and tablet) in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), roughly 67% surveyed students accepted that mobile devices and social media play a vital role in their academic performance and career enhancement. Mobile devices and social media provide excellent educational e-learning opportunities to the students for academic collaboration, accessing in course contents, and tutors despite the physical boundary (Gikas & Grant, 2013 ). Electronic communication technologies accelerate the pace of their encroachment of every aspect of life, the educational institutions incessantly long decades to struggle in seeing the role of such devices in sharing the contents, usefulness and interactivity style. Adoption and application of mobile devices and social media can provide ample futuristic learning opportunities to the students in accessing course contents as well as interaction with peers and experts (Cavus & Ibrahim, 2008 , 2009 ; Kukulska-Hulme & Shield, 2008 ; Nihalani & Mayrath, 2010 ; Richardson & Lenarcic, 2008 , Shih, 2007 ). Recently Pew Research Center reported that 55% American teenage age bracket of 15–17 years using online social networking sites, i.e. Myspace and Facebook (Reuben, 2008 ). Social media, the fast triggering the mean of virtual communication, internet-based technologies changed the life pattern of young youth.

Use of social media and mobile devices presents both advantages as well as challenges, mostly its benefits seen in terms of accessing course contents, video clip, transfer of the instructional notes etc. Overall students feel that social media and mobile devices are the cheap and convenient tools of obtaining relevant information. Studies in western countries have confronted that online social media use for collaborative learning has a significant contribution to students’ academic performance and satisfaction (Zhu, 2012 ). The purpose of this research project was to explore how learning and teaching activities in higher education institutions were affected by the integration and application of mobile devices in sharing the resource materials, interaction with colleagues and students’ academic performance. The broad goal of this research was to contemporise the in-depth perspectives of students’ perception of mobile devices and social media in learning and teaching activities. However, this research paper paid attention to only students’ experiences, and their understanding of mobile devices and social media fetched changes and its competency in academic performance. The fundamental research question of this research was, what are the opinions of students on social media and mobile devices when it is integrating into higher education for accessing, interacting with peers.

A researcher of the University of Central Florida reported that electronic devices and social media create an opportunity to the students for collaborative learning and also allowed the students in sharing the resource materials to the colleagues (Gikas & Grant, 2013 ). The result of the eight Egyptian universities confirmed that social media have the significant impact on higher education institutions especially in term of learning tools and teaching aids, faculty members’ use of social media seen at a minimum level due to several barriers (internet accessibility, mobile devices etc.).

Social media and mobile devices allow the students to create, edit and share the course contents in textual, video or audio forms. These technological innovations give birth to a new kind of learning cultures, learning based on the principles of collective exploration and interaction (Selwyn, 2012 ). Social media the phenomena originated in 2005 after the Web2.0 existence into the reality, defined more clearly as “a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundation of web 2.0 and allow creation and exchange of user-generated contents (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010 ). Mobile devices and social media provide opportunities to the students for accessing resources, materials, course contents, interaction with mentor and colleagues (Cavus & Ibrahim, 2008 , 2009 ; Richardson & Lenarcic, 2008 ).

Social media platform in academic institutions allows students to interact with their mentors, access their course contents, customisation and build students communities (Greenhow, 2011a , 2011b ). 90% school going students currently utilise the internet consistently, with more than 75% teenagers using online networking sites for e-learning (DeBell & Chapman, 2006 ; Lenhart, Arafeh, & Smith, 2008 ; Lenhart, Madden, & Hitlin, 2005 ). The result of the focus group interview of the students in 3 different universities in the United States confirmed that use of social media created opportunities to the learners for collaborative learning, creating and engaging the students in various extra curriculum activities (Gikas & Grant, 2013 ).

Research background and hypotheses

The technological innovation and increased use of the internet for e-learning by the students in higher education institutions has brought revolutionary changes in communication pattern. A report on 3000 college students in the United States revealed that 90% using Facebook while 37% using Twitter to share the resource materials as cited in (Elkaseh, Wong, & Fung, 2016 ). A study highlighted that the usage of social networking sites in educational institutions has a practical outcome on students’ learning outcomes (Jackson, 2011 ). The empirical investigation over 252 undergraduate students of business and management showed that time spent on twitter and involvement in managing social lives and sharing information, course-related influences their performance (Evans, 2014 ).

Social media for collaborative learning, interactivity with teachers, interactivity with peers

Many kinds of research confronted on the applicability of social media and mobile devices in higher education for interaction with colleagues.90% of faculty members use some social media in courses they were usually teaching or professional purposes out of the campus life. Facebook and YouTube are the most visited sites for the professional outcomes, around 2/3rd of the all-faculty use some medium fora class session, and 30% posted contents for students engagement in reading, view materials (Moran, Seaman, & Tinti-Kane, 2011 ). Use of social media and mobile devices in higher education is relatively new phenomena, completely hitherto area of research. Research on the students of faculty of Economics at University of Mortar, Bosnia, and Herzegovina reported that social media is already used for the sharing the materials and exchanges of information and students are ready for active use of social networking site (slide share etc.) for educational purposes mainly e-learning and communication (Mirela Mabić, 2014 ).

The report published by the U.S. higher education department stated that the majority of the faculty members engaged in different form of the social media for professional purposes, use of social media for teaching international business, sharing contents with the far way students, the use of social media and mobile devices for sharing and the interactive nature of online and mobile technologies build a better learning environment at international level. Responses on 308 graduate and postgraduate students in Saudi Arabia University exhibited that positive correlation between chatting, online discussion and file sharing and knowledge sharing, and entertainment and enjoyment with students learning (Eid & Al-Jabri, 2016 ). The quantitative study on 168 faculty members using partial least square (PLS-SEM) at Carnegie classified Doctoral Research University in the USA confirmed that perceived usefulness, external pressure and compatibility of task-technology have positive effect on social media use, the higher the degree of the perceived risk of social media, the less likely to use the technological tools for classroom instruction, the study further revealed that use of social media for collaborative learning has a positive effect on students learning outcome and satisfaction (Cao, Ajjan, & Hong, 2013 ). Therefore, the authors have hypothesized:

H1: Use of social media for collaborative learning is positively associated with interactivity with teachers.

Additionally, Madden and Zickuhr ( 2011 ) concluded that 83% of internet user within the age bracket of 18–29 years adopting social media for interaction with colleagues. Kabilan, Ahmad, and Abidin ( 2010 ) made an empirical investigation on 300 students at University Sains Malaysia and concluded that 74% students found to be the same view that social media infuses constructive attitude towards learning English (Fig. 1 ).

Research Model

Reuben ( 2008 ) concluded in his study on social media usage among professional institutions revealed that Facebook and YouTube used over half of 148 higher education institutions. Nevertheless, a recent survey of 456 accredited United States institutions highlighted 100% using some form of social media, notably Facebook 98% and Twitter 84% for e-learning purposes, interaction with mentors (Barnes & Lescault, 2011 ).

Information and communication technology (ICT), such as web-based application and social networking sites enhances the collaboration and construction of knowledge byway of instruction with outside experts (Zhu, 2012 ). A positive statistically significant relationship was found between student’s use of a variety of social media tools and the colleague’s fellow as well as the overall quality of experiences (Rutherford, 2010 ). The potential use of social media leads to collaborative learning environments which allow students to share education-related materials and contents (Fisher & Baird, 2006 ). The report of 233 students in the United States higher educations confirmed that more recluse students interact through social media, which assist them in collaborative learning and boosting their self-confidence (Voorn & Kommers, 2013 ). Thus hypotheses as

H2: Use of social media for collaborative learning is positively associated with interactivity with peers.

Social media for collaborative learning, interactivity with peers, online knowledge sharing behaviour and students’ engagement

Students’ engagement in social media and its types represent their physical and mental involvement and time spent boost to the enhancement of educational Excellency, time spent on interaction with peers, teachers for collaborative learning (Kuh, 2007 ). Students’ engagement enhanced when interacting with peers and teacher was in the same direction, shares of ideas (Chickering & Gamson, 1987 ). Engagement is an active state that is influenced by interaction or lack thereof (Leece, 2011 ). With the advancement in information technology, the virtual world becomes the storehouse of the information. Liccardi et al. ( 2007 ) concluded that 30% students were noted to be active on social media for interaction with their colleagues, tutors, and friends while more than 52% used some social media forms for video sharing, blogs, chatting, and wiki during their class time. E-learning becomes now sharp and powerful tools in information technology and makes a substantial impact on the student’s academic performance. Sharing your knowledge will make you better. Social network ties were shown to be the best predictors of online knowledge sharing intention, which in turn associated with knowledge sharing behaviour (Chen, Chen, & Kinshuk, 2009 ). Social media provides the robust personalised, interactive learning environment and enhances in self-motivation as cited in (Al-Mukhaini, Al-Qayoudhi, & Al-Badi, 2014 ). Therefore, it was hypothesised that:

H3: Use of social media for collaborative learning is positively associated with online knowledge sharing behaviour.

Broadly Speaking social media/sites allow the students to interact, share the contents with colleagues, also assisting in building connections with others (Cain, 2008 ). In the present era, the majority of the college-going students are seen to be frequent users of these sophisticated devices to keep them informed and updated about the external affair. Facebook reported per day 1,00,000 new members join; Facebook is the most preferred social networking sites among the students of the United States as cited in (Cain, 2008 ). The researcher of the school of engineering, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, Switzerland, designed and developed Grasp, a social media platform for their students’ collaborative learning, sharing contents (Bogdanov et al., 2012 ). The utility and its usefulness could be seen in the University of Geneva and Tongji University at both two educational places students were satisfied and accept ‘ Grasp’ to collect, organised and share the contents. Students use of social media will interact ubiquity, heterogeneous and engaged in large groups (Wankel, 2009 ). So we hypotheses

H4: More interaction with teachers leads to higher students’ engagement.

However, a similar report published on 233 students revealed that social media assisted in their collaborative learning and self-confidence as they prefer communication technology than face to face communication. Although, the students have the willingness to communicate via social media platform than face to face (Voorn & Kommers, 2013 ). The potential use of social media tools facilitates in achieving higher-level learning through collaboration with colleagues and other renewed experts in their field (Junco, Heiberger, & Loken, 2011 ; Meyer, 2010 ; Novak, Razzouk, & Johnson, 2012 ; Redecker, Ala-Mutka, & Punie, 2010 ). Academic self-efficacy and optimism were found to be strongly related to performance, adjustment and consequently both directly impacted on student’s academic performance (Chemers, Hu, & Garcia, 2001 ). Data of 723 Malaysian researchers confirmed that both male and female students were satisfied with the use of social media for collaborative learning and engagement was found positively affected with learning performance (Al-Rahmi, Alias, Othman, Marin, & Tur, 2018 ). Social media were seen as a powerful driver for learning activities in terms of frankness, interactivity, and friendliness.

Junco et al. ( 2011 ) conducted research on the specific purpose of the social media; how Twitter impacted students’ engagement, found that it was extent discussion out of class, their participation in panel group (Rodriguez, 2011 ). A comparative study conducted by (Roblyer, McDaniel, Webb, Herman, & Witty, 2010 ) revealed that students were more techno-oriented than faculty members and more likely using Facebook and such similar communication technology to support their class-related task. Additionally, faculty members were more likely to use traditional techniques, i.e. email. Thus hypotheses framed is that:

H5: More interaction with peers ultimately leads to better students’ engagement.

Social networking sites and social media are closely similar, which provide a platform where students can interact, communicate, and share emotional intelligence and looking for people with other attitudes (Gikas & Grant, 2013 ). Facebook and YouTube channel use also increased in the skills/ability and knowledge and outcomes (Daniel, Isaac, & Janet, 2017 ). It was highlighted that 90% of faculty members were using some sort of social media in their courses/ teaching. Facebook was the most visited social media sites as per study, 40% of faculty members requested students to read and views content posted on social media; majority reports that videos, wiki, etc. the primary source of acquiring knowledge, social networking sites valuable tool/source of collaborative learning (Moran et al., 2011 ). However, more interestingly, in a study which was carried out on 658 faculty members in the eight different state university of Turkey, concluded that nearly half of the faculty member has some social media accounts.

Further reported that adopting social media for educational purposes, the primary motivational factor which stimulates them to use was effective and quick means of communication technology (Akçayır, 2017 ). Thus hypotheses formulated is:

H6: Online knowledge sharing behaviour is positively associated with the students’ engagement.

