Abstracts

Abstract
 
Social networking sites are one of the latest examples of communication technologies that have been widely adopted by students. The primary objective of conducting this study was to contribute to understanding of how university students use social media. We focused more on YouTube, as one of the popular social networking websites, and graduate students, as representatives of university students who are more frequently involved in academic activities. A survey, including twenty five questions, was developed to address key questions in terms of using different types of social media, including the purpose of using YouTube, students’ attitudes towards the impact of social media on academic performance, and gender and nationality differences. Surveys were filled out by 152 students at a university in west Texas. We found that graduate students were more likely than other students to use YouTube for learning purposes. A major take-home message for educators is that social media have the potential to become a valuable resource to support their educational communications, and they will benefit from integrating social media, such as YouTube, into university courses. (SV)
 
 Abstract

In the Fall 2014 semester, the ESL 5301 class decided to conduct a study about social media. We were curious about how Texas Tech students use social media and we decided to conduct surveys as a data collecting method. Our study had several phases. First, we read some articles about social media and summarized them; secondly, we wrote our introductions and literature rewiews; then each student prepared some hypotheses; next, we prepared and conducted our survey. In total 152 Texas Tech students filled out our survey. Next steps were organizing the survey results and discussing the results. In the end, it was an interesting study; we had very interesting hypotheses and some suprising findings. We believe that this study will lead the way to further studies about social media. (SK)
 
Abstract
 
Social media are becoming an important part of our society and redefine the way modern people interact with each other. Social media companies presented a real name policy to mandate all users to use their real names on their accounts in order to decrease the risk associated with pseudonyms several years ago. However, it has raised a war between social media users and social media companies because a few social media users fight against this policy. To better understand this war, research was conducted to know people’s attitudes toward the real name policy of social media. In this research, a survey form including two questions about the real name policy of social media was at first designed. Secondly, people on Texas Tech campus were randomly selected to fill out the survey forms. Last, the survey results were analyzed using a statistical methodology. The results show that the majority of survey respondents supported the real name policy of social media and used their real names on their social media accounts. In addition, survey respondents’ attitudes towards the real name policy of social media and using real names on social media accounts varied by their demographic information, such as gender, nationality and level of study. (FL)
 
Abstract
 
Previous studies have shown that many differences exist between female and male Facebook users among college students. These differences can be used to explore the personality differences between females and males. Totally 167 surveys about social media were taken in Texas Tech University between October 12, 2014 and October 23, 2014. Based on the results of all the surveys, we analyzed the personality differences between females and males in two aspects: neuroticism and extraversion. Through analyzing the time spent on Facebook and frequency of checking Facebook, we found males were more neurotic than females. By investigating the participants’ activities on Facebook, we figured out that males were more extraverted than females. From these two conclusions, we can also deduce that people who have a strong sense of loneliness may not always lack social activities. (YL)
 
Abstract

Language use by gender and age is commonly reported to have differences. The raising of internet and social media as the dominant communication tool in the present also shows different characteristics in language use. However, with new tools as emoticons, photos, updates and abbreviations inside modern language, it is important to know how people perceive it. We presented a survey to 152 Texas Tech University students and some other non-students in Lubbock to see how they perceive the use of language in social media. We found that most of the people disagree with traditional stereotypes for males and females about language use. Nevertheless, we also found that the use of emoticons, abbreviations and status updates follow these stereotypes suggesting that people didn’t realize how these differences among genders really reflect previous reported stereotypes. (MCRB)

Abstract

This study shows how Texas Tech University students use social media. This research paper was written after a survey was done with 152 students. Those students were chosen to be as close to %50 each as possible in order to represent reality. They were asked many questions to discover how they used social media and what their purpose using social media was. You will find out about young people’s social media habits.
 
Abstract

Social media have a significant impact on students and each group of students has a particular use, different from other groups. This study focuses on effects of social media on Texas Tech University students. It made a survey on 152 TTU students as a sample of TTU students. The survey contained 21 questions which consisted of several points about gender, nationality, and education level (graduate / undergraduate) and their methods of using social media. The results showed that the majority of the survey was from American undergraduate students, who represent 95% of all Texas Tech University students. Moreover, the survey showed Facebook was more used than Twitter. Also, this study showed that each group of TTU students had a particular use of social media. (FA)

The Impact of Social Media on Texas Tech University Students

Abstract:

            Social media have a significant impact on students and each group of students has a particular use, different from other groups. This study focuses on effects of social media on Texas Tech University students. It made a survey on 152 TTU students as a sample of TTU students. The survey contained 21 questions which consisted of several points about gender, nationality, and education level (graduate / undergraduate) and their methods of using social media. The results showed that the majority of the survey was from American undergraduate students, who represent 95% of all Texas Tech University students. Moreover, the survey showed Facebook was more used than Twitter. Also, this study showed that each group of TTU students had a particular use of social media.

