According to below paragraph need to find out a research question and write literature review. On the basis of below paragraph first need to find a research question and then pick two different article which answer the research question and Then write a literature review of it. MLA style and Citation are must and it contain almost 700 words. 

265

Benefits and distractions of social Media
as tools for UndergradUate stUdent learning

Emily Emerick
Paul Caldarella
Sharon J. Black

Brigham Young University

Implementing social media in college classrooms can substantially
enhance learning: facilitating teacher-student and student-peer com-
munication; providing access to the professor- and student-posted
information along with the resources of the internet; and promoting
collaborative and responsive learning in many forms. But the exces-
sive, unwise, or inconsiderate use of social media in the classroom can
detract from the learning of the user and her classmates. A population
of 447 undergraduate students enrolled in a college of fine arts and
communications, completed an online survey created to explore their
levels of social media use and their perceptions of how social media
were contributing to and distracting from their education. Responses
revealed that these students accessed their social media accounts an
average of 32 times a day, yet a majority of them did not consider
social media important to their formal education, and many found it
to be distracting.

Keywords: undergraduate students, social media, classroom learning

An undergraduate music professor re-
ceived a last-minute invitation for her night
class to attend a final rehearsal for an upcom-
ing concerto performance. She emailed her
students and also posted an announcement on
Blackboard (the university’s teacher-student
online network) telling her students to meet
at the concert venue for a class that evening.
Fewer than half of the students received the
message on either source. Most of them, how-
ever, had checked their Facebook accounts at
last 30 times during the day.

The above example illustrates how today’s
students are known as digital natives (Ahern,
Feller, & Nagle, 2016; Prensky, 2001). Most
have grown up surrounded by various forms

and uses of technology; they have been
sending messages, playing games and ac-
cessing information since early childhood.
They think, reason, learn and communicate
digitally as easily they as do these things in
their native language (perhaps more easily).
As young adults, these natives receive most of
their information and communication through
social media, so they prefer social media—
particularly Facebook—to email, Blackboard,
Learning Suite (Ahern et al., 2016), or other
less socially oriented and socially complex
technology. Social media are changing the
way they communicate with others, from
close-by peers to individuals who may share
their interests around the world (DeAndrea,

266 / College Student Journal

Ellison, LaRose, Steinfield, & Fiore, 2012).
In a study by Gikas and Grant (2013), a ma-
jority ranked mobile technology as important
to their education and were critical of faculty
members who did not incorporate social me-
dia into their courses. These digital natives
considered social media learning to be more
organic, more authentic, and more suitable for
their needs.

Educators on all levels are frequently irri-
tated by students focused on their social me-
dia during class. Major difficulties can arise
from media distraction, along with its shock-
ing prevalence. Tindell and Bohlander (2012)
found that 92% of the 269 student participants
indicated they sent text messages during class;
some even texted during exams (p. 1). But
some professors wonder if the “enemy” can
somehow be an ally. Published studies have
shown that if college teachers can utilize so-
cial media as part of their instruction, student
learning is often enhanced inside and outside
the classroom (Dabbagh & Kitsantas, 2012).
Both advantages and disadvantages need to
be carefully considered in the context of each
class specifically. This article includes liter-
ature, possible applications, and quantitative
survey data on both sides of the debate. The
review and applications are combined and
extensive, due to the complexity and contro-
versial nature of the topic.

Social Media Use
The term social media is broadly used to

describe any number of technological sys-
tems related to collaboration and community
(Joosten, 2012) which enable individuals
or groups to connect without boundaries or
restrictions via the World Wide Web. These
media can provide platforms for people to
form a community, share information, ex-
pand global networks, provide real-time up-
dates, or learn of breaking news. People can
upload photos and videos, support causes,
and make comments, as well as approve or

disapprove of other people’s posts, pictures,
or updates. The ability to access digital in-
formation so readily and instantaneously
provides students with unparalleled commu-
nication and networking power.

