Overview:
The aim of my report is to contribute a more accurate understanding of the impact of social networking on a student. My anaylsis will be carried out on students from the University of Limerick through:
- A Quantitative Study to look at a student's engagement with social networking.
- A Qualitative Study to look at the attitudes and behaviors of a student towards social networking sites.
- Then a Documentary Film will be created to portray results/percentages from the surveys. Recordings from interview process, voice - overs etc will also be included.
Research Questions:
- RQ1 - Does the intensity of social networking use vary according to a student's gender, and/or the type of course they study in college?
- RQ2 - What are the attitudes and behaviors that students have towards social networking sites, does it influence their studies?
Methods of Research:
- Quantitative Study - Online Survey through UL Email, Survey Monkey (10 questions only), Facebook Application / Group - (40 - 60 Students, About 15 - 20 students from each course).
- Qualitative Study - Written/Online Survey through UL Email, Facebook Application, Face-to-face Interviews - (20 - 30, About 5 - 10 students from each course).
- Short Documentary - This will act as a visual representation of the results presented from my surveys and studies. Filming students through face-to-face interviews. Being creative with the figures and percentages produced from the Quantitative study.
- The courses I will be comparing in these studies are Business, Games and Music.
Prioritizing of Goals:
- Minimum - Quantitative Study
- Then - Qualitative Study
- Like To Have - Documentary Film
Approximation of Dates:
- Quantitative Study - October 26th
- Qualitative Study - December 14th
- Documentary Film - February 26th
Literature Review:
Online Social Networking on Campus - Understanding what matters in a student culture:
- Ana M, Martínez Alemám
- Katherine Lynk Wartman
Preface:
- The innovation of online social networking has presented an interest in understanding college and university cultures.
- We embarked on this project eager to know how this early 21st century generation of college and university students appreciate, value, construct, and negotiate student culture online.
- In the chapters that follow, I hope to provide an insight into the the dynamic that computer-mediated communication (CMC) through online social networking sites (SNS) has brought to college campus culture and in doing so will help both student affairs practitioners and higher education researchers better understand contemporary online college culture.
- The new campus includes the online campus.
- Understanding how students' make use of SNS has implications for specific administrative areas of college campuses such as judicial affairs, college counseling, new student orientation, first-year experience programs, student leadership, residence life, campus activities, career development, athletics etc.
- These sites can be used creatively and productively to benefit students development and to build positive campus communities.
- Describe and examine the role SNS plays in students' campus cultures, their perception of the value of their SNS use, and to explain and interpret behavior on these sites. How and why they use SNS and what they believe to be it's rewards and problems, what effects they perceive it to have on campus culture.
- The Stanford University Virtual Human Interaction Laboratory has supported research that suggests that online social behavior can change real life behavior (Bailenson, Yee, Blascovich, & Guadagno, 2008).
- As new media grows in connectivity, content, applications, and user populations, a new kind of transparency is emerging. Increasingly, Net-geners don't see the technology at all. They see people, information, games, applications, services, friends and protagonists at the other end. They don't see a computer screen. (Tapscott, 1998, p.39).
Social Networking - by OFcom
Structure of Report:
1) Engaging with Social Networking Sites:
- Internet penetration and awareness (broadband penetration)
- Awareness of social networking users and profile of users (awareness of terms)
- Use of social networking sites (Numbers of participation / Numbers of profiles)
- International comparisons
- Main social networking sites that students are using
- Frequency of using social networking sites
- Rules and restrictions on social networking sites by parents
2) Understanding Behaviours and Attitudes towards Social Networking Sites:
- Summarising social network users into groups (Alpha socialisers / Attention seekers etc.)
- Summarising the non-users into groups (Technically inexperienced / Rejecters etc. )
3) How People Use Social Networking Sites:
- Setting up a profile
- Reasons for participation
- Online identity
- Building a network
- Main activities to do
- Communication with other users
- Tool for less confident/ tool for self-promotion
- Addiction
- Features of social network sites
- Online functions - applications
- Tool for engaging with political and social issues
- Advertising / Marketing / Information mining
4) Privacy and Safety
- Privacy concerns
- Privacy awareness
- Areas of potential risk (large section)
5) Literature Review on Harm and Offence
- American life group and Pew internet mentioned
6) Glossary of Terms Used in Social Networking
7) Research Methodologies
References:
- Valenzuela, S., Namsu, P. and Kerk, K. (2009) Is There Social Capital in a Social Network: Facebook Use and College Students' Life Satisfaction, Trust and Participation. University of Texas Austin.
- Lenhart, A. and Madden, M. (2007) Social Networking Sites and Teens: An Overview. Pew Internet and American Life Project.
- Goad, R. and Mooney, T, (2007) The Impact of Social Networking in the UK available: http://mel.hemstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/hitwise-social-networking-report-2008.pdf
