Impacts of social media usage on the outcomes of students’ everyday life information seeking

Abstract

University students’ social media use for everyday life information seeking (ELIS) opens up opportunities for seeking information from weak ties, but it may exacerbate issues such as information overload. Currently, it is unclear whether social media use affects the outcome of ELIS. The current study surveyed undergraduate and graduate students to test whether the frequent uses of (a) social networking sites (SNS), (b) microblogs, (c) social question and answer sites (Social Q&A), and (d) Web search engines affect (a) level of satisfaction with the quality of ELIS results and (b) level of difficulty in ELIS. Gender and study level were included as control variables. ANOVA tests of the 1,144 responses found that the frequent use of SNS, microblogs, and Web search engines each had significant effects on ELIS satisfaction level. Frequent microblog use had a significant effect on ELIS difficulty. Interestingly, the effects of SNS, microblogs, and Web search engine usage showed a U-shaped relationship. The heavy-users as well as non-users of social media experienced higher level of satisfaction and lower level of difficulties. It was the occasional users who were more troubled, as were underclassmen and master's students. These user groups could benefit from more social media information literacy training. The current study shows that social media use does make a difference in ELIS. Future studies may further test the influence of social media use on specific types of ELIS problems.