College students and social media: what’s left to know? Turns out, a lot! As social media has become part of the fabric of our students’ lives, researchers have been examining how it affects their identity development, decision-making, and campus engagement. This fast-paced, potpourri session will review a decade of research about college students and social media, including some not-yet-published findings.

1. The Role of Social Media in
Today’s College Student
Experience
Liz Gross
Penn State Social Media Summit
November 9, 2015
@LizGross144

2. Opportunity

3. Social Media and College
Students
A Decade of Research

5. 2005

6. 2006

7. Social networking sites
were first defined in the
literature by boyd and
Ellison (2007).

8. Early Social Media Research:

9. Early Facebook Research:
• Here’s how often college students use it
(Jones, Ramanau, Cross, & Healing, 2010; Judd & Kennedy, 2010; Hargittai, 2008)
• Here’s what they post about
(Selwyn, 2009)
• There are differences among users and non-users
(Hargittai, 2008)
• Students aren’t likely to utilize Facebook virtual
office hours with faculty
(Lei & Pitts, 2008)

10. Early Facebook Research:
• Students who spend more time on Facebook
spend more time on face-to-face activities
(Heiberger & Harper, 2008)
• Students who persisted to the second year were
more likely to use Facebook to connect with other
students at their institution
(Morris, Reese, Beck, & Mattis, 2010)

12. Early Twitter Research:
• When used to supplement an LMS for an online class,
Twitter has a variety instructional benefits, including:
– Respond to students quickly
– Teach concise writing
– Maintain a relationship after the course ends(Dunlap & Lowenthal, 2009)
• When using Twitter for learning Italian, more than
half of students responded positively, but a third had
negative opinions(Antenos-Conferti, 2009)

14. Post 2010 Research
• Correlation to student outcomes
– i.e., engagement, GPA
• Student identity development
• Better understanding of student perceptions of
institutional uses of social media
– Faculty
– Campus communicators
– Student activities

15. When faculty use Twitter
with students outside of
class, students report higher
levels of campus
engagement and have
higher GPAs. Junco, Heiberger, & Loken, 2011

16. When attempting to
correlate Facebook use to
student outcomes, type
of Facebook use matters.
Junco, 2011

17. Relationship of Specific Facebook
Activities to Student Engagement
# Creating or RSVPing to Facebook events
# Commenting
# Viewing photos
$ Posting photos
$ Checking up on friends
$ Playing Facebook games
Junco, 2011

18. Social Media
and Student
Identity
Development
Junco, 2014

20. Identity:
Conscious sense of
individual uniqueness
Erickson, 1968

21. Online
Disinhibition
Effect
Junco, 2014

23. Cons
• Bullying
• Shaming
• Threats

24. Cons

25. Pros
• Online class discussions
• New student Facebook groups
• Coming out or exploring LGBT identity
• Positive risk-taking

26. Campus professionals
should support student
engagement with social
media & validate the
exploration of their
identities online. Junco, 2014

28. Since 2010,
16,512 published doctoral dissertations
have “social media” in the text.
1,455 are relevant to higher education.
23 identify “college students” as a subject.
Based on a search of the ProQuest dissertation database.
I’ll review 5 of them for you.

29. Developing Digital Student
Leaders: A Mixed Methods Study
of Student Leadership, Identity
Development, and Decision-Making
on Social Media
Dr. Josie Ahlquist
California Lutheran University
2015
@josieahlquist

33. Percentage of 2,200 social media posts
from student leaders that were defined
as “appropriate.”

34. Colleges Need To Provide
• Guidelines, not policies
• Student leader contracts with positive
language
• Inclusion of students in campus social
media policy development

35. Ahlquist, 2015

36. An Exploratory Study of Students’
Use of Facebook and Other
Communication Modalities In Order
To Receive Student Affairs
Information
Dr. Alicia Huppe
University of North Texas
2011
@aliciahuppe

37. What student affairs
functions have you
accessed using Facebook
in the last year?

39. Percentage of students that had not
accessed any student-affairs related
pages on Facebook in the last year

40. What is the primary
method of
communication you’d
like us to use for student
affairs information?

41. Campus Topics
Student Events

42. Student Use of Social Networking
Sites: A Multi-Method Study At An
Access Institution
Dr. Jesse Robert Bishop
University of West Georgia
2015
@ProfJBishop

43. Social media plays a
significant role in the
daily lives of students.

44. Social media use in
academic settings is
limited.

45. Campuses and faculty
lack meaningful social
media presences.

46. Exploring the Role of Email,
Blackboard, and Facebook in
Student-Instructor Online
Interactions Outside of Class: A
Mixed Methods Study
Dr. Olivia Laura Halic
University of Tennessee
2011
@Olitzi

