Twitter’s Impact on Engagement and Grades

This paper describes our semester-long experimental study to determine if using Twitter – the microblogging and social networking platform most amenable to ongoing, public dialogue – for educationally relevant purposes can impact college student engagement and grades. Results showed that the experimental group had a significantly greater increase in engagement than the control group, as well as higher semester grade point averages. Analyses of Twitter communications showed that students and faculty were both highly engaged in the learning process in ways that transcended traditional classroom activities. This study provides experimental evidence that Twitter can be used as an educational tool to help engage students and to mobilize faculty into a more active and participatory role. As there is continuing growth in the use of social media by college students and faculty, it is hoped that this study will motivate further controlled studies of Twitter and other social media to evaluate how emerging technologies can be best used in educational settings and to tease out the variance between the effects of the actual technology and of the ‘Web 2.0 mentality.’

Junco, R., Heibergert, G., & Loken, E. (2010). The effect of Twitter on college student engagement and grades. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 27(2), 119-132. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2729.2010.00387.x

News Gathered on Social Media

In a Pew Research Center report that is part of a series aimed at understanding how news and information habits relate to the use of Twitter and Facebook among the American public, it was found that clear majorities of Twitter (63%) and Facebook users (63%) now say each platform serves as a source for news about events and issues outside the realm of friends and family. That share has increased substantially from 2013, when about half of users (52% of Twitter users, 47% of Facebook users) said they got news from the social platforms. Although both social networks have the same portion of users getting news on these sites, there are significant differences in their potential news distribution strengths. The proportion of users who say they follow breaking news on Twitter, for example, is nearly twice as high as those who say they do so on Facebook (59% vs. 31%) – lending support, perhaps, to the view that Twitter’s great strength is providing as-it-happens coverage and commentary on live events.

Mitchell, A., Barthel, M., Shearer, E., Gottfried, J., Matsa, K. E., Keeter, S., Porteus, M., & Greenwood, S. (2015). The evolving role of news on Twitter and Facebook. Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center. http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2015/07/Twitter-and-News-Survey-Report-FINAL2.pdf

More Cyberbullying on Instagram

Scientists from Ditch the Label, an anti-bullying charity, conducted a study to determine how social media can cause anxiety among youth. By surveying more than 10,000 people aged 12 to 20, they examined cyberbullying on Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. Overall, over half of people had been sent a nasty private message and slightly less than half of people said they had a nasty comment posted on their profile. But Instagram was the most concerning. They found that slightly less than half of Instagram users had been bullied on the platform compared to a third for Facebook and Snapchat, and a tenth for YouTube and Twitter. Researchers suggest that the industry and civil society should develop a set of core values in the digital environment. They also suggested that tech companies should respond faster to online conflicts, concerns and inappropriate content. 

Ditch the Label (2017). The annual bullying survey 2017. Los Angeles, CA: Ditch the Label. https://www.ditchthelabel.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/The-Annual-Bullying-Survey-2017-1.pdf