Early Findings of a Study Exploring the Social Media, Political and Cultural Awareness, and Civic Activism of Gen Z Students in the Mid-Atlantic United States [Abstract

Navigating Social Media in #Ophthalmology

The emergence of social media has immensely influenced how the younger generations participate and interact in the discussion of the different societal and governmental issues. Thus, it is imperative to formulate information-media literacy and digital citizenship guidelines that may help promote healthy and safe political engagements and participation in the virtual space. In this study, the impacts of social media to the adolescents’ political awareness, participation, and activism were assessed and analyzed. Using the descriptive-correlational-comparative design, 523 senior high school students, aged 17-19 years old, were asked to answer the 50-item researcher-made questionnaire, Social Media Use, Political Participation, Awareness, and Activism (SMPPAA) Survey. The data were analyzed using mean, standard deviation, Pearson’s coefficient of correlation, t-test, and ANOVA. The results revealed that the adolescents often use social media as a tool for presenting their political interests and to a great extent had relied on online information to get updates on political issues. The adolescents’ political participation, awareness, and activism did not significantly differ with respect to their age, sex, religious affiliation. There was differing level of political awareness among the adolescents as regards their socio-economic status. Moreover, the results affirmed the ideas propounded in the Cognitive Engagement Theory and Interest-Driven Theory regarding the influence of social media usage and reliance to online information with the development of the adolescents’ political awareness, participation, and activism.

Recently Published Dissertations on Community and Junior Colleges

Students' social media use has quickly gained attention given the effect of considerable time spent on and widespread usage of social media on their development and success. The study aimed to examine whether high school students' social media use predicts more school engagement and less burnout for those who were more successful in controlling their social media use in goal-conflict situations. A sample of 107 Chinese high school students (M age = 19.21, SD age = 1.85, 68% female) participated in an online survey. The results showed that social media self-control failure moderated the relationship between general social media use (rather than social media use intensity) and school engagement. A simple effect test revealed that more general social media use predicted higher school engagement for students who were more successful in controlling their social media use. However, no moderation effect was observed of social media self-control failure on the relationship between social media use intensity (or general social media use) and burnout. The results partially supported the study demands-resources model and indicated the potential benefits of controllable social media use on high school students' engagement in the face of high academic demands.

Today's rapidly growing use of social media has both positive and negative impacts on people's social lives. Moreover, based on UNESCO data, Indonesian people are very active in using social media. This research aims to The use of social media as a learning medium aims to increase students' interest in learning, improve students' ability to use technology and increase students' awareness in using social media in the context of education. The method used in this research is a quantitative method using a survey model and in-depth interviews with one teacher and students. The results of this study show that social media can be used for learning tools or media. However, in reality, currently there is no maximum use of social networking media. The results of researchers' observations by looking at the growing phenomenon, that the use of social networking media is currently mostly only used by students to be limited to sending messages with friends, playing games (games), and buying goods online. The use of social networking media is currently still not utilized as a learning medium by students. The conclusion of this research is that media in the learning process is an inseparable part of the teaching and learning process in order to achieve an educational goal in general and learning objectives. Strategies to be able to find learning media. The right and appropriate in the learning process can be done by making considerations in the selection of social media. Therefore, the limitation of this study is that researchers only conducted research on the role of the Discovery Learning strategy in Islamic cultural history lessons, researchers hope that future researchers can conduct research on the Discovery Learning strategy by developing this strategy in other subjects.