Students can access social media accounts
not only from computers, tablets, and their ev-
er-present phones but by using smart-watches
as well. In 2005 an estimated 12% of adults
ages 18–29 used social media; in 2015 that
use was 90% (Perin, 2015). In 2007 the
Higher Education Research Institute found
that 94% of first-year college students used
social networking websites at least weekly. In
2010 Facebook passed Google as the number
one search site on the internet (Nurik, 2010),
and by the end of 2017 there were over 2.13
billion active Facebook users (Facebook,
2017)—those who used Facebook from dai-
ly to once a month—1.37 billion of whom
logged in daily. The greatest percentage of
users (29.7%) are between the ages of 25-34.
Other platforms are joining the stampede: In
2018 approximately 8,179 tweets and 867 In-
stagram photos were uploaded every second
(Internet Live Stats, 2018). The two most
popular sites, also the most extensively used
by college-age students, are Facebook and
Instagram (Internet Live Stats). Facebook us-
ers can post comments, share photographs or
links to news or other interesting web content,
play games, chat live, instant message, up-
date their status, and even stream live video.
Shared content can be made accessible to all
or remain within boundaries and parameters
the user selects for privacy. Facebook serves
as a tool for communication, collaboration,
and creative expression (Dabbagh & Kitsan-
tas, 2012).

Instagram, owned by Facebook, is the
most popular photo capturing and sharing
application. Primarily designed for mobile
phone use, it allows users to take a picture
from a phone and instantly manipulate a va-
riety of filters, graphics, or add-ins to make

Benefits And Distractions Of Social Media / 267

shared photos visually appealing. Approx-
imately 800 million people use Instagram
monthly, and 500 million use it daily, with
over 40 billion total photos shared as of
January 2017 (Aslam, 2018). Posts can be
cross-shared on multiple social media sites
simultaneously via Instagram.

Educational Benefits
With its platforms for expression and

connectivity, social media use can provide
powerful enhancement for learning when
professors and teachers find ways to incor-
porate it into their course instruction. Mark
Zuckerberg wrote of his original intentions
for creating Facebook, “What we’re trying
to do is make it really efficient for people
to communicate, get information, and share
information” (quoted. by Locke, 2007, p. 1).

Sharing information and resources. On
its simplest level, as in the example that opens
this article, a teacher can quickly communi-
cate course information to students. The use of
social media has also demonstrated increased
teacher-student and student-student interac-
tion. Recent studies have mentioned teachers
offering out-of-class help to students, deliv-
ering lectures and posting lectures by others,
and engaging in discussions with students
(Chugh, 2018). Students can also communi-
cate with each other: to extend the example
of the music rehearsal, a student familiar with
the concerto could share information to help
his classmates better appreciate it. Someone
playing in the accompanying orchestra might
give more personal insights—perhaps sharing
an amusing early rehearsal story. Answers and
extensions can be shared in real time, which is
time efficient for all involved.

Additional resources for extended reading
or research can be posted on Facebook’s com-
mon-interest user groups or news postings
when relevant. Teachers and students can post
examples of visual artwork as photos, short
videos or even 3D posts. Links can, of course,

take course participants anywhere on the in-
ternet, including YouTube for specific solo or
group musical performances, dance sequenc-
es, or videos of scenes from plays or films.
When teachers provide access and structure
effectively, Facebook can serve as an edu-
cational accelerant (Gikas & Grant, 2013).
Students can access these links on course
sites provided by university systems. How-
ever, social media systems have a bill-board
and media-ad advantage—their content is
right in front of people who pass them nu-
merous times a day and can’t help noticing
them. People of all ages react to audio and
visual content they wouldn’t seek out—just
because it’s there. It’s more likely (and more
natural) for them to notice something as
they pass it looking for something else than
it is that they’ll often check on the course
web affordance.