Using multiple treatment research design, following act-react to increase students’ academic performance and productivity, it was observed when self–monitoring record sheet was placed before students and seen that students engagement and educational productivity was increased (Rock & Thead, 2007 ). Student engagement in extra curriculum activities promotes academic achievement (Skinner & Belmont, 1993 ), increases grade rate (Connell, Spencer, & Aber, 1994 ), triggering student performance and positive expectations about academic abilities (Skinner & Belmont, 1993 ). They are spending time on online social networking sites linked to students engagement, which works as the motivator of academic performance (Fan & Williams, 2010 ). Moreover, it was noted in a survey of over 236 Malaysian students that weak association found between the online game and student’s academic performance (Eow, Ali, Mahmud, & Baki, 2009 ). In a survey of 671 students in Jordan, it was revealed that student’s engagement directly influences academic performance, also seen the indirect effect of parental involvement over academic performance (Al-Alwan, 2014 ). Engaged students are perceptive and highly active in classroom activities, ready to participate in different classroom extra activities and expose motivation to learn, which finally leads in academic achievement (Reyes, Brackett, Rivers, White, & Salovey, 2012 ). A mediated role of students engagement seen in 1399 students’ classroom emotional climate and grades (Reyes et al., 2012 ). A statistically significant relation was noticed between online lecture and exam performance.

Nonetheless, intelligence quotient, personality factors, students must be engaged in learning activities as cited in (Bertheussen & Myrland, 2016 ). The report of the 1906 students at 7 universities in Colombia confirmed that the weak correlation between collaborative learning, students faculty interaction with academic performance (Pineda-Báez et al., 2014 ) Thus, the hypothesis

H7: Student's Engagement is positively associated with the student's academic performance.

Methodology

To check the students’ perception on social media for collaborative learning in higher education institutions, Data were gathered both offline and online survey administered to students from one public university in Eastern India (BBAU, Lucknow). For the sake of this study, indicators of interactivity with peers and teachers, the items of students engagement, the statement of social media for collaborative learning, and the elements of students’ academic performance were adopted from (AL-Rahmi & Othman, 2013 ). The statement of online knowledge sharing behaviour was taken from (Ma & Yuen, 2011 ).

The indicators of all variables which were mentioned above are measured on the standardised seven-point Likert scale with the anchor (1-Strongly Disagree, to 7-Strongly Agree). Interactivity with peers was measured using four indicators; the sample items using social media in class facilitates interaction with peers ; interactivity with teachers was measured using four symbols, the sample item is using social media in class allows me to discuss with the teacher. ; engagement was measured using three indicators by using social media I felt that my opinions had been taken into account in this class ; social media for collaborative learning was measured using four indicators collaborative learning experience in social media environment is better than in a face-to-face learning environment ; students’ academic performance was measured using five signs using social media to build a student-lecturer relationship with my lecturers, and this improves my academic performance ; online knowledge sharing behaviour was assessed using five symbols the counsel was received from other colleague using social media has increased our experience .

Procedure and measurement

A sample of 360 undergraduate students was collected by convenience sampling method of a public university in Eastern India. The proposed model of study was measured and evaluated using variance based structured equation model (SEM)-a latent multi variance technique which provides the concurrent estimation of structural and measurement model that does not meet parametric assumption (Coelho & Duarte, 2016 ; Haryono & Wardoyo, 2012 ; Lee, 2007 ; Moqbel, Nevo, & Kock, 2013 ; Raykov & Marcoulides, 2000 ; Williams, Rana, & Dwivedi, 2015 ). The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to ensure whether the widely accepted criterion of discriminate and convergent validity met or not. The loading of all the indicators should be 0.50 or more (Field, 2011 ; Hair, Anderson, Tatham, & Black, 1992 ). And it should be statistically significant at least at the 0.05.

Demographic analysis (Table 1 )

The majority of the students in this study were females (50.8%) while male students were only 49.2% with age 15–20 years (71.7%). It could be pointed out at this juncture that the majority of the students (53.9%) in BBAU were joined at least 1–5 academic pages for their getting information, awareness and knowledge. 46.1% of students spent 1–5 h per week on social networking sites for collaborative learning, interaction with teachers at an international level. The different academic pages followed for accessing material, communication with the faculty members stood at 44.4%, there would be various forms of the social networking sites (LinkedIn, Slide Share, YouTube Channel, Researchgate) which provide the facility of online collaborative learning, a platform at which both faculty members and students engaged in learning activities.

As per report (Nasir, Khatoon, & Bharadwaj, 2018 ), most of the social media user in India are college-going students, 33% girls followed by 27% boys students, and this reports also forecasted that India is going to become the highest 370.77 million internet users in 2022. Additionally, the majority of the faculty members use smartphone 44% to connect with the students for sharing material content. Technological advantages were the pivotal motivational force which stimulates faculty members and students to exploits the opportunities of resource materials (Nasir & Khan, 2018 ) (Fig. 2 ).

Reasons for Using Social Media

When the students were asked for what reason did they use social media, it was seen that rarely using for self-promotion, very frequently using for self-education, often used for passing the time with friends, and so many fruitful information the image mentioned above depicting.

Instrument validation

The structural model was applied to scrutinize the potency and statistically significant relationship among unobserved variables. The present measurement model was evaluated using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), and allied procedures to examine the relationship among hypothetical latent variables has acceptable reliability and validity. This study used both SPSS 20.0 and AMOS to check measurement and structural model (Field, 2013 ; Hair, Anderson, et al., 1992 ; Mooi & Sarstedt, 2011 ; Norusis, 2011 ).

The Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was conducted to ensure whether the widely accepted criterion of discriminant and convergent validity met or not. The loading of all the indicators should be 0.70 or more it should be statistically significant at least at the 0.05 (Field, 2011 ; Hair, Anderson, et al., 1992 ).

CR or CA-based tests measured the reliability of the proposed measurement model. The CA provides an estimate of the indicators intercorrelation (Henseler & Sarstedt, 2013 . The benchmark limits of the CA is 0.7 or more (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994 ). As per Table 2 , all latent variables in this study above the recommended threshold limit. Although, Average Variance Extracted (AVE) has also been demonstrated which exceed the benchmark limit 0.5. Thus all the above-specified values revealed that our instrument is valid and effective. (See Table 2 for the additional information) (Table 3 ).

In a nutshell, the measurement model clear numerous stringent tests of convergent validity, discriminant validity, reliability, and absence of multi-collinearity. The finding demonstrated that our model meets widely accepted data validation criteria. (Schumacker & Lomax, 2010 ).

The model fit was evaluated through the Chi-Square/degree of freedom (CMIN/DF), Root Mean Residual (RMR), Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), and Goodness of fit index (GFI) and Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI). The benchmark limit of the CFI, TLI, and GFI 0.90or more (Hair et al., 2016 ; Kock, 2011 ). The model study demonstrated in the table, as mentioned above 4 that the minimum threshold limit was achieved (See Table 4 for additional diagnosis).

Path coefficient of several hypotheses has been demonstrated in Fig.  3 , which is a variable par relationship. β (beta) Coefficients, standardised partial regression coefficients signify the powers of the multivariate relationship among latent variables in the model. Remarkably, it was observed that seven out of the seven proposed hypotheses were accepted and 78% of the explained variance in students’ academic performance, 60% explained variance in interactivity with teachers, 48% variance in interactivity with peers, 43% variance in online knowledge sharing behaviour and 79% variance in students’ engagement. Social media collaborative learning has a significant association with teacher interactivity(β = .693, P  < 0.001), demonstrating that there is a direct effect on interaction with the teacher by social media when other variables are controlled. On the other hand, use of social media for collaborative learning has noticed statistically significant positive relationship with peers interactivity (β = .704, p  < 0.001) meaning thereby, collaborative learning on social media by university students, leads to the high degree of interaction with peers, colleagues. Implied 10% rise in social media use for learning purposes, expected 7.04% increase in interaction with peers.

Path Diagram

Use of social media for collaborating learning has a significant positive association with online knowledge sharing behaviour (β = .583, p  < 0.001), meaning thereby that the more intense use of social media for collaborative learning by university students, the more knowledge sharing between peers and colleagues. Also, interaction with the teacher seen the significant statistical positive association with students engagement (β = .450, p  < 0.001), telling that the more conversation with teachers, leads to a high level of students engagement. Similarly, the practical interpretation of this result is that there is an expected 4.5% increase in student’s participation for every 10% increase in interaction with teachers. Interaction with peers has a significant positive association with students engagement (β = .210, p  < 0.001). Practically, the finding revealed that 10% upturn in student’s involvement, there is a 2.1% increase in peer’s interaction. There is a significant positive association between online knowledge sharing behaviour and students engagement (β = 0.247, p  < 0.001), and finally students engagement has been a statistically significant positive relationship with students’ academic performance (β = .972, p  < 0.001), this is the clear indication that more engaged students in collaborative learning via social media leads to better students’ academic performance.

Discussion and implication

There is a continuing discussion in the academic literature that use of such social media and social networking sites would facilitate collaborative learning. It is human psychology generally that such communication media technology seems only for entertainment, but it should be noted here carefully that if such communication technology would be followed with due attention prove productive. It is essential to acknowledge that most university students nowadays adopting social media communication to interact with colleagues, teachers and also making the group be in touch with old friends and even a convenient source of transferring the resources. In the present era, the majority of the university students having diversified social media community groups like Whatsapp, Facebook pages following different academic web pages to upgrade their knowledge.

Practically for every 10% rise in students’ engagement, expected to be 2.1% increase in peer interaction. As the study suggested that students engage in different sites, they start discussing with colleagues. More engaged students in collaborative learning through social media lead better students’ academic performance. The present study revealed that for every 10% increase in student’s engagement, there would be an expected increase in student academic performance at a rate of 9.72. This extensive research finding revealed that the application of online social media would facilitate the students to become more creative, dynamics and connect to the worldwide instructor for collaborative learning.

Accordingly, the use of online social media for collaborative learning, interaction with mentors and colleagues leadbetter student’s engagement which consequently affects student’s academic performance. The higher education authority should provide such a platform which can nurture the student’s intellectual talents. Based on the empirical investigation, it would be said that students’ engagement, social media communication devices facilitate students to retrieve information and interact with others in real-time regarding sharing teaching materials contents. Additionally, such sophisticated communication devices would prove to be more useful to those students who feel too shy in front of peers; teachers may open up on the web for the collaborative learning and teaching in the global scenario and also beneficial for physically challenged students. It would also make sense that intensive use of such sophisticated technology in teaching pedagogical in higher education further facilitates the teachers and students to interact digitally, web-based learning, creating discussion group, etc. The result of this investigation confirmed that use of social media for collaborative learning purposes, interaction with peers, and teacher affect their academic performance positively, meaning at this moment that implementation of such sophisticated communication technology would bring revolutionary, drastic changes in higher education for international collaborative learning (Table 5 ).

Limitations and future direction

Like all the studies, this study is also not exempted from the pitfalls, lacunas, and drawbacks. The first and foremost research limitation is it ignores the addiction of social media; excess use may lead to destruction, deviation from the focal point. The study only confined to only one academic institution. Hence, the finding of the project cannot be generalised as a whole. The significant positive results were found in this study due to the fact that the social media and mobile devices are frequently used by the university going students not only as a means of gratification but also for educational purposes.

Secondly, this study was conducted on university students, ignoring the faculty members, it might be possible that the faculty members would not have been interested in interacting with the students. Thus, future research could be possible towards faculty members in different higher education institutions. To the authors’ best reliance, this is the first and prime study to check the usefulness and applicability of social media in the higher education system in the Indian context.

Concluding observations

Based on the empirical investigation, it could be noted that application and usefulness of the social media in transferring the resource materials, collaborative learning and interaction with the colleagues as well as teachers would facilitate students to be more enthusiastic and dynamic. This study provides guidelines to the corporate world in formulating strategies regarding the use of social media for collaborative learning.

Availability of data and materials

The corresponding author declared here all types of data used in this study available for any clarification. The author of this manuscript ready for any justification regarding the data set. To make publically available of the data used in this study, the seeker must mail to the mentioned email address. The profile of the respondents was completely confidential.

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Ansari, J.A.N., Khan, N.A. Exploring the role of social media in collaborative learning the new domain of learning. Smart Learn. Environ. 7 , 9 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-020-00118-7

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Research: The Future of Social Media & Education

Scholars from around the world gathered at MSU in October 2018 to discuss social media and education. 

More than 100 participants took part in “#Cloud2Class: Exploring the Disruption and Reorganization of Educational Resources in the Age of Social Media,” which encouraged collaboration and communication—and showcased some of the ways MSU faculty and students are investigating and incorporating social media tools and technology into their educational research and practice. 

“Social media’s adoption in education is growing at an unprecedented rate, but is little understood,” said Associate Professor Christine Greenhow , a principal investigator and one of the leading organizers of the grant-funded event. 

NEW FINDINGS

Scholarship presented at and stemming from the conference will be represented in special issues for three journals. Teachers College Record is publishing 13 of these articles in their year-end issue in fall 2019. 

