Abstract
Research has shown that students perceive a distinct divide between educational and private use of social media. The present study explores this divide by focusing on master students’ perception of roles when using social media in a higher education context. A qualitative method has been used, mainly comprising of analyses of home exams and interviews, which were conducted with students enrolled in the master’s course “Social media technologies”. Results support previous research stating that students perceived a distinct divide between educational and private use of social media, and furthermore provide a more detailed understanding of this divide. The results from the study also indicate that there is yet another type of use: social media as a tool for career-building purposes, or what is labeled as professional use. Implications of social media for use in higher education are described through the analysis of three roles as performed by the individual: the student role in educational settings, the professional role for career-building, and the private role.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Andersen, P. (2007). What is Web 2.0? ideas, technologies and implications for education (Vol. 1(1)). Bristol: JISC.
Anderson, T., Poellhuber, B., McKerlich, R. (2010). Self-paced learners meet social software: an exploration of learners’ attitudes, expectations and experience. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 13(3).
Biddle, B. J. (1986). Recent development in role theory. Annual Review of Sociology, 12, 67–92.
Bonzo, J., & Parchoma, G. (2010). The paradox of social media and higher education institutions. In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Networked Learning (p. 917).
boyd, d. (2006). Friends, friendsters, and myspace top 8: writing community into being on social network sites. First Monday, 11(12).
Brown, S. A. (2012). Seeing Web 2.0 in context: a study of academic perceptions. The Internet and Higher Education, 15(1), 50–57.
Buckingham, D. (2007). Beyond technology: Children’s learning in the age of digital culture. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Clark, W., Logan, K., Luckin, R., Mee, A., & Oliver, M. (2009). Beyond Web 2.0: mapping the technology landscapes of young learners. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 25(1), 56–69.
DeAndrea, D. C., Ellison, N. B., LaRose, R., Steinfield, C., & Fiore, A. (2012). Serious social media: on the use of social media for improving students’ adjustment to college. The Internet and Higher Education, 15(1), 15–23.
Duffy, T. M., & Jonassen, D. H. (1992). Constructivism: New implications for instructional technology. In T. M. Duffy & D. H. Jonassen (Eds.), Constructivism and the technology of instruction: A conversation. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Doubleday.
Hogan, B. (2010). The presentation of self in the age of social media: distinguishing performances and exhibitions online. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 30(6), 377–386.
Hrastinski, S., & Aghaee, N. M. (2012). How are campus students using social media to support their studies? An explorative interview study. Education and Information Technologies, 17(4), 451–464.
Jones, N., Blackey, H., Fitzgibbon, K., & Chew, E. (2010). Get out of MySpace! Computers & Education, 54(3), 776–782.
Kaplan, A. M., & Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media. Business Horizons, 53(1), 59–68.
Kol, S., & Schcolnik, M. (2008). Asynchronous forums in EAP: assessment issues. Language, Learning and Technology, 12(2), 49–70.
Koole, M. (2013). Identity positioning of doctoral students in networked learning environments. PhD Thesis. Lancaster University.
Lewis, K., Kaufman, J., & Christakis, N. (2008). The taste for privacy: an analysis of college student privacy settings in an online social network. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 14(1), 79–100.
Madge, C., Meek, J., Wellens, J., & Hooley, T. (2009). Facebook, social integration and informal learning at university: ‘it is more for socialising and talking to friends about work than for actually doing work’. Learning, Media and Technology, 34(2), 141–155.
Margaryan, A., Littlejohn, A., & Vojt, G. (2011). Are digital natives a myth or reality? University students’ use of digital technologies. Computers & Education, 56(2), 429–440.
Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook. California: SAGE Publications Inc.
Miyazoe, T., & Anderson, T. (2010). Learning outcomes and students’ perceptions of online writing: simultaneous implementation of a forum, blog, and wiki in an EFL blended learning setting. System, 38(2), 185–199.
Nikolov, R. (2007). Towards web 2.0 schools: Rethinking the teachers professional development. In Proceedings of IFIP-Conference on Informatics, Mathematics and ICT: A golden triangle. Boston: June 27–29.
Papacharissi, Z. A. (2010). A private sphere: Democracy in a digital age. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Papacharissi, Z., & Mendelson, A. (2011). Toward a new(er) sociability: Uses, gratifications and social capital on Facebook. In S. Papathanassopoulos (Ed.), Media perspectives for the 21st century. New York: Routledge.
Robinson, L. (2007). The cyberself: the self-ing project goes online, symbolic interaction in the digital age. New Media & Society, 9(1), 93–110.
Robson, C. (2002). Real world research: A resource for social scientists and practitioner-researchers (Vol. 2). Oxford: Blackwell.
Säljö, R. (2003). Ingenting överträffar samtalet. Pedagogiska Magasinet, 1(3), 16–22.
Selwyn, N. (2006). Exploring the ‘digital disconnect’ between net-savvy students and their schools. Learning, Media and Technology, 31(1), 5–17.
Selwyn, N. (2009). Faceworking: exploring student’s education-related use of Facebook. Learning, Media and Technology, 34(2), 157–174.
Textalyser (2004). Bernhard Huber internet engineering company. Online software tool: textalyser.net.
Thompson, J. (2007). Is education 1.0 ready for web 2.0 students? Innovate, 3(4), 1–6.
Veglis, A. (2014). Models for integrating social networking in higher education. International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Information Technology, 3(3), 317–326.
Warren, C. A. (2002). Qualitative interviewing. In Gubrium & Holstein (Eds.), Handbook of interview research: Context and method (pp. 83–101). California: SAGE Publications Inc.
Wikiversity (2010). Types of social media. Retrieved April 17, 2013, from http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Web_2.0_/TYPES_OF_SOCIAL_MEDIA.
Wodzicki, K., Schwämmlein, E., & Moskaliuk, J. (2012). “Actually, I wanted to learn”: study-related knowledge exchange on social networking sites. The Internet and Higher Education, 15(1), 9–14.
Zhao, X., Salchi, N., Naranjit, S., Alwaalan, S., Voida, S., & Cosley, D. (2013). The many faces of Facebook: experiencing social media as performance, exhibition and personal archive. In ACM Proceedings of CHI 2013. Paris, France. 1–10.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Josefsson, P., Hrastinski, S., Pargman, D. et al. The student, the private and the professional role: Students’ social media use. Educ Inf Technol 21, 1583–1594 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-015-9403-7
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-015-9403-7