Learning on demand. Referred to as
learning on demand, Dabbagh and Kitsan-
tas (2012) considered three main reasons
students access the internet: to “address a
problem at work, to deal with something at
school, or to just satisfy a curiosity” (p.3). On
Facebook, students can use the “news” func-
tion to access information or ideas transmitted
as news stories develop around the world.
Through links, students can access videos
and live-streaming with every breaking news
story. An entire class in news writing or news
broadcasting in the fine arts/communications
college could tap into a wave of coverage of
an event that interests them. Comparing and
contrasting different forms of coverage and
different commentators would allow them
a multifaceted critical learning opportunity.
Various related projects could help them be-
come “active co-producers of content” (Dab-
bagh & Kitsantas, 2012, p. 3) as they create,
share, and upload their thinking.

Professors and teachers can share class-rel-
evant information, documents, and messages
directly with the entire class, saving valuable

268 / College Student Journal

time and resources (Gikas & Grant, 2013) as
they supplement traditional textbooks and
lectures with content that may be more ex-
citing and more motivating for the students.
Lectures by the world-acclaimed experts;
performances by world-renowned musicians,
dancers, or actors; or exhibits of visual arts
from countries they might never visit can be
posted to enrich their classroom experienc-
es. For example, drama students desiring to
perform a particular play can access com-
mentary describing ways in which producers
and directors have re-set the play in other
time periods and circumstances, examining
pictures of costumes and sets that can help
them understand processes and options. As
they split up aspects and examples, they can
form a Facebook special interest user group
so all can learn a broad amount of material by
looking up a limited piece.

Classes in fine arts tend to stimulate in-
teresting side issues and applications which
some students might want to learn more about
“just to satisfy a curiosity.” If some students
in an introductory or survey music class are
curious about the Australian aboriginal in-
strument Didgeridoo, someone can easily find
and post pictures and a 1-minute video with
sound on Facebook (or Instagram if she has
been to a performance and seen/heard one).
Information on demand through social media
can also be more student-centered and more
customized, as student groups set their param-
eters for group members to search for it, and
individual students request according to their
interests and needs.

Collaboration. When students are as-
signed a group project, what Lévy (2001)
referred to as collective intelligence gives
them the potential to achieve a better outcome
than any one person could achieve individu-
ally (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Gikas and
Grant (2013) noted that social media could be
a “participatory, friendly environment for the
growth of new ideas” (p. 19). Students seem

highly motivated to collaborate using Face-
book, particularly Facebook Groups; 81%
of students in a study conducted by Ahern et
al. (2016) found these resources to be “very
easy” to use. These researchers recommend
that professors step aside and have students
organize, mediate, and manage, their own
groups. Students can more easily sustain their
group’s composition and projects, as students
themselves insist on information/knowledge
that is compelling and rich enough to keep
their interest throughout the course (Ahern
et al., 2016). Student-centered learning, sub-
ject to student preference and control, can be
among the most significant benefits.

With its ability to offer interaction in real
time, Facebook is useful for collaboration
and writing projects (Shaw, 2017). Some
professors encourage this, while others find
that the nature of effective feedback for
writing is not maximized with this method,
particularly when more than two students are
involved. Facebook Messenger, which offers
the features of many other social media apps
is helpful for collaboration on projects. Stu-
dents can engage in multi-communication
as they engage with text messages, voice
calls, video calls, and games with multiple
participants, at the same time sending files,
editing photos, and exchanging GIFs and
stickers. However, so many conversations
can simultaneously occur that users may
easily get distracted and confused, according
to Facebook’s online explanation of the tool
(Davis, 2017); thus teachers’ use of purpose-
ful planning is necessary for collaboration
with this advanced system.

Facebook’s feature 3D Posts allows in-
teractive access to three-dimensional assets,
through News Feed (Franklin, 2017). Stu-
dents working with ceramics or sculpture can
post their work for a small group of critical
friends or an entire class. Virtual reality is
now becoming available, as “An emerging
community of artists are pioneering brand

Benefits And Distractions Of Social Media / 269

new types of immersive media, like VR
sculpting in Oculus Medium and painting
with Quill. They’re reinventing the art world
with 3D stories and films made specifically
for VR” (Franklin, 2017, p.1).