For example, Greenhow was lead author on “Education and Social Media: Research Directions to Guide a Growing Field.” The writers acknowledge research in this area is fast-growing, but argue studies in several key areas are needed, as is methodological and conceptual work. Their recommendations for research directions are based on their forthcoming review of 15 years of social media research, and additional studies of the use of technology in education. 

Ongoing research from MSU Foundation Professor Ken Frank and Research Specialist Kaitlin Torphy, Ph.D. ’14 ( Education Policy ), of Teachers in Social Media—a collaborative effort examining teachers’ engagement with online spaces—found varied opinions about the use of social media in education. Their article, “Social Media, Who Cares? A Dialogue between a Millennial and the Curmudgeon,” confirmed a majority of teachers are using social media for educational purposes. 

But what is the quality, or the value, of resources educators are pursuing social media outlets to find? It would be difficult to keep teachers from utilizing resources of their own free will, the researchers conceded. They also say scholars can and should aspire to provide and share quality resources for teachers to use. 

The question of quality is echoed in “Teaching Against Social Media: Confronting Problems of Profit in the Curriculum,” which included Greenhow, Professor Matthew Koehler , and Sarah Galvin and Emilia Askari, Ph.D. students in the Educational Psychology and Educational Technology (EPET) program. The authors argue educators need to be critical of social media algorithms and designs that can push advertisers’ agendas, including possible exploitation of user data. They also encouraged educators to work with companies to better their practices to thwart concerns of cyberbullying and other forms of harassment. 

“This [TCR] issue and our forthcoming research synthesizes what educational research tells us about social media’s impact on learning and teaching, maps directions for research in this growing field, outlines implications for teaching and policy, and so much more,” Greenhow explained. 

Additional research from the conference will be shared in forthcoming special issues of the American Journal of Education and Teachers College Record . 

COMING SOON

Articles referenced are in press, and expected to be online and in print in fall 2019.

SPECIAL THANKS

The #Cloud2Class conference was funded through a grant from the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and was organized by Christine Greenhow, Ken Frank and alumni including Kaitlin Torphy and Diana Brandon, Ph.D. ’18 (Educational Psychology and Educational Technology). Other collaborators included scholars from Northwestern University, the University of California-San Diego, the University of Education in Weingarten (Germany) and the University of Amsterdam. 

15 Reasons Teachers Say Social Media Isn’t All Bad for Students

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Social media is the bane of many educators’ existence.

The platforms distract students from paying attention in class, make it harder for kids to communicate in-person, keep teens feeling isolated, and hurt students’ overall self-confidence, educators say.

But many teachers and school and district leaders do see some positive impact from the apps and platforms that they otherwise disdain.

One big bright spot: social media gives students a chance to pick up knowledge or delve into topics that they aren’t learning about in school. Thirty percent of educators surveyed by the EdWeek Research Center in December and January identified that learning opportunity as a positive outcome of social media use.

“Social media is a place where young people do engage in some self-directed and informal learning,” said Jeff Carpenter, a professor of education at Elon University who studies social media in education, who is also a former high school teacher. “And I think [for] teachers, there’s interest in encouraging students not just to learn within the confines of the school building, not just to learn about the things that teachers tell them they have to learn about, but to realize that you can learn outside of the school context, you can learn [about] topics that aren’t assigned to you. Follow your passions. Explore things.”

Nearly another quarter of educators surveyed said their students have been able to go deeper into topics they are learning about in school through social media, developed positive friendships, improved their creative skills, or received recognition or praise for their accomplishments.

Another quarter of educators surveyed said they couldn’t think of a single positive development arising from students’ social media use. The nationally representative survey of 595 educators was conducted from Dec. 21, 2023 to Jan. 2, 2024.

While Stefanie McKoy, a special education teacher at Branson Middle School in Missouri, understands why some teachers find social media nothing but problematic, her own perspective is more nuanced.

“Social media is a way for students to connect to the world,” said McKoy, who also works as a lecturer at University of Arkansas and studied social media platforms while pursuing her doctorate . “It gives students power, and a sense of choice. … I think what draws students to social media is that they’re like, ‘Oh, hey, you know, I can purposely look at this,’ or, ‘Hey, there’s another student that looks like me, but maybe they’re at a different school.’ And I think that that’s really great.”

Still, McKoy thinks students need help in navigating social media platforms safely and with a critical eye.

“I think that we have to do a better job at preparing our students for social media use,” she said. “And we as educators haven’t necessarily caught up to that yet.”

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A study on social media and higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic

Sarthak sengupta.

Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Information Technology – Allahabad, Prayagraj, India

Anurika Vaish

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The authors have agreed to provide the data as supplementary files.

Nowadays social media usage has increased drastically among the stakeholders of higher educational institutions. The COVID-19 pandemic has suddenly increased the surge of social media users due to the forced implementation of online pedagogy and travel restrictions. The research study presented in this paper attempted to analyze social media usage in higher education. The data were collected from primary and secondary sources with the help of leading research databases, survey questionnaires, the Delphi method, and brainstorming sessions. Statistical tools and analytic techniques incorporated in the study included bibliometric analysis, word cloud, co-occurrence network, thematic map, thematic evolution, co-word analysis, country-wise analysis along with collaboration network, statistical survey, mind mapping, and analytic hierarchy process. The study justified the aspects of social media usage in the higher educational environment. It was found that the research fraternity around the globe focused more on understanding the aspects of social media and higher education during the trying times of the Coronavirus crisis. The maximum impact of social media usage on higher education was found to be from teaching–learning and discussions, and public relations and networking. It was also found that social networking platforms like WhatsApp, YouTube, Facebook (Meta), LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter were very common among the stakeholders of higher education. This study is of huge importance because it can help in paving the way to strategize remedial measures for increasing positivity and minimizing the negativity of social media usage in institutions of higher education across the world.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10209-023-00988-x.

Introduction

Nowadays in the Internet era, various social media platforms are playing an important part in the swift information passage and planning among all sections of society. Social media presence has been witnessed in higher education with the help of educational technology. Social media usage has increased among all stakeholders of academic fraternities during the COVID-19 pandemic, but some universities faced digital accessibility issues with regard to online training, accessing documents, emergencies, procurement, awareness, captioning, etc. [ 1 ]. The importance of social media is gradually increasing, but social media platforms are also found to be performing an essential role in instilling such sentiments, mood shifts, etc. The problem is becoming serious because of the increase in the misuse of social media users rather than its positive use which is creating an abnormal atmosphere in almost all walks of life. A study discussed literature regarding Web site usability among social media and educational areas. It also reviewed relevant studies which pondered upon analyzing the usability of social networking platforms with the help of various automated tools for evaluation purposes. It was found that social media usability and its Web sites regarding higher education institutions are essential themes to explore [ 2 ]. A subsequent review of the literature provided in the next section also justified the need to resolve the research gaps and extracted problems by attaining the formulated objectives in this research study. Therefore, it has been observed that there is a need to understand social media usage in higher education.

The current research study moved forward by collecting a significant amount of data from primary and secondary sources during various stages of the Coronavirus crisis. The data collection process and extraction from various research databases, articles, respondents, subject matter experts, social networking platforms, etc. have been explained in the “Methodology” section of the study. The data collected from various authentic sources and stakeholders of higher educational institutions were found to be reliable. This novel study has been conducted ethically and the work is completely original. The research has been segregated into various sections which cover the introductory part, the review of relevant literature, the methodology of the study, the analysis and findings, the future scope, and the limitations of the research study. This research can pave the way for the formulation of remedial strategies that can increase positivity and minimize the negativity of social media usage in the educational environment. Thus, this study attempts to understand social media, its usage, and its impact on higher education. The preliminary objective was to find the main social media usages among stakeholders of higher education institutions. However, while exploring research studies across the world it was observed that it is essential to dig deeper insights into this domain with a special focus on India. Secondary data were collected to analyze its impact on the research fraternity across the world. The study also attempted to find the ranking among the social media usages. The research study’s applicability is widespread and dynamic. The implications presented in the forthcoming sections can help in understanding various aspects of social media in higher education. This study would pave the way for a better understanding of the social media usage responsible for creating an impact on higher education. It will also provide a platform to design remedial measures and dynamic strategies to minimize the negative impact on neutrality and maximize the positive impact of social media on higher educational institutions. Relevant reviews of the literature have been referred to, in the next section, to understand the niche perspectives of social media in higher education globally. The following sections of this research study present the literature review, methodology, analysis, findings, limitations, future scope of research, conclusion, and recommendations.

Literature review

Relevant research studies extracted from the review of literature have illustrated the use of social media in higher education along with supporting pieces of evidence from across the world. The excerpts provided in the subsections below were collected from motivational publications in leading scholarly research databases like Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, Springer Nature, Google Scholar, etc.

What is social media?

A study defined social media as a tool that provides online interactive platforms along with the newest application which is Web-enabled applications. Through these, the users are engaged in content creation with the help of social media to communicate and interact with other users and the public in general [ 3 ]. Social media is used in the educational process, especially for connecting with students, teachers, and colleagues, to access a news feed on their walls [ 4 ]. Social media or social networking platforms is the medium that enables the interactive Web-based Internet by fetching users to participate, share, comment, and create content to communicate with others and ensure public presence on social media. The educational content shared on social media can be any form of text, audio or video, etc. Learning is a process that is based on the principles of innovation, play, and shared study rather than a personalized mode of instruction [ 5 ]. This idea can be implemented in a classroom arrangement to enhance the value of the learning process. From the word “social media,” people generally understand that it means all the famous social networking sites like WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, but it is not limited to these. According to a research study [ 6 ], social media platforms include a wide variety of arrangements like social networking sites, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, etc., which empower the users to share or communicate information through a variety of content formats like audio/videos, pictures, graphs, text, PDF, and audios through the cyberspace. A study justified that social media had been invoked largely as digital and network-based applications [ 7 ]. It eased content exchange and communication among all sorts of users or organizations. Moreover, social media is a term that is applied to new media forms which ensure collaborative involvement. Media development is categorized into two different ages, namely the broadcast age and the interactive age. From the broadcast age, the media meant the centralized media where only one entity like radio, a newspaper company, television, production of movies, studios, etc. dispersed messages to people. Moreover, feedback from the media outlets was mostly indirect, impersonal, or delayed. Social networking Web sites are Web-based services that let a person create his/her profile within a limited system. It also shows a list of people with whom they are sharing a common connection and a list of connections formed by other users in that bounded system. Moreover, it assists users in viewing and traversing their connection list. The type, nature, or nomenclature of such connections may vary from various platform to site [ 8 ].

Social networking platforms

Facebook (renamed “Meta”) is a famous social media platform. Mark Zuckerberg (the founder of Facebook) defines it as a platform or a social app where people connect and communicate more efficiently with their family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, relatives, etc. Nowadays, Facebook is being used to connect educators with students so that they can communicate and send schedules, news, and education-related stuff. The idea of using social media as a tool for learning is now even carried forward, also to the business world. Social media is being popularly used in our society which reflects human expression and recognition. A study found that interacting socially for educational purposes has generated a surge in the availability of modern techniques in social media usage [ 9 ]. With the help of these techniques of social networking, there is good scope for learning among the students because it offers several communication channels among their peer groups which can help in gaining information and knowledge enhancement. Social media has an enormous role in the process of educational development. Educators are using Facebook for learning and imparting knowledge, and without disturbing the workflow going on in the classroom or campus, the students and teachers can ask questions and respond to the lesson, post photographs, and related educational material with hyperlinks. In that way, everyone remains on the same page with only a few disruptions [ 10 ]. A research study analyzed the usage of Facebook in Spanish universities and it was found that public universities used it for professional communication [ 11 ]. Facebook is an extraordinary learning tool, and teachers can easily use it for class projects, improving communication, and engaging the students in such a way that might not be possible in a face-to-face classroom arrangement. Teachers also use Twitter professionally [ 12 ] to ensure that the students are well engaged in the learning and knowledge-imparting process in a classroom is ensured by the way of strengthening the modes of communication between the students and student and educator so that the information keeps flowing through the class. Nowadays, students spend their time working on new technologies, which helps them to become familiar with electronic devices, computers, laptops, and other gadgets. In the education and business field, the focus has increased on technological advancement. This helps the students to build and work on their skills, which will benefit them throughout their lives [ 13 ]. For a university, it is cheaper using Facebook as a means of learning and knowledge delivery compared to Moodle. The teachers and professors appreciated the uniqueness and quality of the engagement with the students on Facebook. They even appreciated the visual resources that paved the way for a different type of learning [ 14 ]. A research study provided knowledgeable insights to develop the digital competency skills of teachers for educational purposes [ 15 ]. Many students rely on social media and the Web for providing answers. This reflects that the focus on learning and retaining information has been reduced. Also, for the students who support multitasking with social media, i.e., surfing social networking platforms while studying, a reduction in academic performance has been observed because of such distractions. The ability of the students to concentrate on their academic duties is thus reduced because they access YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc., which acts as a distraction and hinders their academic performance [ 13 ]. The students who spend more time on social networking sites, remain online and spend less time socializing with people face-to-face can communicate less effectively in person. In the student feedback, there is a need for more structuring, especially in the syllabus with clarity in learning objectives, guidelines for assignments, weekly discussion topics, projects, etc. [ 14 ] The teachers find it difficult to load students’ posts, blogs, and Web pages [ 16 ]. The advantage of social media platforms like Facebook is to give a familiar atmosphere to the students and teachers. The design of Facebook promotes social interchange between the users, increasing the association between the students working on the activities. Additionally, the teachers also have this opportunity to educate the students regarding how to use social networking platforms like Facebook and other social media platforms responsibly so that it benefits them [ 17 ].

