JRN 200
11/4/14
Slug: Social Media Benefits
In a era of #YOLO and #tbt, members
of the Michigan State University community say virtual communication has
positive uses beyond trending hashtags and meaningless texting.
MSU students, professors and
researches MISSPELLING: RESEARCHERS,
STED RESEARCHES said social media sites and other online communities aid
education and information HYPHEN HERE
sharing.
According to Christine Greenhow, an assistant professor in
the College of Education at MSU, online communities can be beneficial to
student learning.
“Now, with low barriers to online
participation and widespread adoption of mobile internet-connected devices
students can seek and solicit help from their online social networks as well as
readily share ideas and information,” said Greenhow via email.
In a study published in the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, four
sections of the same class used Twitter for class purposes and three sections
did not. The Twitter using sections reported higher engagement levels
and had a higher average GPA, beating the non-Tweeting group by about .5 0.5, PER AP STYLE points on a 0-4.0
scale.
MSU senior Mitchell Alpiner said he
likes using Twitter for class activities because he hates “watching a talking
head reading off a PowerPoint slide that's posted online. Reading and
interacting and making snarky comments keeps me engaged in the material, and
helps me feel like I have a voice in the class.”
Beyond class use, students said
they utilized social media to gather information about friends, celebrities and
various businesses.
“I just like to check to see what’s
going on with people that I know” along with “musicians, and actors that I like
and companies that I would like to find stuff out about,” said MSU freshman
Nicholas Russo.
Russo said he checks Twitter every
couple of hours throughout the day and discovers new information posted about
events and business promotions.
According to Brandon Van Der Heide,
an assistant professor and researcher of communication at MSU, the presence of
businesses on social media and online customer reviews has increased customer
knowledge and awareness.
Research from the Harvard Business
Review Analytics Services said 50 percent of businesses that use social media
claim their target customers have an “increased awareness of our organization,
products or services” due to social media accounts.
Van Der Heide said the availability
of information on social media “is certainly different from the way we used to
find out about a good restaurant. It used to be the case that you would either
hear about it from a friend primarily, or advertisements or a mass media
source.”
According to Van Der Heide, online
communication is not replacing in-person interactions but is just a different
way to give and receive information.
Van der Heide said, “Often people
will tend to assume face to face communication is this gold standard where in
really true interpersonal messages can be transmitted,” but online
communication is an effective way to quickly share information.
MSU freshman Grace Hough said she prefers
to meet up with people in-person but she relies on texting for a convenient way
to arrange meeting times and places.
“It’s fun to meet up with people
places instead of just texting them because you can do things like meet in a
cafeteria and have coffee with someone, and it’s just fun to interact and be
around people,” said Hough.
Alpiner said he also prefers to
meet up with people in-person because “being in-person lets me react quicker
and hear the inflection, as well as see the body language of the people I'm
interacting with.”
Alpiner said though in-person
communication has benefits, he also enjoys online communication because “being
online gives me a few more seconds and minutes to think about what I'm going to
say next.”
According to Van Der Heide, people
use social media and other online communities to carefully craft messages and
express their best qualities, but this is not a new concept.
“We’ve always had the hand written
letter so we have always had the opportunity to carefully present ourselves,
but I think the ubiquity and the ease of access to computer mediated
communication has led to a more regular use of that kind of thing,” said Van
Der Heide.
Van Der Heide said the availability
of social media also helps people communicate with friends and family who are
far away.
According to a Common Sense Media
research study, 88 percent of teens with social media accounts said it helped
them keep in touch with friends they cannot see regularly.
Hough said she uses social media
and texting to communicate with her sisters who are in high school because she
cannot see them in-person very often.
“It’s a nice way to keep in touch,”
said Hough.
Word Count: 764
Christine Greenhow
Assistant Professor
Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology and Special
Education
Ed.D., Harvard University
http://www.cgreenhow.org/
513F Erickson
517-432-0425
Brandon Van Der Heide
Assistant Professor of Communication
Mitchell Alpiner
MSU Senior
alpiner.mitchell@gmail.com
Nicholas Russo
MSU Sophomore
810-860-8385
Grace Hough
Freshman
616-298-5899
houghgra@msu.edu
Harvard Business
Review Analytics Services http://www.sas.com/resources/whitepaper/wp_23348.pdf
Journal of Computer Assisted Learning http://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/administration/president/sparc/meetings/docs/StudentEngagementArticle.pdf
Common Sense Media
Research
ASSIGNMENT GRADE: (redacted)
INSTRUCTOR COMMENTS:
VERY NICE WORK, BUT WHAT KEEPS IT FROM BEING PERFECT ISTHAT WE DON’T TALK TO
ANY TEACHERS (NOT RESEARCHERS/NEUTRAL EXPERT TYPES) WHO USE AND DON’T USE
SOCIAL MEDIA IN CLASS TO GET THEIR TAKE ON IT. THINK OF AND REPORT ALL SIDES OF
A STORY.
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