Social Media as Distraction
Along with benefits, difficulties can oc-

cur, particularly as social media can distract
students’ attention from their coursework
and dull their motivation for academic in-
struction and activities. For example, having
mentioned many advantages of social media
for teaching and learning, the Derek Bok
Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard
University warned, “With those advantages,
of course, come an equal and opposite set of
possible disadvantages, and for many instruc-
tors the latter outweigh the former” (2018,
n.p.). Of college students participating in a
2012 study, 54% felt that teachers would be
shocked if they knew how much texting was
going on during class (Tindell & Bohlander,
2012). These students studied out the class
situation and were careful they would not
get caught. Room size and arrangement, par-
ticularly large dance or dramatic performane
rooms, are contexts students find convenient
for sneaking texts and other social media use
(see Tindell & Bohlander, 2012).

Students claim they are merely multi-
tasking when they use Facebook in class for
reasons other than lesson involvement; but
research has found that this “multitasking”
results in significantly lower test scores
(Kuznekoff & Titsworth, 2013) and lower
total grade point averages as well (Junco &
Cotton, 2013). Professors have noted that in
addition to checking Facebook, students play
games, text or tweet, and engage in other
digital activities. But the most extensive dis-
traction offender seems to be texting. Tindell
and Bohlander (2012) found that 92% of the
students in their sample had sent or received
text messages in class, and 30% admitted that

they did so every day. Texting and similar
distractions interfere with students’ ability for
self-regulation, which affects their cognitive
learning abilities that are necessary for pro-
cessing information, which include, in addi-
tion to attention and working memory, both
short- and long-term memory and metacogni-
tion; losing capacity in any of these areas im-
pacts others (Kuznekoff & Titsworth, 2013).

Researchers agree that one of the deficits
that most impact students’ learning and their
grades is that they do not take effective class
notes. Notetaking aids comprehension and
memory as students go through the processes
of encoding in addition to the more obvious
function of providing external storage of in-
formation for later study (Kuznekoff & Tits-
worth, 2013). Students in Kuznekoff and Tits-
worth’s study who had not been using social
media in class recorded 62% more informa-
tion in their notes, including more details, and
were able to recall more detailed information
specifically from the lecture afterward. Their
test scores were higher by a letter grade and
a half. Courses involving a variety of histor-
ical, social, cultural, political, economic, and
biographic details—as might be involved in
music, art, or film history courses—would be
particularly penalized by inadequate/inaccu-
rate notetaking practice.

Some researchers have been particularly
disturbed by the effects of clandestine class-
room social media use on other students.
Students admit that activities like texting
are distracting to students sitting nearby and
possibly to the instructor as well (Derek Bok
Center, 2018; Tindell & Bohlander, 2012).
Although students are instructed to put their
phones on “vibrate” or “mute” or else turn
them off during classes, this doesn’t always
happen. A ringing phone or a loud announce-
ment of a text disrupts the entire class. Also
of concern is academic honesty. Tindell and
Bohlander (2012) noted that students cheat on
tests by calling up information stored on the

270 / College Student Journal

phone or by using the internet to find answers.
Some use text messaging to get answers from
friends: They found that 10% of the partic-
ipating students admitted they had sent or
received a text while taking an exam (12% of
the students refused to answer the question).

Study Purpose
Given the complexity and controversy

surrounding this topic, more research on so-
cial media presence in college classrooms is
desirable. We conducted a survey, specifically
targeting Facebook and Instagram, regarding
students’ use, distraction, and academic per-
formance among undergraduate fine arts ma-
jors, as social media use in this population has
been largely unstudied. This study addressed
the following research questions: 1. What
social media accounts do undergraduate fine
arts students have? 2. How often are these
students accessing social media accounts? 3.
To what degree do these students use social
media for educational purposes? 4. To what
degree does social media use contribute to
these students’ education? 5. To what degree
does social media use distract these students
from their college education?