47. When students interacted
with a faculty member
online …

48. Percentage of students that reported
interacting with a faculty member using
email

49. 97% email
52% LMS
5% Facebook
1% IM
Ways Students Communicate
With Faculty Online

50. Email was perceived as
the “official” form of
communication with
faculty.

51. Facebook made students
feel like they had a
better connection with a
faculty member.

52. Students were more
likely to connect with
faculty on Facebook if
they sensed “a vibe.”

53. An Examination of the
Relationship Between the
Communication Methods Used in
Out-of-Class Student-Faculty
Interactions and the Content and
Frequency of Those Interactions
Dr. Liz Gross
Cardinal Stritch University
2015 @LizGross144

54. The more methods a
student uses to
communicate with faculty,
the more frequently they
communicate with them.

55. Average number of times students
report communicating with faculty in a
typical month

56. Students who use social
media to communicate with
faculty report twice as
many faculty interactions
than average.

57. 6% used to communicate with faculty
23% want to use it to communicate with faculty
3% used to communicate with faculty
10% want to use it to communicate with faculty

58. KEEP
CALM
AND
SUMMARIZE

59. College students are high-
frequency social media users
Social media is multi-channel
Platform usage is not universal

60. Social media contributes to
identity development
Personal and academic identities are
often viewed as mutually exclusive

61. Colleges could be doing more to role-
model productive use of social media
This will be difficult until all employees
are comfortable using social media

62. Students don’t view social media
as official communication
There are opportunities to connect with
some students using social media

63. Opportunities for “Unofficial
Communication”
• Take more risks
• Have more fun
• Prototype ideas

64. Because social media is
not “official,” when you
use it to impact a key
objective you will be
recognized.

65. Thank you.

66. Sources
Ahlquist, J. (2015). Developing Digital Student Leaders: A Mixed Methods Study of Student Leadership, Identity Development, and Decision-Making on Social Media. (Doctoral dissertation.)
Antenos-Conforti, E. (2009). Microblogging on Twitter: Social networking in intermediate Italian classes. In Lomicka, L. & Lord, G. (Eds), The next generation: Social networking and online
collaboration in foreign language learning. (pp. 59-90). Calico Monograph Series, No. 9.
Bishop, J.R. (2015). Student Use of Social Networking Sites: A Multi-Method Study At An Access Institution. (Doctoral dissertation.)
Dunlap, J. C., & Lowenthal, P. R. (2009). Tweeting the night away: Using Twitter to enhance social presence. Journal of Information Systems Education, 20(2), 129-136.
Gross, L. (2015). An Examination of the Relationship Between the Communication Methods Used in Out-of-Class Student-Faculty Interactions and the Content and Frequency of Those
Interactions. (Doctoral dissertation.)
Halic, O. L. (2011). Exploring the role of email, Blackboard, and Facebook in student-instructor online interactions outside of class: A mixed methods study. (Doctoral dissertation.) Retrieved
from: http://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/1185
Hargittai, E. (2008). Whose space? Differences among users and non-users of social network sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), 276-297
doi: 10.1111/1083-6101.2007.0396.x
Heiberger, G., & Harper, R. (2008). Have you Facebooked Astin lately? Using technology to increase student involvement. New Directions for Student Services, 124, 19-35. doi: 10.1002/ss
Huppe, A. (2011). An Exploratory Study of Students’ Use of Facebook and Other Communication Modalities In Order To Receive Student Affairs Information.
(Doctoral dissertation.)
Jones, C., Ramanau, R., Cross, S., & Healing, G. (2010). Net generation or digital natives: Is there a distinct new generation entering university? Computers & Education, 54(3), 722-732.
doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2009.09.22
Judd, T., & Kennedy, G. (2010). A five-year study of on-campus internet use by undergraduate biomedical students. Computers & Education, 55(4), 1564-1571.
doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2010.06.022
Junco, R. (2011a). The relationship between frequency of Facebook use, participation in Facebook activities, and student engagement. Computers & Education, 58(1), 162-171.
doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2011.08.004
Junco, R. (2014). Engaging students through social media: Evidence-based practices for use in student affairs. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Junco, R., Heiberger G., & Loken, E. (2011). The effect of Twitter on college student engagement and grades. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 27(2), 119-132.
doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2729.2010.00387.x
Li, L., & Pitts, J. (2008). Does it really matter? Using virtual office hours to enhance student-faculty interaction. Journal of Information Systems Education, (20)2, 175-186.
Morris, J., Reese, J., Beck, R., & Mattis, C. (2010). Facebook usage as a predictor of retention at a private 4-year institution. Journal of College Student Retention, 11(3), 311-322.
doi: 10.2190/CS.11.3.a
Selwyn, N. (2009). Faceworking: Exploring students’ education-related use of Facebook. Learning, Media and Technology, 34(2), 157-174.