A review of social media in education: effects and attitudes

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to review previous studies focusing on the use of social media by teachers, students and educational researchers. The aim of the review on the current research studies is to find out what has been done with the use of social media for learning purposes, discuss their practical applications and discover its educational values. The emphasis of this review will be upon empirical findings rather than theoretical explanations. This review is organised into three sections that cover the major topics of current research: (a) applications of social media in education (e.g. methods applied in various research studies and the findings of different empirical research studies); (b) the effects of using social media (e.g. positive impacts of social media and negative impacts of social media) and (c) people's attitudes towards social media (e.g. students' perceptions of social media use in learning and faculty attitudes towards social media for teaching). The overall conclusion suggests that the social media may have the potential to improve learning. But there may be more positive effects if the social media tools are combined with the real interaction in class.