Method
Setting and Participants

Participants consisted of a purposeful
convenience sample of 447 undergraduate
students in a college of fine arts and commu-
nications located at a private university in the
U.S. Intermountain West. According to the
college website, 3,966 undergraduate students
were enrolled across 21 degree programs in
six departments in the college at the time of
this study. Demographics of the college par-
alleled the survey participants’ demographics
(see Table 1).

Table 1. Student Participant
Demographics Compared with College
Demographics

Item Category Sample College

Gender Male 41% 37%

Female 69% 63%

Age Mean 22 29

SD 2.66 3.02

Year in School Freshman 5% 5%

Sophomore 17% 13%

Junior 26% 22%

Senior 52% 60%

GPA Mean 3.56 3.40

SD .37 .45

Measures
The researchers created a 17-item survey

consisting of Likert-type questions, with
anchors ranging from 1 = strongly disagree/
very unlikely to 5 = strongly agree/very
likely. Questions were created to assess the
amount of time students spent daily and
weekly on Facebook, Instagram, and a cat-
egory composed of other social media and
to indicate their perceptions of the value
of social media in their education and their
ranking of the importance of social media
to student success. They were also asked to
estimate the level of distraction they expe-
rienced with social media and compare it to
the distraction level of face-to-face (person-
al) course interactions Student demographic
data were also collected. Researchers esti-
mated that the survey could be completed in
under five minutes.

Three widely used previously published
surveys were considered as model patterns
for this instrument. The Anxiety Test (Psy-
chology Today, n.d.) and the 360 Assess-
ment of Stress Levels (American Institute
of Stress, 2018) were used as guides. The
Higher Education Research Institute (2007)
had published a social networking survey for

Benefits And Distractions Of Social Media / 271

freshmen, which also aided in the develop-
ment of this survey. Emphasis was placed on
understanding students perceptions of social
media use.

Procedures
The survey was administered using

Qualtrics, an online survey administration
platform selected for cost-effectiveness, use-
fulness, and data availability. Strengths of
an online survey study include accessibility
to students and convenience of automatic
data collection. The researchers received
Institutional Review Board approval to use
de-identified data to protect the confidential-
ity of student responses.

All students with a declared major in the
college of fine arts and communications (n =
3,966) received an email requesting them to
participate in a “brief survey on social media
usage,” assuring them that participation was
optional and anonymous, and stating that no
reward or incentive would be given. No pass-
word was required. The survey could only be
taken once by each student; 528 surveys were
started, and 447 responses were finished, for
a completion rate of 84%. The final total re-
sponse rate was 11.2%.

Research Design and Analysis
A descriptive survey study was select-

ed as the research design, since this is an
appropriate methodology when assessing
participants’ attitudes and beliefs, as well
as their personal behaviors that cannot be
readily observed (Martella, Nelson, Morgan,
& Marchand-Martella, 2013), such as social
media use. Descriptive statistics were used to
interpret the data and to facilitate analysis of
the relatively large sample size. Means, stan-
dard deviations, and percentages were used to
summarize Likert ratings.

Results
This survey study was undertaken to

explore undergraduate students’ perceptions
regarding their current level of social me-
dia use and the effects of such use on their
learning. The first research question asked
students which social media accounts they
maintained. Results showed that Facebook
was the most popular account, followed by
Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter, as repre-
sented in Table 2.

Table 2. Students’ Self-Reported Social
Media Accounts

Type of Account N %

Facebook 434 31

Instagram 388 27

Snapchat 299 21

Twitter 198 14

Other 103 7

To address the second research question,
students were asked how often they accessed
their social media accounts. As shown in
Table 3, the average number of times a day
students reported logging on to their top so-
cial media accounts was a combined total of
32.82, while the weekly average was a com-
bined total of 226.39.