BackgroundEarly adulthood is a turning-point for educational attainment and family formation. Our understanding of whether family formation predicts educational attainment is incomplete for two growing populations: unmarried families and community college students. This study examined whether family formation among college students ages 18–24 predicts educational attainment at ages 25–32.MethodsWe test our hypothesis using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent and Adult Health attending community college (n = 1,530) and 4-year college (n = 2,897) in 2001 with graduation outcomes measured in 2008: certificate or above, associate’s degree or above, and bachelor’s degree or above. We estimated adjusted relative risks of each level of educational attainment using multivariate Poisson regression with robust standard errors controlling for pre-college grade-point average, test scores, college expectancies, demographics, socioeconomic status, and health risk behaviors.ResultsFour-year college students with children were 23% less likely to have earned a BA 7 years later than students without children [adjusted relative risk (ARR) = 0.77, 95% confidence interval (CI) (0.68, 0.89)], but community college students with children did not differ from students without children in attainment of certificate or above, associates or above, or bachelors or above [ARR = 0.93 (0.77, 1.13); 0.85 (0.67, 1.09); 0.61 (0.36, 1.04)]. Community and 4-year college students who were willing to leave college for marriage were, respectively, 71 and 21% less likely to have attained a bachelor’s or above than students who did not endorse leaving college for marriage [ARR = 0.29 (0.10, 0.83); 0.79 (0.67, 0.94)].ConclusionCommunity colleges may accommodate students with families better than 4-year colleges. Young adults who plan to start families during college may have higher educational attainment if they begin in community college. Colleges should reinforce persistence attitudes and provide material supports so that students do not perceive incompatibility between marriage and college completion.

Objective: Social media has become integral to everyday life, including among emerging adults. Surveys showed that Instagram has become one of emerging adults' most popular social media. Social media could facilitate emerging adult developmental tasks, such as identity exploration. Further, social media uses integration concepts to explore how individuals build emotional connections and involve social media in their daily social routines. Additionally, it is essential to view social media use integration based on educational background. This study explored differences in social media use integration among emerging adults based on education level. Method: A cross-sectional study design was conducted among 305 men and women emerging adults. Participants completed a self-administered questionnaire comprising demographic characteristics and a Social Media Use Integration scale. Data were analyzed using descriptive analysis and one-way ANOVA statistic technique. Results: Descriptive analysis results showed that individuals with a high school education level had the highest social media use integration scores compared to groups from other education levels. Further, education level notably contributed to the score difference in social media use integration among emerging adults. Novelty: This study contributed to exploring further the social media use integration among emerging adults, specifically in the context of educational background.

Learning about evolution is a foundational part of biology education, but most current studies that explore college student evolution education are conducted at universities. However, community college students tend to be more diverse in characteristics shown to be related to evolution education outcomes. To explore how studies involving university students may generalize to community college students, we surveyed students from seven community college (n = 202) and nine university (n = 2288) classes. We measured students’ evolution interest, acceptance, and understanding, and for religious students, we measured their perceived conflict between their religions and evolution. Controlling for state and major, we found that community college students had similar levels of evolution interest as university students but perceived greater conflict between their religions and evolution. Further, community college students had lower evolution understanding and acceptance compared with university students. Religiosity was a strong factor predicting community college and university students’ evolution acceptance. However, unique to community college students, evolution understanding was not related to their macroevolution or human evolution acceptance. This indicates that, although some results between community college and university students are similar, there are differences that have implications for evolution instruction that warrant the need for more evolution education research at community colleges.

The importance and frequency of social media in marketing communication is undeniable today, especially when the target of such communication are young people (and the puropse is advertising and overall improvement of internal communication). Social media are the main source of information for youth as well as virtual space where they can express and present themselves in the best possible way. The significant role of using social media in everyday communication has been recognized by institutions of higher education and they have become an essential part of their marketing mix. Ultimately, the students are the ones who have the main role in acquiring new communication technologies and their communication networks have tendency to be dense and layered (Quan-Haase, 2007). That is the reason why new technologies like social media are mostly accepted and used by high school and university students. In this paper authors analyse the meaning, influence and usage of social media in the context of institutions of higher education and present the findings of an online survey conducted among teachers in such institutions in Croatia. By analysing the results, authors got 104 replies who helped them to get an insight into activities of institutions of higher education on social media as well as the usage of certain social media by private institutions compared with the public ones. This research confirmed that private institutions of higher education are on the overall more active in the usage of social media. However, Chi-squared test showed almost no difference in usage of the most popular social media Facebook and Instagram in private and public institutions of higher education, whereas there is a difference in usage of other social media. In this research, the intensity of certain social media usage in general in Croatia was also compared with the level of their usage in institutions of higher education.

