Abstract
Social networking (SN) technology has been presented to human beings as a means of communicating, collaborating, connecting, and cooperating to exchange knowledge, skills, news, chat, and to maintain contact with peers world-wide. This article examines SN awareness in the Asia-Pacific (AP) education sector (ES) with a specific focus on the advantages and disadvantages of SN; and investigated whether AP culture influences SN adoption by the ES. An online survey was distributed to 1014 AP students and a total of 826 students responded. Several new advantages of adoption emerged from the data analysis. SN enabled students to accomplish their study tasks more quickly; it allowed them to communicate and collaborate with peers world-wide; and it fostered sustainability. The disadvantages perceived by students include depression, loneliness, and distraction, lack of interest in pursuing traditional activities, and security and privacy concerns. Finally, culture does influence SN adoption by ES institutions in AP countries.
Highlights
Social networking in the education sector’s assessment and teaching activities has been adopted and integrated as an essential tool in recent curricula to promote students’ personal and professional skills for their current studies and their future in the workforce
This study confirmed that students are living in different countries, they perceive the same advantages and disadvantages of Social networking (SN); this means that culture is capable of influencing the adoption of SN by Asia-Pacific students since they are living in the same region and share the same attitudes and mind-set regarding SN adoption in the education sector
This study examined the Asia-Pacific students’ attitudes and behaviours regarding the use of SN in their studies, and whether their culture influences their use of SN
Summary
Social networking in the education sector’s assessment and teaching activities has been adopted and integrated as an essential tool in recent curricula to promote students’ personal and professional skills for their current studies and their future in the workforce. Students have begun to use SN to gain more knowledge about other countries, communities, issues and news, and to share their thoughts and opinions with their peers This type of interaction will allow students to develop several skills including personal skills such as motivation, leadership, negotiation, communication, problem solving, time management, and reflection, and professional skills such as reading, writing, research, search, critical thinking, decision making, digital oral presentations, diagrammatic representations such as concept maps, and teamwork. Such skills can improve and enrich students’ learning in their current studies and will be indispensable to them in the workforce. This paper is organized as follows: 1) Introduction; 2) Social Networking in the Higher Education; 3) SN Advantages; 4) SN Disadvantages; 5) SN use in Asia Pacific; 6) Asia-Pacific -Cultural Orientation based on Hofstede’s cultural framework; 7) Research Method and Questions; 8) Participants; 9) Results, Discussion; 10) New Theoretical Findings and Contribution; 1) Limitations, and 12) Conclusion
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