Usage and applications of social media in higher education

Social media has brought a revolution recently in extending its subsequent applications and rapid generalization. This revolution is comparable to the rise in e-mail-based communication because it also has the power to alteration in social relations among users in the network. Therefore, social media has become a resourceful mode of interaction within different spaces. Higher educational institutions around the world are facing challenges to widening access to instructional content [ 18 ]. In the present scenario, social networking services allow people with common interests to get in touch through networks. Also, on social media platforms chat groups can be made along with messaging or a private chat feature is also available. Platforms like Facebook came into existence to support various congregations of students on college campuses, while some professional platforms like LinkedIn establish professional contacts, job types, recruitments, and trade through networking [ 19 ]. A research study provided a systematic review of research done on social media in higher education along with discussions on professional development. Nowadays it has been witnessed that social media-based online communities of practices and professional learning networks are emerging as important avenues for faculty engagement [ 20 ].

It has been observed that people with different levels of education use different types of social media to perform their work [ 21 ]. Social media is also used professionally as a communication platform. It is used to build connections between professional individuals through networks for exchanging information [ 3 ]. Initially, people used social media mostly for routine activities and entertainment purposes, but gradually social media started gaining importance among individuals [ 22 ]. With the help of different applications, uses, and tools of social media, people and organizations directly communicate and interact with each other [ 23 , 24 ]. Social media has witnessed a huge presence for learning and teaching purposes. Students are using social media for interactive communication in form of groups or private discussions [ 25 ]. A research study analyzed some aspects which affected the intent of social media usage for learning purposes. The factors explored along with confirmation were self, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), communication, efforts, performance, and collectivism [ 26 ].

Furthermore, social networking platforms have become a popular media for the dissemination of information and instrumental facilitators for performing social interactions. Social media users in higher education institutions are increasing day by day. Numerous research studies have attempted to elaborate and ponder upon the assistance of the educational process with the help of new technologies like social networking platforms, cloud computing, the Internet, and other online communities [ 27 – 30 ]. Social media characteristics and future avenues for development among students in the universities of Pakistan have also been discussed in a relevant research study [ 31 ]. For example, modern technologies have been advocated to support learning by students [ 32 ], teaching assistance [ 33 ], helping in collaboration among researchers from various parts of the world [ 34 , 35 ], etc. Social media is playing a major role in recruitment and in improving the institutional staff’s skills through professional training and development for overall growth [ 36 ]. A research study found that staff members of higher educational institutions used social media [ 37 ]. Factors to engage consumers of higher education, i.e., students, can be judged by customer engagement analysis [ 38 ]. Increased focus on students’ social media usage has been witnessed gradually [ 39 ]. A research study was done on initiatives for e-learning in Indian higher education institutions during the Coronavirus crisis [ 40 ] and it was found that social media-based e-learning is gaining huge popularity [ 41 ]. Social media is playing a major role in learning and teaching pedagogy [ 42 ]. It was also found that in high schools in Ghana, social media integration had a positive impact on teaching and learning [ 43 ]. Impression management is an important tool for self-promotion [ 44 ]. Social media is a popular marketing strategy for admissions to educational institutions [ 45 ]. Facebook has played a major role in the advertising and promotion of outreach events as well [ 46 ]. Social media has been an essential factor in educational assessments, online delivery, and collaborative networking [ 47 ]. Social media platforms like Twitter, ResearchGate, Academia, LinkedIn, etc. provide various benefits like proper execution of educational activities, career progression, collaborative projects, and management [ 48 , 49 ]. Twitter is a major source of social media data [ 50 ]. A systematic mapping study observed how mobile learning applications including social networking can play a vital role in educational technology [ 51 ]. Assistive technology has been instrumental in learning, teaching, and administration [ 52 ]. ICT infrastructure has played a major role in educational improvement among learners with learning disabilities [ 53 ]. The amalgamation of social media platforms with Information and Communication Technology-based infrastructure can help in higher education development around the world. Social media platforms can help in the facilitation of an interactive experience along with cooperative and participative learning [ 54 ]. Social media has played a major role in higher education along with an essential driver to continue usage along with better Internet access [ 55 ]. A research study also performed structural equation modeling and confirmatory factor analysis to analyze social media usage among Japanese students [ 56 ].

The negative impact and misuse of social media in higher education need to be addressed. The prominence of online social networking and the massive speed at which undesirable information is distributed has made a negative effect. It also has a negative impact on the users’ disposition toward appropriate spellings and the correct structure of sentences. This reduces the users’ capacity to viably compose without depending on a computer's spell check highlight. It increases the possibility of hackers performing fraudulent activities like spamming, hacking, and virus attacks. It increases the risk of user’s data and identity exploitation and theft. It drastically affects organizational behavior when negative appraisals, feedback, and comments start emerging between different levels of employees. Productivity, learning capacity, and memory retention ability are also getting hampered due to increased usage of social media. Students who do multitasking, i.e., use social media Web sites while studying, exhibit decreased academic performance. Face-to-face communication and socialization have decreased due to the increased usage of social media. The students prefer to talk with their classmates on social media rather than physically meeting them. This also results in the deterioration of communication skills. Many students are using social media for planning strikes and agitations in educational institutes. They are also using it for creating negative awareness among students. Students can post negative comments or messages regarding their teachers. The increased availability of private information in the social media profiles of various students and employees has increased the risk of the information being exploited by potential hackers and criminals. Constant surfing and scrolling of Facebook and Twitter profiles result in addiction and depression. Some people get stressed and over-depressed by seeing their enemies. The probability of getting jealous also grows due to such posts, mainly photographs or videos. Social media has been a key medium in aggravating conflicts, agitations, and political participation [ 57 ]. Social media-based discussion forums also witnessed quarrels and conflicts among students and colleagues [ 58 ].

Various forms and types of social media

Some of the common forms of social media provided by a research study [ 59 ] are as follows:

• Social networking sites, e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and others are quite common nowadays. Even those who do not have any social media profiles can get access to information circulated on such platforms. A key feature of such social networking sites is the list of users that connect among themselves.
• E-mail—this was found to be one of the most common forms of social media. E-mail (Electronic mail) involves users logging into an account for sending and receiving messages or emails.
• Texters—similarly, a texter is a two-way communication channel that allows users to send messages quickly to another person or a group of people.
• Blogs—the word blog was derived from “weblog.” A blog is a Web-based platform where people share information or ideas with a large group of readers via the Internet.
• Message boards—it was found that most sports channels, television programs, or other popular entertainment channels frequently circulate information on message boards. Message boards allow users to post messages that talk about a clearly defined subject.
• Connection sites—it is a type of connection site that comes under the classification of various forms in social media. Various users are found to approach such online dating sites by creating a profile.
• Games and entertainment—nowadays social media platforms provide gaming facilities like online games and entertainment. They often carry a social dimension.
• Apps—apps are mobile applications. These apps are not directly coming under forms of social media, but most of the time users can connect through apps through another form of social networking platform. More often apps have built-in social media facilities.

The secondary data collected from the review of literature also helped in extracting social media usage in higher educational institutions. The review of the literature helped in finding the research gaps and problems. There is a huge need to explore new avenues of social media and higher education because of the Coronavirus crisis. One of the main research questions of the study was to find the major social media usages among the stakeholders in higher educational institutions. Various problems are being faced due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Analyzing the consequences of social media usage during such trying times of the Coronavirus crisis is the need of the hour. A panoramic view of all the research studies done in this domain was also needed. Formulation of educational strategies and remedial measures to bring out the advantages and minimize the disadvantages was also a crucial challenge. The research gaps and problems of the study were addressed accordingly. The next section of the study discusses the research methodology.

Methodology

The research study attempted to analyze the impact of social media on higher educational institutions. The stakeholders of higher education institutions considered in the study were teachers, faculties, students, administrative officers, staff, and other employees working for the institution. External entities like guardians or parents of students, government agencies, vendors or third parties, industries, and other sponsored bodies were also taken into account. The study collected data from both primary and secondary sources around the world with a special emphasis on India while collecting primary data. Primary data were extracted with the assistance of expert surveys, brainstorming sessions, the Delphi method, and a survey questionnaire that was voluntarily filled or answered by respondents who were stakeholders of higher education institutions. The primary data needed for the study were collected through online mode to maintain social distancing norms and travel restrictions. The type of sampling implemented during the primary survey-based data collection process was judgmental sampling. This helped in extracting accurate data from the respondents because they already had prior knowledge regarding the survey. Secondary data were extracted from renowned databases research articles and other relevant sources across the world. The study was performed with the help of an extensive literature review that facilitated the extraction of various impacts of social media usage on higher education from the relevant research articles and motivational studies in the domain. Primary data were collected from April 2020 to December 2021, whereas secondary data were collected from January 2002 to August 2022. Therefore, the data collected to find social media usage were extracted from secondary sources, whereas primary data were also collected to pursue further analysis.

The research questions of this study are as follows:

• What is the current status of research studies on social media and higher education?
• What are the major social media usages in higher education institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic?
• What is the prioritized ranking of social media usage according to the perception of the stakeholders in higher education institutions?
• How to reduce the negativity of social media usage and enhance the positivity in the higher education environment?

The bibliometric analysis of social media and higher education institutions was done to investigate research studies across the world. The keywords taken into account in the study were derived after a rigorous review of the literature at the global level and formulated after continuous validation among the experts in this domain. A mind map was developed with the help of brainstorming sessions conducted among a few experts all over the world. The flowchart was designed to get a panoramic view of the various social media usages by the stakeholders of higher education. It also provided a platform for the formation of the preliminary framework for the study. The Delphi method and expert surveys were done for further validation because many factors and uses of social media in the educational environment were found from a secondary source-based review of the literature. So, to justify and extract the main social media usages the Delphi method-based expert surveys along with brainstorming-based discussion sessions were conducted among the higher educational stakeholders, professionals, and expert academicians. After this, a questionnaire-based primary survey was done using Google Forms. It was circulated to get the views of all the internal and external stakeholders of higher education institutions for having an idea regarding all the social media usage during the COVID-19 pandemic. Necessary permissions and consent were ensured while conducting the data collection process. The primary survey-based questionnaire was floated among all the stakeholders of higher education institutions in India while the Delphi method was conducted among experts across the world. The data collected from the responses helped in verifying the inputs for further analysis.

The tools and software used in the research study were RStudio, Google Forms, Diagrams.net, and AHP-OS. This study used multiple tools and techniques to achieve various objectives to cover the gaps and derive suitable findings or answers to the research questions accordingly. RStudio is an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for the R programming language useful for statistical computations and bibliometric analysis [ 63 , 66 ]. IBM-SPSS is a statistical tool useful for advanced analytics, Diagrams.net is an online tool used for drawing flowcharts or graphs and Google Forms is a software used for the administration of surveys [ 63 ]. The AHP-OS tool was instrumental in performing the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) [ 60 ]. It was done after the extraction of the respondents’ feedback based on ranking various factors of social media usage in the higher education environment. The AHP helped in performing the quantitative analysis. It was done with the help of the multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) technique which was essential for the calculation of the ranking-based priorities [ 61 ]. AHP is a relevant technique being used extensively nowadays [ 62 ]. Its implementation of AHP helped in assigning weights to various social media usage-based factors accordingly. This also facilitated the generation of a suitable method for ranking social media usage and the factors could be evaluated because of the weighted priorities. Moreover, another relevant study performed analytic hierarchy process with the assistance of the AHP-OS tool along with bibliometric analysis with the help of RStudio’s Bibliometrix package which was also found to help in providing crucial insights to move forward [ 63 – 66 ].

The primary survey-based data collected from stakeholders of higher educational institutions also helped in understanding social media usage with deeper insights. It provided a qualitative analysis of the relationship between various social media usages based on factors in the higher educational atmosphere. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) helped in justifying the prioritization of the various factors of social media usage. The results obtained from the analytic tools were subsequently validated and verified accordingly. The subject matter experts and data extracted from the review of the literature provide a substantial contribution to the formulation of the research objectives.

