Abstract
The twenty first century has witnessed a swift development in the production and usage of the Social Media Technology. Universities and other tertiary institutions have eagerly welcomed this development. However, a number of educationalists and material developers have foreseen the dangers of undue reliance and misuse of technology by these university students. This research wants to find out how productive do Solusi University students use the Social Media Technology. Questionnaires were distributed and collected from a randomly selected Solusi University student body (N=108) by the researchers. Data obtained from questionnaires was computed using the SPSS package. Results indicated that students were knowledgeable about the social media and they mainly used computers and mobile phones for their social media needs. Students mainly used the following social media types: social networks, for example, Facebook and MySpace; Social Search, for example, Google and Wikis for example Wikipedia. Findings also showed that students mainly used the social media for academic purposes and social communication, that is, what the social media is intended for. The step wise regression analysis showed a coefficient of .784 which is an indicator of a strong relationship between what the social media is ethically intended for and what it was used for by Solusi University students. An F value of 6.818 indicated that the regression was true and not by chance. Key words: Social media technology; social networking; tertiary institutions.
Highlights
The present age is the age of technology; the period during which people, especially the youths and the young adults, spend most of their time engaged on Social Media Technology (SMT).This generation of users is known by many names, for example, generation Y, avant-garde and the millennials
Sheldon (2008) estimated that more than 50% of college students go on a social networking site several
Which are the benefits and challenges encountered by Solusi University students in the use of the social media?
Summary
The present age is the age of technology; the period during which people, especially the youths and the young adults, spend most of their time engaged on Social Media Technology (SMT).This generation of users is known by many names, for example, generation Y, avant-garde and the millennials. Tsvere et al (2013) researched on the use of Information Technology in University Academic Business at Chinhoyi University in Zimbabwe Their findings revealed that there is a significant relationship between university academics’ digital competence and their gender and experience in using the internet, that is, male academics’ IT competencies were higher than those of females. Another research carried out at Ohio State University on the relationship between SM and students grades revealed the same results with the one above in that they too found out that college students who used Facebook spent less time on studying and resultantly had lower grades than those who did not use SM networking sites, Kalpidou et al (2011). Which are the benefits and challenges encountered by Solusi University students in the use of the social media?
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