Table 3. Average Number of Times
Students Reported Logging on to Social
Media Sites

Social
media

account

Daily
mean

SD

Weekly
mean

SD

Instagram 12.09 10.60 87.17 79.74

Other 11.18 14.44 69.99 97.02

Facebook 9.55 16.14 69.23 96.40

Total 32.82 13.73 226.39 91.05

272 / College Student Journal

Responding to the third research question,
students indicated the degree to which they
were using social media for educational pur-
poses. Of the students surveyed, 49% marked
agree or strongly agree that they used social
media for educational purposes, 25% selected
neither agree or disagree, while 26% dis-
agreed, indicating that they did not use social
media for educational purposes.

The fourth research question asked stu-
dents to assess how important they consid-
ered social media to be in their education.
A minority of 7% rated social media as
extremely important, 12% marked very im-
portant, 29% marked moderately important,
33% marked slightly important, and 19%
marked not important at all. A total of 39%
of surveyed students responded that they
had a class that required use of social media.
Furthermore, 49% of students indicated that
they were at that time using social media for
academic purposes.

The final research question examined stu-
dents’ perception of the level of distraction
associated with social media use compared to
distraction from traditional face-to-face inter-
actions. As can be seen in Table 4, students re-
ported comparable levels of distraction from
social media use (78.65%) compared to face
to face interactions (74.27%).

Discussion
Using social media tools for learning

can promote a more student-centered course
(Greenhow, Sonnevend, & Agur, 2016). Stu-
dents are given more personal choice, cus-
tomization and familiarity (Hoffman, 2009),
as well as executive management opportu-
nities (Ahern et al., 2016), with tools like

Facebook’s Groups, News, and Messenger
(Davis, 2017), along with 3-D and virtual re-
ality posts (Frankin, 2017), creating a more
individualized, person-centered, worldwide
classroom. However, there are also concerns
that social media may be distracting and in
some cases hinder student progress (Derek
Bok Center, 2018; Kuznekoff & Titsworth,
2013; Tindell & Bohlander, 2012), though
more research is needed.

The primary purpose of this study was to
determine undergraduate fine arts students’
perceptions of the importance of social me-
dia use for learning, considering the degree
to which students use social media accounts
as part of their undergraduate learning and
how such use may be distracting. Students’
responses concerning their social media
accounts were consistent with the results
reported by others (Internet Live Statistics,
2018; Smith, &Anderson, 2018): Facebook
and Instagram were the two most popular
social networking sites overall and the sites
most used by individuals 25-34. Snapchat
and Twitter (also ranked in the study) are
becoming more popular specifically with the
college-age users (Smith & Anderson, 2018).
According to Smith and Anderson (2018)
YouTube, used by 73% of U.S. adults and
94% of 18-24 year-olds, actually outranks
Facebook’s 68%. YouTube is not categorized
as traditional social media, despite having
social elements, but since links to YouTube
can be shared on Facebook, its usage may be
relevant in considering relationships between
college education and social media.

What is concerning is that although they
engaged with social media an average of 32
times per day, 52% of these students did not

Table 4. Face-to-Face Distraction Level vs. Social Media Distraction Level

Type Strongly disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree

Face-to-face 3.39% 8.13% 14.22% 53.50% 20.77%

Social media 2.02% 7.42% 11.91% 52.58% 26.07%

Benefits And Distractions Of Social Media / 273

consider social media important to their ed-
ucation. This finding has important implica-
tions for both professors and students, as such
social media use may be distracting students
from their educational progress, rather than
facilitating it as others have noted (Derek Bok
Center, 2018; Tindell & Bohlander, 2012).