The research objectives of the study have been developed on the basis of the research questions and gaps found while pursuing the study. These are as follows:

• Exploring the research studies being pursued around the globe on social media and higher education;
• Finding various social media usages in higher educational institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic;
• Ranking social media usage according to the higher education perspective;
• Suggesting remedial measures and educational strategies for enhancing the positivity of social media impact on higher education.

The structure of the research plan is depicted in Fig.  1 . The figure provides a panoramic view of the research study in the form of a modular flowchart. It was generated by the help Diagrams.net tool.

Structure regarding research plan (generated by Diagrams.net tool)

The factors or aspects of social media usage which were taken into the study were as follows:

• Teaching, learning, and discussions—social media can be used for teaching, learning, and discussion purposes;
• Grievance and conflicts—social media can be used in sharing or resolving grievances and negotiating conflicts in educational institutions;
• Outreach activities—social media can be used in circulating information, planning, and organizing academic events or other activities;
• Publicity and branding—social media can be used for marketing and publicity to ensure branding. This helps in increasing the institutional reach in making it famous
• Admissions—social media can be used for procuring and circulating information regarding admissions and managing them accordingly
• Execution management—social media can be used to manage and execute academic activities
• Public relations and networking—social media can be used for maintaining public relations and ensuring social networking among various stakeholders
• E-procurement—social media can be used for purchasing or procurement of products and services
• Project management—social media can be used for getting information, planning, and managing projects
• Impression management—social media can be used to manage the impression and influence the perception of others
• Placements and recruitment—social media can be used for procuring or circulating information regarding placements and recruitments (off or on campus). It can be instrumental in conducting recruitment and also help potential candidates with the joining processes.

Analysis and findings

The study performed various types of analysis to extract crucial findings required to justify the research being conducted. This section comprises various sub-parts, namely bibliometric analysis, mind mapping, statistical survey, and analytic hierarchy process (AHP).

Bibliometric analysis

The bibliometric analysis was done with the help of secondary data collected from renowned research databases across the world. All the relevant research publications and motivational studies extracted for this study were explored thoroughly. The Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science (WoS) and Elsevier’s Scopus are considered to be major databases for research articles and bibliometric analysis has been done on the extracted data by relevant studies [ 63 – 65 ]. The bibliometric analysis was performed by the software RStudio which has a package named Bibliometrix [ 66 ]. The co-occurrence network of keywords, word cloud, thematic map, thematic evolution, co-word analysis, and country-based collaboration network was done. The Internet-based services, namely Zoom, Google Meet, and Gmail, and social networking platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook (Meta), Linkedin, and Twitter ensured proper data collection and validation of the set of keywords along with the pilot testing for justification of relevant results. The rigorous review of the literature also helped in finalizing the keywords. Firstly, the keyword-based search comprised social media and higher education to extract research articles across the world. The keywords used in the study were also validated by subject matter experts and social media analysts. Hence the search process was done with “social media” as the first keyword along with “higher education” as the second keyword and the AND Boolean gate or operator was used. So, the intersection set of both keywords was taken with the help of AND Boolean gate. The criteria regarding the “all fields” search option were selected to take all fields of the research publications present in the leading databases. After this process, a total number of 1108 research publications were extracted from the WoS database and 35,115 research articles were found from the Scopus database. Further analysis was done with RStudio software on the data retrieved from the WoS core collection because it was relevant and a huge amount of data gathered from the Scopus database was not feasible for analysis due to the limitations of the RStudio software. Figure  2 provides an analysis done year-wise of the research studies published from 1 January 2002 to 19 August 2022, i.e., the date until which the research study was completed. The years are denoted by the horizontal axis while the vertical axis is divided into two parts, where the left part denotes the number of publications and the vertical axis denotes citations on the right side of the figure. The color-coding for indexing purposes is provided in Fig.  2 . It can be observed that the vertical Y-axis denoted the number of publications from the left, whereas it denotes the number of citations at the right part of the figure. The horizontal X-axis denotes the years in ascending order from 2010 to 2022. It should also be noted that on the left part of the figure, 1 unit of the Y-axis is equal to 20 publications, whereas on the right side of the figure, 1 unit of the Y-axis is equal to 500 citations. Moreover, 1 unit of the X-axis represents each year. While observing the figure, it was found that the number of research publications and citations has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic as observed in the figure. Figure  2 is created by using the WoS platform.

Chart regarding research publications based on the years V/S No. of publications and citations from January 2002 to August 2022

(Source: Web of Science)

Further analysis was done with the help of the WoS database by using the same set of keywords, i.e., social media and higher education. A total number of 1108 research articles were extracted from conference proceedings, journals, reviews, research articles, etc. and were explored thoroughly. The retrieved data were in the form of BibTex which was appropriate as an input file for the Bibliometrix package of RStudio and its Biblioshiny interface. The top 10 words based on a relevance that was being used frequently in the WoS research studies across the world were social media, higher education, Facebook, perceptions, impact, students, technology, online, model, and Twitter. Figure  3 depicts the word cloud. The number of words was set to 100 and the field chosen was keywords plus. According to the frequency of the occurrence of the keywords, the word occurrence measure was set. The shape selected was a circle with a font size of 1 and ellipticity of 0.65 for better observation of the figure. Figure  4 depicts the co-occurrence network based on the keywords extracted. The co-occurrence network was designed by selecting the type of field setting as keywords plus and the network layout was set to automatic. The normalization was set to the type named association, and the clustering algorithm was set to Louvain. The network parameters were set accordingly for generated a suitable figure. The number of nodes was set to 50 and it was done without removing any isolated nodes. The repulsion force was set to 0.1 while the minimum number of edges was 2. The graphical parameters were inputted accordingly for making the figure graphically clear and precise. The opacity was set to 0.7, whereas the number of labels was set to 50. The node shape was selected as a dot, whereas the edge size was set to 4 and the label size was set to 5 for viewing the figures in a better way. These sizes are based on a proportional scale formulated by the software with the maximum size being 20. Figures  3 and ​ and4 4 provide a bird’s-eye view of the important keywords on which most of the research studies are being done in the area of social media and higher education. This helped in moving ahead with the research study.

Word cloud (generated by RStudio software)

Co-occurrence network based on keywords (generated by RStudio software)

While creating the thematic map and evolution, the field was selected as keyword plus and the number of words was kept in the range between 50 and 500 to ensure the maximum range for the best output. The number of labels for each cluster was kept at 2 and the minimum cluster frequency per thousand documents was kept at 5. The label size was set to 0.05 for viewing the thematic map in a better way. As already mentioned, the unit of size is based on a relative scale defined by the tool itself with the maximum size being 1. The thematic map is provided in Fig.  5 . The axis is formulated based on density and centrality. The thematic map has been divided into four quadrants, namely the emerging or declining themes, motor themes, basic themes, and niche themes. The horizontal and vertical axes provided in the figure as dotted lines divide the thematic map into four quadrants. The basic themes comprised higher education, Facebook, impact, and model. The social media and online were found to be in between the two quadrants, namely basic and motor themes. The relevant clusters observed in the quadrant regarding niche themes were transition, diversity, students, and media. Again, it was observed that the cluster health and college students were located in between the niche and motor themes. An interesting observation about the motor themes was that all clusters in this quadrant were sharing their space with other quadrant-based themes. The emerging or declining themes comprised performance and framework. The thematic evolution is depicted in Fig.  6 . The option regarding weight index was selected as an inclusion index weighted by word occurrences. All other were kept similar to the same inputted data for generating the thematic map. This analysis has been done based on the co-words network and clustering [ 67 ]. The thematic evolution helped in detecting conceptual sub-domains [ 68 ]. Therefore, the figures were instrumental in providing the mapping-based visualization of the relevant research fields along with the sub-themes or sub-domains. The number of cutting points was set to 1 and the cutting year was selected as 2019 to explore the shift of themes before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Figure  6 shows that from the year 2010 to 2019 the theme-based keywords comprised mobility, user acceptance, communication, students, integration, higher education, performance, model, information, social media, and culture, whereas from the year 2020 to 2022 it was observed that the theme-based keywords were higher education, social media, framework, system, impact, reviews, diversity, university students, health, culture, and fit. Here it can be observed that the words mentioned before the Coronavirus crisis are more toward acceptance of social media among students for communication and integrating performance models in higher education, but the themes mentioned in the timeline during the COVID-19 pandemic have shifted toward keywords like health, culture, fit, etc. This reflects the need to enhance wellness standards during such challenging times.

Thematic map (generated by RStudio software)

Thematic evolution (generated by RStudio software)

Based on the bibliographic data extracted, the co-words were also analyzed further by mapping the conceptual structure of the framework based on word co-occurrence. Figure  7 illustrates the results of the co-word analysis. This analysis was conducted by selecting the multidimensional scaling technique. It is basically a dimensionality reduction technique. The clustering observed in Fig.  7 helped in understanding the research documents having common concepts along with the conceptual structure for the same. The results in Fig.  7 are plotted in a 2-D map where the label size was set to 10. Here 1 unit of the horizontal X-axis and vertical Y-axis is equal to 0.1 in the map provided in Fig.  7 . The algorithms used for performing this analysis are Porter’s stemming and other natural language processing algorithms [ 63 , 66 ]. It can be observed in the figure that words like prevalence, association, university students, and school have clustered together. Some of the relevant words like health, technology model, user acceptance, information technology, self-efficacy, motivation, academic performance, networking, university, college students, etc. have teamed up together.

Co-word analysis-based map regarding conceptual structure using multidimensional scaling technique (generated by RStudio software)

Figure  8 depicts the graphical representation of the countries across the world pursuing the maximum number of research studies in the area of social media and higher education. It should be noted that in the figure provided, 1 unit of the vertical Y-axis is equal to 20 research publications, whereas 1 unit of the horizontal X-axis represents a country or region. It can be observed in the figure that the top countries working in this research area were found to be the USA , China, England, Australia, Malaysia, Spain, Poland, Canada, Taiwan, and Brazil. Here it can also be observed that a very smaller number of research studies have been done by Indian researchers. The collaboration network based on countries across the world is depicted in Fig.  9 . The label size was set to 4, whereas the edge size was set to 5. The isolated nodes were not removed to explore the countries pursuing research on their own rather than collaborating with other countries. It provided a bird’s-eye view of the countries pursuing research in the domain along with the connected network among other countries for pursuing collaborative research in the global arena. It was observed that most of the countries collaborated to perform research on social media and higher education. Figure  9 shows that many countries like South Africa, Serbia, Israel, Jordan, Denmark, Tanzania, Sri Lanka, etc. are isolated nodes because these countries are pursuing research on social media and higher education without collaborating with other countries.

Bar chart representing the countries pursuing research on social media and higher education

(Source: WoS)

Collaboration network based on countries across the world (generated by RStudio software)

Figures ​ Figures3, 3 , ​ ,4, 4 , ​ ,5, 5 , ​ ,6, 6 , ​ ,7, 7 , and ​ and9 9 are generated with the help of the Biblioshiny interface, RStudio, and its package named Bibliometrix, whereas Figs. ​ Figs.2 2 and ​ and8 8 are generated in the WoS platform itself. After the rigorous analysis of the information extracted from the WoS platform and the manual exploration of other research databases, it was observed that there has been a steady increase in the number of research publications from the year 2020, i.e., during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, it was found that the research community across the world started analyzing social media and higher education with higher priority because of the growing need during such trying times of the Coronavirus crisis. But a notable research gap found while performing this analysis is that less research studies had been conducted in India on this domain in comparison to other developed or developing countries across the globe. Therefore, this study also helped in digging deeper insights to explore novel findings on social media in higher education institutions in India. So, the preliminary study explored relevant research studies across the world while pursuing the review of the literature and bibliometric analysis, but eventually attempted to focus on India while conducting the statistical analysis of the data collected by the primary survey-based questionnaires.

Mind mapping

A preliminary framework-based flowchart was developed with the help of brainstorming sessions and mind mapping techniques. The online tool named Diagrams.net (earlier named Draw.io) has been used because it is a widely used platform to create interactive flowcharts and diagrams. Mind mapping is a commonly used technique to visualize problems and solve educational issues [ 69 , 70 ]. It helped in checking the impact of social media on various stakeholders of higher education. The participation of the experts, academicians, students, research scholars, staff, administrative officers, faculties, teachers, and external entities was completely voluntary. The primary data needed for the study were collected with the help of Google Forms, Zoom, Google Meet, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Linkedin to maintain social distancing norms and travel restrictions. The mind mapping flowchart depicted in Fig.  10 was drawn with the help of an expert panel-based brainstorming session and the questionnaire-based primary survey. The mind map offers a panoramic view of the various social media usages by different types of stakeholders in the educational environment.

