Review of “Introduction: Reshaping Campus Communication and Community through Social Network Sites,” Chapter 2, 2008 ECAR Study of Undergraduates and Information Technology

The use of social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook and MySpace by undergraduates is on the rise. As reported elsewhere in this newsletter, the 2008 ECAR Study of Undergraduates and Information Technology found that 85.2% of the students surveyed use SNS, and many use SNS on a daily basis. Further, the study shows that Facebook is the most popular SNS among undergraduates, who use SNS for social as well as academic and professional purposes: for example, 49.7% of the respondents reported that they use SNS to “communicate with classmates about course-related topics.”

Students are not the only avid SNS users in higher education. An online discussion of social networking sites on The Chronicle of Higher Education, for instance, makes it clear that university faculty and staff are finding SNS to be useful tools for communicating with students and for building social and professional networks with friends and colleagues from across the world.

Anyone who is curious about these developments and their implications for higher education will find a useful and thoughtful summary of the topic in Chapter 2 of the 2008 ECAR study, “Introduction: Reshaping Campus Communication and Community through Social Network Sites.” This chapter was written by Nicole B. Ellison, an assistant professor of telecommunication, information studies, and media at Michigan State University. Ellison’s chapter begins with a brief history of SNS, which she defines as “web-based services that allow individuals to 1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, 2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and 3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system” (20). Ellison argues that anyone involved in higher education should understand SNS “because these sites are fundamentally changing the social fabric of the university” (19).

Of particular interest to faculty is Ellison’s commentary on how students are using SNS to engage in informal, peer-to-peer learning. For example, citing a study she conducted with colleagues at Michigan State, Ellison notes that while only 10% of the surveyed students said that they had used Facebook “as part of an assigned class exercise, about half had used it to discuss classes or schoolwork, and about one-third reported using Facebook to ‘collaborate on an assignment in a way that your instructor would like.’” Further, 69% had used Facebook “to contact another student with a question related to class or schoolwork” (28). Although Ellison does not clarify the types of collaboration and questioning that these students were doing on Facebook, she makes a convincing case that faculty who utilize and facilitate peer-learning activities should learn about how their students are already using SNS for similar purposes.

While a logical next step would be to incorporate the use of an SNS into a course assignment, Ellison discusses several reasons why faculty are often reluctant to use SNS in a course, including the fact that doing so could create problems by blurring the boundary between their social lives and their professional roles as instructors. Ellison also points out that many students are resistant to the prospect of faculty incorporating the use of sites like Facebook into required course work. Students often perceive, and value, these sites as online spaces whose purpose is socializing and play rather than completing academic work, and they do not want to have to concern themselves with what their instructors might think about the information that appears on their SNS profiles.

Ellison does include a few examples of specific pedagogical uses of SNS. Most of these examples utilize SNS as a means to disseminate information quickly or to facilitate online discussions. Using SNS may hold some advantages over other tools for disseminating course materials and announcements, Ellison suggests, given that some students check their SNS profiles more often than their email accounts or course Web pages. The appeal of facilitating online discussions on SNS, on the other hand, lies in the possibility that the discussions will be enhanced by the students’ ability to “get to know one another” by seeing one another’s online profiles.

More revolutionary, in Ellison’s view, will be uses of SNS that are “informed by sound pedagogical practices, drawing upon concepts such as digital literacy to articulate the instructional potential of these tools” (27). The one example that Ellison cites of such an approach is a Stanford University computer science course in which students created Facebook applications and then used Facebook to try to persuade other Facebook users to download the applications. This example helps to illustrate the potential efficacy of having students use Facebook to “publish” their work online and then receive feedback on it from their peers and the public. However, it remains unclear whether this example is relevant to a broad range of disciplines and courses. As Ellison points out, furthermore, very little research has been done to assess whether and how the use of SNS can improve student learning.

One of the most interesting topics discussed by Ellison is gleaned from her own research, which has suggested that the use of SNS can lead to increased levels of “social capital,” or the benefits gained through social relationships. For example, Ellison notes that SNS are particularly useful for building relationships among “weak ties,” or people who are not close friends and family. Indeed, many of the people that SNS users count as “friends” on their profiles are people they rarely, if ever, meet in person. Ellison notes that while it is family and close friends who most often provide us with emotional and financial support, it is often “weak ties” who provide us with “access to diverse perspectives and new information” (22). Such benefits are not only important to the intellectual development of university students, as Ellison points out, but also crucial to scholars, whose research often benefits from, and, in many cases, depends upon collaboration with colleagues at other institutions. Ellison’s research thus offers at least a partial answer to what she terms “a valid question” about social networking sites: “What is the point of keeping in touch with people you wouldn’t otherwise talk to?” (24). 

While there remain many questions about whether and how social networking sites will be useful and effective teaching and learning tools in higher education, Ellison’s thoughtful presentation of recent research and potential implications is informative and worth reading for the possible modes of inquiry that it opens.