On the survey for this study, 39% of the
students indicated that they had class assign-
ments requiring them to use social media.
An additional 10% noted that they use social
media for educational purposes. Consider-
ing the ability of Facebook News to provide
extensive and varied coverage of current
worldwide happenings professors teaching
courses in news media would likely find
infinite ways of having students critique
examples of coverage and create articles
and scripts based on facts and viewpoints
they have learned. The School of Commu-
nications within the College of Fine Arts
and Communications in this study also has
a course in advertising. Social media would
provide many examples for that course as
well. Similarly, professors of courses in-
volving creation or performance in any of
the arts could post examples as subjects for
critique or as mentoring samples for various
techniques. Reviewing potentialities and
applications might be helpful in thinking
out what might be appropriate and useful
for particular course content, objectives,
and students.

Students are not limited by assignments
and requirements. Facebook groups can be or-
ganized by any group of students interested in
learning together, and these students are able
to determine and manage acceptable content
and appropriate procedures. Their learning
experiences are self-initiated and self-direct-
ed; choices include what they want to learn
and how. For example, students enrolled in
“World Music Cultures” might organize a
group interested in one of the lesser-known
areas so they could share with each other what

they unearth in their investigations, possibly
preparing a presentation to acquaint others
with this minority art form. Another affor-
dance for music might be applied as a student
is preparing for a recital. Those who desire
feedback from critical friends may be limited
by when a practice room is available and who
can come at that particular time. The “My
Day” feature in Facebook Messenger allows
videos (revealing hands as well as sounds) so
that a recitalist can perform and receive feed-
back regardless of the geographical locations
of helpful colleagues.

Students taking courses in photography,
especially those preparing a senior portfolio,
can easily share their work with a small group
or wide number of individuals on Instagram.
They can experiment with some aspects of
photo editing right on the platform to get
others’ reactions, opinions, and suggestions
regarding their options.

Regarding distraction, over 78% of stu-
dents reported social media use as distract-
ing, with levels similar to distractions from
in-person interactions. Teachers and students
need to consider carefully whether in their
particular situation they can plan, apportion,
schedule and control media use to avoid po-
tential losses. Tindell and Bohlander (2012)
learned that students are less likely to text in
class if their professor has a policy against
texting and they know that she really cares.
Researchers have also suggested that teachers
explain to students the cognitive risks and
lower-score likelihood described by Kuzne-
koff and Titsworth (2013) so they can make
decisions informed by more than a momen-
tary desire for a social media incident.

Limitations
Some weaknesses of this study should

be considered. First, the survey sample was
self-selected from the population of students
in a college of fine arts and communications.
Voluntary participation might have resulted in

274 / College Student Journal

a systematic selection bias, as students were
enrolled in a college where study is focused
on creativity, artistry, and communication.
Testing a sample from another college or de-
partment population and considering the lit-
erature from a focus on this group of students
may yield a different result. More colleges
and other universities would need to be sur-
veyed to increase external validity,.

The self-administration of the survey also
holds potential flaws. Students who complet-
ed it may have listed inaccurate answers if
a social bias might have influenced them to
list more or less use than their usual practice.
Also, some students may have been unaware
of the actual extent of their use. The self-re-
ported GPA question also leaves room for
error/biases as there may have been a social
desirability to inflate this value. Finally, the
research question regarding disruption was
not focused or detailed enough; students in-
dicated whether a social media use was more
or less disruptive than a face-to-face encoun-
ter. To realistically consider the difficulties
described in the literature by the presence of
social media in educational circumstances
and settings, more specifics would need to
be questioned on the survey on in an inter-
view format.

Conclusions
The goal of this study was to add to the

research base on possibilities for social me-
dia to enhance classroom learning in higher
education, without neglecting its potential
to distract. Previous research has introduced
a considerable variety of possible benefits,
along with some sobering recognition of
possible losses if social media use is not
thoughtfully instituted and controlled.
Digital natives are arriving at college with
lifestyles centered on navigating social me-
dia websites and staying connected online.
Some of their professors are also natives;
some may still have immigrant status, being
adept at using functions they need and want
but less “organic” and “authentic” about
having life immersed in this culture. Both
benefits and risks must be considered by
both in a cross-cultural exchange they can
accept as agreeable and appropriate.

Benefits And Distractions Of Social Media / 275

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