Mind map of social media usages by various stakeholders of higher educational institutions (generated by Diagrams.net tool)

It was found that various stakeholders had different needs for social media and used it extensively. The students used social media for admission, grievance and conflicts, placements and recruitment, outreach activity, teaching–learning and discussions, public relations and networking, and impression management. The teachers or faculties used social media for grievance and conflicts, project management, outreach activity, teaching–learning and discussions, public relations and networking, and impression management. The administrative officers, staff, and other employees used social media for admission, publicity and branding, e-procurement, project management, grievance and conflict management, placements and recruitment, outreach activity, public relations and networking, and execution management. External entities like students’ parents or guardians, third-party vendors, collaborative industries, government agencies, and other sponsored bodies used social media for project management, grievance and conflicts, admissions, e-procurement, and public relations and networking.

Statistical survey

Data were collected from all types of stakeholders with the help of a Google Forms-based questionnaire during the COVID-19 pandemic. The stakeholders considered in the study are students, teachers, administrative officers, staff, and other employees of higher education institutions in India. Moreover, external entities like guardians or parents of students, vendors or third parties, government agencies, industries, experts, and sponsored bodies were also considered in the study. A total number of 584 responses were collected while conducting the primary survey. The results were analyzed in IBM-SPSS software along with the help of Microsoft Excel. The data collected were found to be reliable and ethical. The Cronbach Alpha value for all constructs was within the acceptable range, i.e., more than 0.7. The respondents were informed about the survey, and data were collected according to their consent after taking the required permissions.

Some of the relevant questions asked while conducting the primary survey were as follows:

• Which social media platforms do you use?
• Which stakeholders' cluster do you belong to?
• Kindly specify your social media usage for day-to-day educational purposes.
• Which purposes are found to be most popular within higher education institutions and exhibit maximum social media impact?
• Please rank social media usage on the basis of judging its impact on higher education institutions;
• Does social media usage have a substantial impact on higher educational institutions?
• Do you feel that the impact of positive social media usage in higher educational institutions can be increased or maximized?
• Do you feel that the impact of negative social media usage in higher educational institutions can be reduced or eliminated?
• From the following options (all social media usage), select the impact of social media usage in terms of positivity, negativity, and neutrality in the educational environment;
• Remedial measures that can help in resolving the negative impact of social media usage and inculcate positivity?

The age group of the respondents is provided in Table ​ Table1. 1 . Most respondents were from 18 to 25 years of age, 26 to 35 years, and 36 to 45 years of age sequentially. So, the majority of the stakeholders in higher educational institutions were aged between 18 and 45 years because it comprised mostly of students and teachers. Very few respondents were below 18 years and above 60 comprising some external entities or others. The data regarding the distribution of respondents on the basis of stakeholders in higher education are provided in Table ​ Table2. 2 . Most of the respondents were students, research scholars, teachers, and faculties because they constitute to be the major stakeholders in higher education institutions. It was found that there were 369 male respondents, i.e., 63.2% of the responses, whereas there were 215 female respondents which comprised 36.8% of the respondents. Figure  11 shows the pie chart for showing the percentage of respondents’ distribution in using major social networking platforms in higher education institutions. It was observed that the respondents preferred using social networking platforms, namely WhatsApp, YouTube, Facebook or Meta, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and ResearchGate. The sequence of the social networking platforms mentioned in the previous sentence is in order from highest to lowest usage among the stakeholders in higher education institutions in India. The question asked in the primary survey-based questionnaire to extract responses regarding usage of social networking platforms used the checkboxes option in Google Forms so that the respondents could select more than one option and mention other social media platforms as well. Therefore, Fig.  11 shows that 96.10% of the respondents preferred using WhatsApp, 81.20% of the respondents used YouTube, 72.10% of the respondents used Facebook or Meta, 66.80% used LinkedIn, 65.40% used Instagram, 33.90% used Twitter, whereas 31% used ResearchGate also. But very few respondents also used Telegram, Snapchat, Reddit, etc.

Age group of respondents

Distribution of responses on the basis of stakeholders in higher education

Pie chart regarding the distribution of respondents using various social networking platforms in higher education institutions

It was found that the majority of the respondents, i.e., 72% of the stakeholders agreed that social media usage had a substantial impact on higher educational institutions. Moreover, it was observed that 74.5% of the respondents felt that the impact of positive social media usage in higher educational institutions can be increased or maximized, whereas 58.2% of the stakeholders felt that the impact of negative social media usage in higher educational institutions can be reduced or eliminated. Most of the stakeholders agreed to the fact that social media platforms are used for various purposes in higher education like teaching–learning and discussions, public relations and networking, outreach activities, grievance and conflicts, placements and recruitment, project management, impression management, admissions, publicity and branding, execution management, and e-procurement. The majority of respondents found teaching–learning and discussions, and public relations and networking to be most popular within higher education. They also agreed to the fact that these two social media usages were used for day-to-day educational purposes and exhibited maximum social media impact on higher educational institutions. The study also found that most of the stakeholders responded that all social media usage had a positive impact on higher education institutions except grievance and conflicts. It was also found that the majority of the respondents agreed that awareness drives, counseling sessions, sentiment analysis, mood recognition, social media management, continuous monitoring, and surveillance can be some of the remedial measures that can help in resolving the negative impact of social media usages and inculcate positivity in the higher education environment.

Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)

This subsection investigates the ranks and weights with the help of AHP. The analysis focused on finding the ranks of social media usage with the help of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). So, in this analytic process, the priority and ranks of various social media usages were found with the help of a tool named the AHP-OS calculator [ 60 ]. The AHP-OS is a widely used online tool to perform analytic hierarchy process efficiently [ 63 ]. The factors were extracted with the help of secondary data, whereas they were analyzed on the basis of the primary data collected. Various social networking platforms and Google Forms proved to be instrumental while collecting the relevant responses. The Delphi method and questionnaire-based survey responses were the primary sources of data. The relevant research articles explored while performing the review of the literature and leading research databases were the secondary sources of the data. The priority method of the AHP process was implemented to analyze the aspects of the criteria. The research work done in this study is limited to calculating the priority of social media usage with the help of the weighted ranking-based AHP method. A ranking framework-based question was incorporated into the survey questionnaire to extract relevant feedback on social media usage among the stakeholders in higher education institutions in India. The primary data extracted from the primary survey-based questionnaire and responses from the majority of the respondents were inputted accordingly. There were 11 social media usages, namely teaching–learning and discussions, grievances and conflicts, outreach activities, publicity and branding, admissions, placements and recruitment, execution management, public relations and networking, e-procurement, project management, and impression management, which were used as the criteria for calculating the AHP priority. The study pondered on finding the weighted ranks of the social media usages and not on computing the alternatives. So, there were a total of 55 pair-wise comparisons in which the input for the AHP priorities was provided based on the responses collected from the questionnaire. The resulting weights were based on the principal eigenvector of the decision matrix given in Table ​ Table3. 3 . The numbers 1–11 given in the decision matrix in Table ​ Table3 3 and the abbreviations provided in Fig.  12 are the social media usages whose indexing of numbers and full forms of abbreviations are provided in Table ​ Table4 4 .

Decision matrix for the resulting weights based on the principal eigenvector

Authors’ self-compilation from the data generated by the AHP-OS tool. Refer to Table ​ Table4 4 for understanding the meanings of the numbers provided in the first row and first column of the decision matrix

Number-based indexing and full forms of abbreviations regarding social media usage in higher educational institutions

Consolidated result of AHP in form of a graph (generated by the AHP-OS tool. Refer to Table ​ Table4 4 for understanding the meaning of the abbreviations provided in this figure)

Table ​ Table4 4 presents easy understanding of the indexing of the numbers provided on the matrix in Table ​ Table3 3 and abbreviations in Fig.  12 . Table ​ Table5 5 provides the resulting weights for the criteria on the basis of the pair-wise comparisons inputted in the AHP-OS tool eventually. Table ​ Table5 5 also provides the ranks of various social media usage along with their priorities respectively. As already mentioned, the number of comparisons was found to be 55 because of 11 social media usages. The consistency ratio (CR) was found to be 0.018 or 1.8%. The principal eigenvalue was found to be 11.278. It was also observed that the eigenvector solution had 5 iterations with delta = 5.4e-9. So, the graph with consolidated results of the AHP process is depicted in Fig.  12 . It can be observed that the vertical Y-axis denoted the priority on a percentage scale, whereas the horizontal X-axis denoted the abbreviations regarding the various social media usages in higher education institutions. It should be noted that 1 unit of the Y-axis is equal to 3% of the priority percentage, whereas 1 unit of the X-axis represents each social media usage in short form or abbreviation. Table ​ Table4 4 can also be referred to for understanding the full form of abbreviations provided in the horizontal X-axis. So, Fig.  12 shows a graphical representation of Table ​ Table5 5 along with relevant information for better understanding.

Resulting weights for the criteria based on the pair-wise comparisons along with the ranks and priority for all social media usages

Authors’ self-compilation from the data generated by the AHP-OS tool

Therefore, after performing the statistical survey and AHP, it was found that the maximum priority and ranking among social media usages in higher education was found to be from these social media usages, namely

• First rank or highest priority—teaching–learning and discussions;
• Second rank or second-highest priority—public relations and networking;
• Third rank or third-highest priority—outreach activities;
• Fourth rank or fourth-highest priority—grievance and conflicts;
• Fifth rank or fifth-highest priority—placements and recruitment;
• Sixth rank or sixth-highest priority—project management;
• Seventh rank or seventh-highest priority—impression management;
• Eighth rank or eighth-highest priority—admissions;
• Ninth rank or ninth-highest priority—publicity and branding;
• Tenth rank or tenth-highest priority—execution management;
• Eleventh rank or lowest priority—e-procurement.

It can be observed that social media and higher education are essential areas to ponder upon. Various social media usages are being exploited by the stakeholders of higher education institutions, but with different priorities. The study was conducted during the trying times of the Coronavirus crisis. The following section discusses the limitations that were faced while conducting the research along with some directions for further research.

Limitations and future scope of research

The review of the literature exhibits the potential of social media usage for various learning and development purposes, but the usage of technology is still very much limited. A research study found that there are fewer in-depth studies on higher education learning and teaching have been done [ 71 ]. There is a need for a more empirical study to be done for investigating the actual “added” benefits of social networking sites as compared to the use of traditional learning management systems (LMS). It was also witnessed that many of the research studies were focused on data that were self-reported in studying the technological effect, and this is a major limitation of the current literature review. Moreover, it has been observed that most of the relevant studies in the domain were discussing the advantages or positivity, but fewer studies were found on negativity. But sometimes criticism can help in finding problems to eradicate them and improve accordingly. It is important to address and investigate the actual usage and learning outcome in more depth. About all this, the computer science instructors may know the technology in a better way compared to the faculty of other fields. The SNS adoption is lagging among faculties from other fields. Some queries may arise regarding the specific reason, topics that are hard to describe in texts, and the faculty members’ security concerns. Therefore, a thorough inquiry is needed to address these limitations and solve the relevant issues.

There are some limitations to this study. More secondary data from all research databases around the world can be extracted for further analysis. The study collected primary data through online mediums virtually from many parts of the country during the COVID-19 pandemic for ensuring travel restrictions and social distancing norms. More responses can be collected around the world after the Coronavirus crisis and travel restrictions are over. This can help in developing the study in a better way to get enhanced results. Moreover, the software RStudio and its package Bibliometrix had their constraints so the study was done accordingly. Bibliometric analysis was found to be sufficient for carrying out the study, but the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) was not used extensively because it was not mandatory to implement PRISMA while performing bibliometric analysis [ 72 ]. There is plenty of future scope for research in this area. The researchers can enforce a creative social media technological strategy to tackle and enhance the educational environment in colleges. The better the peaceful behavioral culture in educational institutes the better would be the students’ growth and their teachers’ development. If a country can improve the physical and mental ability of the stakeholders, then in the future it would result in overall growth and development of the country. Because students are the future of any society or country. Therefore, social media should be strategically channelized so that there is a maximum increase in positivity in higher education institutional culture and environment. While assessing the impact, the challenge that came out was that only a few social media applications have been kept in mind, whereas some new social networking applications could not be accounted for. This research study can help in creating the platform for the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal regarding quality education [ 73 , 74 ]. The conclusive findings and relevant recommendations of the study are provided in the following section.