Background: Social media use is now a central aspect of adolescent life and development. Little is known about the clinical implications of social media use in children and adolescents presenting in acute crisis for psychiatric admission. This study sought to compare the potential effects of social media use among middle and high school students on outcomes of psychiatric morbidity. It was hypothesized that among social media users, high school students would have greater psychiatric morbidity compared with middle school students. Methods: The research team extracted clinical and demographic data from adolescents (aged 12-17 years) presenting for acute psychiatric admission who also had documented social media use (N = 56). Educational status, middle school (n = 21) versus high school (n = 35), was examined as an independent variable. Psychotropic medication use, self-injurious behavior, suicide risk, and suicidal ideation were examined as dependent variables in logistic regression models. Results: High school students using social media had significantly greater predicted odds of psychotropic medication use and self-injurious behavior compared with students in middle school who used social media. High school students using social media had greater, although not statistically significant, predicted odds of suicide risk and suicidal ideation compared with middle school students using social media. Conclusions: Social media use is likely an important factor to consider in psychiatric evaluations. The present findings suggest that social media use in high school students is associated with greater psychiatric morbidity compared with middle school students. Further research could illuminate the developmental lines of social media use and age-specific risks.

#trial: clinical research in the age of social media

In the context of considerations on the potential attenuation of the negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic with the use of credible social media in online education during a pandemic, the subject of our own research was the fulfillment of two goals. The main research goals were to identify, categorize, and evaluate the possibilities of using social media in online education during the pandemic from the perspective of selected teachers and students from secondary schools in Slovakia. The research methods of the first phase (qualitative) of the research involved brainstorming among nine secondary school teachers. The second research phase (quantitative) used a questionnaire, which was completed by 102 high school students from all over Slovakia. The collection of both quantitative and qualitative data was used in this research. The research results revealed the most representative opinions of teachers on the current and real possibilities of engaging credible social media in online education and the views of high school students on their desired use and involvement of social media in online education. The intersection of the two findings presents a picture of the possibilities of using credible social media in online education, which can help maintain students’ interest in online education during a pandemic. Based on these findings, it can be stated that the opinions identified in the research group of teachers correspond to a large extent with the desired use of social media in education from the perspective of students. In addition, however, students would welcome more opportunities to use and engage social media in today’s online education. The result of this research is an analysis of social media patterns applied to online education, which are of greater interest to students and could act as elements for reducing the negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, i.e., six forms of online education and 24 educational activities that could contribute, inter alia, to mitigating the different negative effects of the pandemic among youth generation. The findings also benefit from the presentation of many specific options and recommendations for the use of social media in online education during a pandemic.

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this study was to inform policymakers on current gambling beliefs, motives, and behaviors of both community college and university students in an effort to evaluate the extent of problem gambling in the overall college student population. To examine differences in gambling and problem gambling between community college and university students, 398 community college and university students completed a series of gambling-related surveys. The surveys captured types and frequency of gambling and assessed for gambling beliefs, motives, and correlates of problem gambling, as well as problem gambling treatment exposure. Students were screened for problem gambling using the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI). In addition to comparative analyses of gambling differences between college types, a logistic regression model was developed to further examine significant associations of at-risk/problem gambling. Having an alcohol and/or other drug (AOD) problem and being under a doctor’s care during the past 12 months because of physical or emotional problems brought on by stress were significantly associated with at-risk/problem gambling. Also significant, community college students were found to be 38.5% more likely to engage in at-risk/problem gambling than university students. Community college students experience a significantly higher rate of at-risk/problem gambling than university students (30.7% vs. 22.0%). Epidemiological data presented in this report have the potential to aid in the development of needed gambling addiction services for community college students.

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Objective: Alcohol marketers have increasingly moved their advertising efforts into digital and social media venues. As a result, the purpose of this study is to investigate associations between students’ use of social media, their exposure to alcohol marketing messages through social media, and their alcohol-related beliefs and behaviors. Participants: Public and private university students (N = 637) participated November and December 2011 and April 2012. Methods: College students completed online surveys to measure their exposure to social and online media generally, as well as their alcohol-related digital media use and alcohol use. Results: Use of social media related to alcohol marketing predicted alcohol consumption and engaging in risky behaviors, whereas the use of social media more generally did not. Conclusions: Students’ use of alcohol-related social media–marketing content associates with their problem drinking. Results have implications for alcohol abuse reduction efforts targeted at college students and suggest the importance of considering social, cultural, and cognitive factors in campaign planning and design.