Conclusion and recommendations

Social media has been considered as a tool for entertainment purposes, but the changing landscape has made social networking platforms useful for higher education institutions. Their priorities have now been transformed into one of the key elements, i.e., efficiency. When it comes to efficiency factors, they offer some advanced tools and techniques which help every part of society to get involved in different types of formal or personal activities. Information and communication technologies (ICT) can help higher education in various ways [ 65 ] and can be instrumental in the amalgamation of social networking platforms. ICT infrastructure-based social media usage can assist all the stakeholders of higher education institutions around the world. The present research paper discusses the various impacts of social media on higher educational institutes in India. It is very important to overcome this problem of negative social media usage. Maximizing improvement upon the positive results will help in diminishing the negative aspects of social media. Moderating and monitoring access to social media is one excellent strategy that can be implemented. The effects of negativity can be reduced by checking and decreasing the amount of time spent on social network sites. Ample time should be provided for face-to-face social interaction and counseling drives if needed. All this will help people to reduce the negativity of social media usage among the stakeholders which will, in turn, benefit society. Moreover, higher education institutions should continuously monitor the usage and posts of various stakeholders. They can set some rules and protocols for social media usage. The moderators and administrative stakeholders can stop or avoid posts that can give rise to strikes, conflicts, and agitations. The educational stakeholders should be made aware of the protocols so that the circulation of harmful posts can be prevented. This will help in enhancing the learning culture and ambiance of the institutes. Learning analytics can help in understanding the patterns of the students [ 75 ]. The implications of the study can be magnified if social media usage is monitored and managed properly among all educational institutions across the world. Social media management along with continuous improvement in the social networking mechanisms of higher education institutions is the need of the hour. The educational strategies and plans for managing social networking platforms already mentioned in the study can be formulated, implemented, and evaluated accordingly. This study can be helpful for the enhancement of the positive impact of social media while minimizing the negative consequences in the higher education environment.

The brainstorming sessions helped in performing mind mapping to shortlist the notable social media usages in higher education. The Delphi method was conducted by discussing social media usage among subject matter experts and major stakeholders in higher education institutions. The primary survey-based questionnaire helped in performing a statistical survey to extract novel insights and crucial findings. The research study found that social media had a massive impact on most of the stakeholders of higher educational institutions. Social media usage was maximum among the students, but moderate usage of social media has been observed in teachers, administrators, staff, other employees, and external entities who used social networking platforms as and when needed. With the help of a literature review, brainstorming sessions, the Delphi method, and a questionnaire survey, conclusive evidence was found on the major social media usages in the educational environment. Furthermore, bibliometric analysis and AHP were found to be suitable approaches to move forward. So, after rigorous analysis, the novel result regarding the maximum impact of social media usage on higher education was found to be from teaching–learning and discussions, and public relations and networking. Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) found the priority-based ranks of various social media usages in higher education institutions and helped in justifying the novelty of the research study.

The conclusive findings of this research study have been noted along the lines of the research gaps, questions, and objectives already mentioned in the previous sections of the study. Therefore, the findings are as follows:

• It was observed that the research fraternity across the world pursued more studies on social media and higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic;
• The major social media usages in higher education institutions during the Coronavirus crisis are teaching–learning and discussions, grievances and conflicts, outreach activities, publicity and branding, admissions, placements and recruitment, execution management, public relations and networking, e-procurement, project management, and impression management;
• The prioritized ranking sequence of social media usage according to the perception of the stakeholders in higher education institutions is as follows: teaching–learning and discussions, public relations and networking, outreach activities, grievance and conflicts, placements and recruitment, project management, impression management, admissions, publicity and branding, execution management, and e-procurement (the order of the social media usages’ ranking is mentioned sequentially, i.e., first to last comprises top to low priority among the same);
• Some strategic measures like e-awareness drives, counseling sessions, sentiment analysis, mood recognition, social media management, continuous monitoring, real-time surveillance, social media awareness, continuous survey-based feedback evaluation, avoidance of cyberbullying, and social media moderation can help in achieving the objective of maximizing positive social media usage and minimizing negative social media usage toward neutrality for overall growth and development of higher education institutions.

This study concludes that social media have a substantial impact on higher education institutions. The consequences of social networking platforms were witnessed during the COVID-19 pandemic because it was instrumental in the transformation from physical classroom coaching to online pedagogy. Efficient e-learning platforms with effective social networking pedagogy can be helpful in enhancing the productivity of learners and teachers. Social networking platforms are widely used among most developed and developing countries along with a few underdeveloped countries across the world. Before the pandemic, some universities attempted to implement virtual campuses [ 76 ]. The Coronavirus crisis has played an invisible hand to transform classroom coaching methods toward online pedagogy by forcefully making the stakeholders explore new avenues for e-learning development [ 77 ]. But the higher education institutions had to be closed forcefully and shift to online pedagogy due to the drastic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic [ 78 , 79 ]. Even most government services are being provided through online mode due to the current situation [ 80 ]. It has been observed in a research study that the incidents surrounding the social, educational, environmental, cultural, political, and economic aspects do have a substantial impact on the stakeholders of higher education institutions, which can create an immediate effect on the sentiments and moods of the people or entities relevant to the situation. These consequences can also be observed in the educational environment [ 81 ]. This research study also found that the majority of the higher education stakeholders responded that most of the social media usages had a positive impact on higher education institutions except for grievances and conflicts. Positive information is a piece of information that generates positivity among the sentiments, whereas negative information generates negativity among the moods of the individuals. But neutral information generates no reaction or neutral effect on social media users. Moreover, it has already been observed that the dissemination of negative information on social media is faster than positive or neutral information [ 82 ]. It has also been observed that countries with a huge number of individuals enrolling in higher education institutes have sustainable avenues for social, environmental, and economic development [ 83 ]. Various modular frameworks can be instrumental in the integration of higher education and ICT [ 84 ]. Social media usage will increase drastically to achieve the new normal during such trying times of the Coronavirus crisis. Social media will play a key role in addressing accessibility and acceptability issues among the stakeholders of higher education institutes. E-awareness among the users of social networking platforms can help in improving usability also. Quality education can be achieved by rigorous improvement of educational strategies and increasing accessibility to all sections of society. Students can be motivated by the usage of technologies for advanced visualization [ 85 ] and social media analytics. Accessibility issues can be resolved technically by creating effective digital content for all types of ages because such risks of digital exclusion have been witnessed among adolescents and other sections of society also [ 86 ]. The present study may pave the way to implement effective measures to achieve sustainable development with the help of social media in higher education universally by maintaining harmony in the learner-centric environment along with stakeholders' enhancement.

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Acknowledgements

The research study was supported by the Ministry of Education. The cooperation provided by various higher educational institutions is also appreciated.

Author contributions

Both authors equally contributed to the research study.

Not applicable—no funding was received for conducting this research study.

Data availability

Declarations.

No potential conflict of interest was reported.

Publisher's Note

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Contributor Information

Sarthak Sengupta, Email: moc.liamg@883kahtras .

Anurika Vaish, Email: ni.ca.atiii@akiruna .

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Regions & Countries

Americans’ social media use, youtube and facebook are by far the most used online platforms among u.s. adults; tiktok’s user base has grown since 2021.

To better understand Americans’ social media use, Pew Research Center surveyed 5,733 U.S. adults from May 19 to Sept. 5, 2023. Ipsos conducted this National Public Opinion Reference Survey (NPORS) for the Center using address-based sampling and a multimode protocol that included both web and mail. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race and ethnicity, education and other categories.

Polls from 2000 to 2021 were conducted via phone. For more on this mode shift, read our Q&A .

Here are the questions used for this analysis , along with responses, and  its methodology ­­­.

A note on terminology: Our May-September 2023 survey was already in the field when Twitter changed its name to “X.” The terms  Twitter  and  X  are both used in this report to refer to the same platform.

Social media platforms faced a range of controversies in recent years, including concerns over misinformation and data privacy . Even so, U.S. adults use a wide range of sites and apps, especially YouTube and Facebook. And TikTok – which some Congress members previously called to ban – saw growth in its user base.

These findings come from a Pew Research Center survey of 5,733 U.S. adults conducted May 19-Sept. 5, 2023.

Which social media sites do Americans use most?

YouTube by and large is the most widely used online platform measured in our survey. Roughly eight-in-ten U.S. adults (83%) report ever using the video-based platform.

While a somewhat lower share reports using it, Facebook is also a dominant player in the online landscape. Most Americans (68%) report using the social media platform.

Additionally, roughly half of U.S. adults (47%) say they use Instagram .

The other sites and apps asked about are not as widely used , but a fair portion of Americans still use them:

• 27% to 35% of U.S. adults use Pinterest, TikTok, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and Snapchat.
• About one-in-five say they use Twitter (recently renamed “X”) and Reddit.  

This year is the first time we asked about BeReal, a photo-based platform launched in 2020. Just 3% of U.S. adults report using it.

Recent Center findings show that YouTube also dominates the social media landscape among U.S. teens .

TikTok sees growth since 2021

One platform – TikTok – stands out for growth of its user base. A third of U.S. adults (33%) say they use the video-based platform, up 12 percentage points from 2021 (21%).

The other sites asked about had more modest or no growth over the past couple of years. For instance, while YouTube and Facebook dominate the social media landscape, the shares of adults who use these platforms has remained stable since 2021.

The Center has been tracking use of online platforms for many years. Recently, we shifted from gathering responses via telephone to the web and mail. Mode changes can affect study results in a number of ways, therefore we have to take a cautious approach when examining how things have – or have not – changed since our last study on these topics in 2021. For more details on this shift, please read our Q&A .

Stark age differences in who uses each app or site

Adults under 30 are far more likely than their older counterparts to use many of the online platforms. These findings are consistent with previous Center data .

Age gaps are especially large for Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok – platforms that are used by majorities of adults under 30. For example:

• 78% of 18- to 29-year-olds say they use Instagram, far higher than the share among those 65 and older (15%).
• 65% of U.S. adults under 30 report using Snapchat, compared with just 4% of the oldest age cohort.
• 62% of 18- to 29-year-olds say they use TikTok, much higher than the share among adults ages 65 years and older (10%).
• Americans ages 30 to 49 and 50 to 64 fall somewhere in between for all three platforms.

YouTube and Facebook are the only two platforms that majorities of all age groups use. That said, there is still a large age gap between the youngest and oldest adults when it comes to use of YouTube. The age gap for Facebook, though, is much smaller.

Americans ages 30 to 49 stand out for using three of the platforms – LinkedIn, WhatsApp and Facebook – at higher rates. For instance, 40% of this age group uses LinkedIn, higher than the roughly three-in-ten among those ages 18 to 29 and 50 to 64. And just 12% of those 65 and older say the same. 

Overall, a large majority of the youngest adults use multiple sites and apps. About three-quarters of adults under 30 (74%) use at least five of the platforms asked about. This is far higher than the shares of those ages 30 to 49 (53%), 50 to 64 (30%), and ages 65 and older (8%) who say the same.  

Refer to our social media fact sheet for more detailed data by age for each site and app.

Other demographic differences in use of online platforms

A number of demographic differences emerge in who uses each platform. Some of these include the following:

• Race and ethnicity: Roughly six-in-ten Hispanic (58%) and Asian (57%) adults report using Instagram, somewhat higher than the shares among Black (46%) and White (43%) adults. 1
• Gender: Women are more likely than their male counterparts to say they use the platform.
• Education: Those with some college education and those with a college degree report using it at somewhat higher rates than those who have a high school degree or less education.
• Race and ethnicity: Hispanic adults are particularly likely to use TikTok, with 49% saying they use it, higher than Black adults (39%). Even smaller shares of Asian (29%) and White (28%) adults say the same.
• Gender: Women use the platform at higher rates than men (40% vs. 25%).
• Education: Americans with higher levels of formal education are especially likely to use LinkedIn. For instance, 53% of Americans with at least a bachelor’s degree report using the platform, far higher than among those who have some college education (28%) and those who have a high school degree or less education (10%). This is the largest educational difference measured across any of the platforms asked about.

Twitter (renamed “X”)

• Household income: Adults with higher household incomes use Twitter at somewhat higher rates. For instance, 29% of U.S. adults who have an annual household income of at least $100,000 say they use the platform. This compares with one-in-five among those with annual household incomes of $70,000 to $99,999, and around one-in-five among those with annual incomes of less than $30,000 and those between $30,000 and $69,999.
• Gender: Women are far more likely to use Pinterest than men (50% vs. 19%).
• Race and ethnicity: 54% of Hispanic adults and 51% of Asian adults report using WhatsApp. This compares with 31% of Black adults and even smaller shares of those who are White (20%).

• Estimates for Asian adults are representative of English speakers only. ↩

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Report Materials

Table of contents, q&a: how – and why – we’re changing the way we study tech adoption, americans’ use of mobile technology and home broadband, social media fact sheet, internet/broadband fact sheet, mobile fact sheet, most popular.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

‘Influencing the Influencers’: How TikTok Can Promote Positive Mental Health 

Leveraging Data to Make a Difference

Meet sph’s student content creators ..

Meet SPH’s Student Content Creators

Gwenyth Ip, Audeaneh Saberi, and Kavya Ganugapati craft reels, infographics, and other fun and engaging social media content to highlight education, research, and practice at the School of Public Health.

Student content creators Gwenyth Ip, Audeaneh Saberi, and Kavya Ganugapati (from left to right) with Summer Kaeppel (second from left), SPH’s social media and digital specialist. Photo by Kelly Culnan.

Megan Jones

The U.S. news media landscape is constantly evolving. News consumption via traditional channels, such as television, radio, and newspapers, is down, while news consumption via digital devices is up. For better or for worse , half of all U.S. adults report getting news from social media, and the proportion is even greater among young people. In this new era of communications, strategies for engaging audiences have changed dramatically, prompting the School of Public Health to enlist new messengers to promote its mission to the masses.

In 2023, SPH welcomed its inaugural cohort of student content creators tasked with crafting reels, infographics, and other fun and engaging social media content to highlight education, research, and practice. What was once largely a solo operation spearheaded by Summer Kaeppel , the social media and digital specialist in SPH’s Office of Marketing and Communications, has since transformed into a collaborative team effort. Now, three students dedicate five to ten hours per week to brainstorming, designing, and producing material for SPH’s Instagram , TikTok , LinkedIn , and Facebook profiles.

“The original reason we sought out student creators was to make our social media presence more representative of who the SPH community is and what it is about,” says Kaeppel. In 2022, 85 percent of current students reported regularly using Instagram, and over 70 percent said they referred to the SPH’s social media accounts as part of their decision-making process to enroll at the school.

“Content creation was the perfect way for me to bridge my passion for public health with making art and engaging with a lot of cool people,” says Kavya Ganugapati , who became SPH’s first student content creator when she began her role in May 2023. “My favorite part is probably getting to talk to different people and making people smile with content.”

Students like Ganugapati, who studies healthcare management in SPH’s Master of Public Health (MPH) program , are uniquely positioned to showcase campus life and translate research for lay audiences—activities essential to building and sustaining trust in public health, which surveys show has declined in recent years.

After the recent Alabama Supreme Court ruling in LePage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine , Ganugapati made a video explaining the watershed decision, which recognizes frozen embryos as children under state law. She expressed gratitude for the opportunity to both hone her video editing skills and learn more about the implications of the ruling from an expert, Nicole Huberfeld , the Edward R. Utley Professor of Health Law, Ethics & Human Rights and co-director of the BU Program on Reproductive Justice .

@bostonusph #CapCut Recently, the Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that frozen embryos created during fertility treatments should be considered children. SPH’s Nicole Huberfeld shares how this decision was reached and the implications that it could have on public health. #publichealth #health #bostonuniversity #news #student ♬ original sound – BU School of Public Health

“Social media provides so much perspective. It can be a great tool for learning and education,” says Audeaneh Saberi , an MPH student in epidemiology and biostatistics . Saberi and Gwenyth Ip , an advertising student in BU’s College of Communication , joined Ganugapati as student content creators in October 2023, rounding out what has since proven to be an all-star team. Kaeppel reports that post engagement (the sum of likes, comments, and saves) on SPH’s Instagram, for example, is up more than 250% from last year.

In her first TikTok for the School and one of her most popular posts to date, Saberi invites viewers to “get ready with her” as she shares her experience as an ex-vaper turned public health student, using the popular #GRWM trend to educate people on the long-term health effects of e-cigarettes, promote stronger consumer protections against dangerous additives used to flavor these products, and encourage users ready to quit.

@bostonusph GRWM while I tell you about my experiences as an ex-vaper turned public health student. You can learn more about studies referenced on our website Bu.edu/SPH #vaping #vapingfacts #bu #publichealth #gradstudent #publichealthstudent #quittingvaping #bostonuniversity #juul #publichealtheducation #fyp ♬ original sound – BU School of Public Health

“We can inform people about what is happening in the world of public health in small digestible ways,” says Saberi. Ip agrees.

“By being able to pair a video or infographic with a research article, I believe it helps visually translate research in a manner that aids understanding. As a visual learner myself, I think there is more we can do to support those who may not fully understand information through words alone,” says Ip. She also points out that because social media is free and open to everyone, posting public health content increases accessibility to information that might otherwise only live in dense academic journals, locked behind paywalls.

“I love that our digital landscape has transformed into a space where people can laugh, be educated, and have a good time,” Ip says. Her favorite creation to date is an infographic she calls “ SPH Wrapped ,” inspired by Spotify Wrapped , the audio streaming service’s viral annual marketing campaign providing listeners with data on their top genres, artists, and other activity over the past year. Ip’s version lists the School’s nine departments as its “top genres” and a selection of students, faculty, and alumni whose work was featured in stories published by SPH in 2023 as its “top artists.”

Another infographic Ip created takes inspiration from the game show Jeopardy to highlight SPH scholarship linking oil and gas flaring and venting activities to $7.4B in health damages. Jonathan Buonocore , an assistant professor of environmental health and a co-author on the study, says the post was “amazing” and gave Ip a “triple A+” for her clever design.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by BU School of Public Health (@busph)

While Kaeppel anticipated that the student creators’ varied experiences and fresh perspectives would amplify the reach and resonance of the SPH scholarship, their influence has exceeded her expectations.

“With their passion and creativity, we have been able to showcase the spectrum of our community’s work. From reproductive health to the public health implications of marketing at the Super Bowl, they let their personal public health interests guide them in creating important, informative, and sometimes funny content,” says Kaeppel. “They are also just fun, intelligent students who have added a lot of meaning to my role as social media specialist. In December 2023, an Instagram reel they all collaborated on garnered over 800k views. It was really exciting to have a ‘viral moment’ like that, and without the students, it would not have been possible.”

With Ganugapati and Saberi poised to graduate in May 2024, Kaeppel is seeking new student content creators to fill their shoes. To learn more about upcoming openings for these and other similar roles, please email [email protected] .

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The Opportunities and Challenges of Social Media in Higher Education: A Literature Review

• Review Article
• Published: 14 September 2021
• Volume 2 , article number  455 , ( 2021 )

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• Kam Cheong Li 1 &
• Billy Tak-ming Wong   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6584-4392 1  

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This paper presents a review of the use of social media for learning and teaching in higher education, as well as the opportunities and challenges revealed from its use. A total of 77 related case studies published from 2010 to 2019 were collected from Scopus and Google Scholar for analysis. The results showed that social media was usually used as a learning management system and for enhancing learner engagement. The use of social media has brought opportunities for educational practices in terms of its high popularity among students, and its capacity to support two-way communication, easy knowledge sharing, community building, and collaborative learning, which enhance student learning experience. The challenges reported in the case studies cover the blurring of the boundary between the public and private life of students and between the relationships of students and instructors, as well as its doubtful effectiveness for knowledge construction, the inadequacy of instructors’ pedagogical and technological skills, and the lack of integration with instructional design. The results suggest the need for further work on examining suitable ways of using social media which would be viewed positively and accepted by users. There should also be future work on surveying the need for support for instructors for their involvement in teaching with social media, and developing effective pedagogies which cope with the features of social media.

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Li, K.C., Wong, B.Tm. The Opportunities and Challenges of Social Media in Higher Education: A Literature Review. SN COMPUT. SCI. 2 , 455 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42979-021-00857-5

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Two UMD Researchers Elected to the National Academy of Education

Two University of Maryland faculty have been elected to membership in the National Academy of Education , one of the highest honors that an education researcher can achieve.

College of Education Professor Melanie Killen and Professor Emeritus Allan Wigfield are among the 14 leaders and scholars recognized in 2024. They join UMD Distinguished University Professor Patricia Alexander, who was elected to the academy in 2020.

“Drs. Killen and Wigfield’s bodies of work serve as markers of scholarly excellence in their fields. We are proud that their important findings on student success and equity come from the University of Maryland," said university President Darryll J. Pines.

The National Academy of Education advances high-quality education research and its use in policy and practice. It consists of U.S. members and international associates who serve on expert study panels that address vital issues in education and who are engaged in the academy’s professional development fellowship programs.

“Dr. Killen and Dr. Wigfield are both truly deserving of this recognition,” said Kimberly Griffin, dean of the College of Education. “Their research on how young people grow and develop—socially, morally and academically—has a vital impact on our understanding of human development and how educators and communities can better support all children’s growth and learning.”

Since joining the University of Maryland as an associate professor in 1994, Killen has earned the titles of professor of human development and quantitative methodology, affiliate professor of psychology and Distinguished Scholar-Teacher. Her research focuses on children’s social and moral development and theory of mind, including how children’s interpretations of others often reflect bias and prejudicial attitudes even when they also care about equality and fairness. She designed a school-based intervention program that has been shown to help reduce bias, change group norms and increase positive expectations of friendships with diverse peers.

“I am very honored to be elected to the National Academy of Education,” said Killen. “It is a wonderful opportunity to engage with other scholars in the field of education and to help launch research studies that address pressing educational issues in society today. I also look forward to being a mentor for scholars who will advance the next generation of research. It is a special pleasure to receive this award the same year with Allan Wigfield, a close friend and colleague.”

The University of Maryland has honored Killen with multiple awards, including the Graduate School’s Graduate Mentor of the Year Award and Undergraduate Mentor of the Year Award, as well as the Board of Regents’ Faculty Award in Mentoring. Killen is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, American Psychological Association and Society for the Study of Psychological Issues. She has written two books and co-edited five, including “Handbook on Moral Development” (1st, 2nd and 3rd editions) and “Morality in Everyday Life: Developmental Perspectives,” which won the Outstanding Book Award from the Moral Development and Education Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association in 1997. In addition, Killen is the former associate editor of the journals Child Development, Human Development and Early Education and Development. She holds an international professorship at the University of Kent at Canterbury, United Kingdom.

Wigfield, who joined the College of Education faculty in 1989 as an assistant professor, is now professor emeritus in the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, Distinguished Scholar-Teacher and University Honors faculty fellow. His research centers on how children’s motivation develops across the school years in different areas. He has designed interventions to help improve children’s reading motivation and comprehension, as well as to improve students’ STEM motivation and participation.

“I have a great deal of respect for the important work the academy does, and I have always been so impressed by the group of scholars and policymakers who are members. I am so excited and honored to be joining them. I am particularly pleased to be elected in the same year as my longtime colleague and friend Melanie Killen,” said Wigfield. “My own research, particularly my intervention work, is at the intersection of research and education policy, and so I look forward to contributing to the ongoing discussions about research-policy links that occur at the academy.”

Among his numerous awards for his research, teaching and mentorship, Wigfield has received the the Sylvia Scribner Award from Division C of the American Educational Research Association and the University of Maryland Graduate School’s Graduate Mentor of the Year Award. He is a fellow of the American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science. He is the former associate editor of the Journal of Educational Psychology and Child Development and the former editor of the teaching, learning and human development section of the American Educational Research Journal. In addition, he holds honorary international guest professorships at the Universities of Heidelberg and Tübingen in Germany, and Korea University.

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Brayboy, Bang to Chair One Book One Northwestern

Dean Bryan Brayboy (left) and Megan Bang are co-chairs of the One Book  One Northwestern program  for 2024-25

School of Education and Social Policy Dean Bryan Brayboy and Professor Megan Bang, director of the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research, will serve as 2024-2025 co-chairs for for One Book One Northwestern.

The 2024-25 selection is The Night Watchman , Louise Erdrich’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a fictional tribal leader who stands up to Congress when, in the 1950s, the U.S. government sought to disband tribes and take their land.

The book tells the story of tribal chairman Thomas Wazhashk, a night watchman for a factory where women of the Turtle Mountain Band, his niece Patrice among them, make Bulova watches and Defense Department ordnances with drill bits made of gemstones.

Charged with guarding the gems from theft, Wazhashk spends his long shifts keeping up with his work as leader of the tribal council and comes to realize the hidden objective of a bill proposed by Congress. If passed, the “termination bill” would overturn long-standing Native American tribal rights.

The book “reflects many important rich dimensions of history, community, family and more broadly human experience on the 100-year anniversary of the Indian Citizenship Act,” Bang said.

“I hope the book and the programming next year helps ignite our imaginations about what the next 100 years could and should be as we delve into all of the complexities Erdrich has masterly woven in her novel.” 

All incoming first-year and transfer students will receive a physical or electronic copy of the book. Students are encouraged to read the book to promote thought-provoking and authentic conversations across campus. There will also be a variety of University-wide programming surrounding the book.

“Louise Erdrich is not only an incredible writer, but she is also a remarkable storyteller,” Brayboy said. “All her books, and especially ‘The Night Watchman,’ help readers understand the human condition, the suffering and true stories of resistance attached to policies like termination. I love this book.”

Read more on Northwestern Now.