 Introduction

Social media have become important nowadays. Social media make the world look like a small village. Social media allow people to poste, comment and watch in full freedom that social media help people in communication. “Facebook will let the people use the applications without any personal information” (Valinsky, 2013, para.1). People use social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace to create and sustain relationships with others (Boyd & Ellison, 2007).  Regardless, we cannot deny that social media have many advantages for people. However, there are many social media applications on phone devices such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat; every person prefers one over the other.  Moreover, many people use social media to tell other people about their lives. People usually post on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat…. etc.) what they believe inside themselves. There is argument between people about social media, some people view Facebook is better than Twitter, and others view opposite that. “Facebook is a repository of someone’s life where Twitter is like a thought-stream, at least in terms of usage“ (McHugh, 2013, para.3).  Although, social media have negative effects on the society, its positive effects are more than negative effects. A lot of people use social media to get jobs, even for their research. According to McAndrew & Jeong (2012, para.1) “Males are more interested in number of friends and educational and career accomplishments”.

On the other hand, several researchers discuss the relationship of social media among students, where some of them see students differ in their use of social media. Sponcil & Priscilla (2014) say “In particular, college students form a large proportion of users on social media networks.”  In fact there are many differences between male students and female students and of the other aspect, there are differences among graduate students and undergraduate students.  The argument about social media will continue between people, and that is a natural phenomenon.

Literature Review:

There are many studies that have addressed the issue of social media, but we will choose some studies which have a relationship to our topic.

Here are studies focused on the importance of social media in our lives. According to Asur el al. (2011, para.2),”social media development and the previous research about the popular topics in social media help to develop social media in the whole world.” Also, the author Hajli (2014, p.18), said, “Social media has presented new opportunities to students to use the internet in their research.”  In addition, the author Lytle (2011, para.1), says, “Facebook provides an online job hunting platform for students”. We agree with saying that the social media are very important these days. we could measure this important during our survey.     

On the other hand, studies have studied the negative effects of social media on the society. The author Moore (2011, para.2), introduced the topic of "Texting, social media affecting teen sleeping patterns." He believes that teenagers keep their phones with them; therefore, they tend to wake up and check their phones frequently during the night.  Facebook users’ personal information is stolen when filling names, addresses, cellphone numbers, and other kinds of information for online surveys. In our survey, we think there are differences between undergraduate and graduate in social media use.

There are studies that try to show numbers and statistics about social media and relationships that with students.  There is study that was conducted by Sponcil & Priscilla (2014); the purpose of this study was to examine social media use among college students and how it affects communication with others, and college students' self-concept. This study depends on Pearson correlation between usage of social media and self-concept; students completed a questionnaire which assessed personal use of social media, communication skills with friends and family, and effects on self-concept. Results indicated that all of the sampled college students were using at least one form of social networking website where author said that" a .586 Pearson correlation between usage of social media and communication with family and friends.” These findings provide implications for future research on why these social networking sites have gained popularity.

Another study discuses intention for using YouTube to share video, where the author wrote about “Predicting the determinants of users’ intentions for using YouTube to share video: Moderating gender effects. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking” (Yang, 2010, para.1). It tries to analyze gender differences in choosing YouTube to share videos. The results of a survey “among 206 male and 135 female video sharers on YouTube show that perceived ease of use and a positive attitude are significant determinants of the intent to use YouTube to share videos” (Yang, 2010, para.1). In our survey, we may make a comparison between Texas Tech University males and females students about social media

 Moreover, there is study that was written by McAndrew and Jeong (2012, para.2) that measured the relationship between age and sex on Facebook. Also, it included 284 males and 735 females; it found females use Facebook more frequently than males.  In addition, there is a study that was presented by Joiner et al. (2014, para.1) called “Publically different, privately the same: Gender differences and similarities in response to Facebook status updates.”  They made a hypothesis that says “women use affiliative language more than men on Facebook statuses; this study consisted of 388 females and 207 males”. The result was the determination that the females post and publish more than males. In our survey, we will focus on using Facebook and Twitter between TTU students.

Hypotheses:

This study put hypotheses to examine finally; these hypotheses are:

1.  The uses of social media differ between graduate and undergraduate students.
2. There will be no difference between males and females about using social media.
3. TTU students use Facebook more than Twitter.

Methods:

This study concentrates on all kinds of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat. We tried to discover which one of the social media were used more than the others. Texas Tech University students were used in this study as samples that could be generalized to all universities in the United States. Texas Tech University is located in Lubbock, which is an average city, and includes 33,111 students on its campus (TTU, 2014). All the technical and communications methods are available in the city, which help students use social media.  

We are a group that contributed the survey on the campus of Texas Tech University. We designed a paper survey which contained 21 questions about gender, nationality, and education level (graduate / undergraduate). In addition, the survey offered several questions about social media; all of them revolved around the question of how Texas Tech University students used social media. However, our group consisted of nine persons who collected a sample survey of Texas Tech University students. Some of us handled the survey by ourselves where are they worked between TTU buildings to ask students, and others went online where they used social media to collect the survey. 

The survey included 152 students; 80 of them were females and the other 72 were males. Also, the survey showed 59 graduate students and 85 undergraduate students; another point was that the survey included 120 American students and 32 International students. American graduate students were 39 and American undergraduate students were 75. Also, the survey covered international graduate students, who were 20 and International undergraduate students, who were 10. That means the largest category on our survey was undergraduate females students. (See figure 1). 

Figure (1)

This study depended on the survey to explain differences between Texas Tech University students where there are many aspects about social media. Some students preferred Facebook to Twitter, but others were in contrast to that. On the other hand, some students posted on social media than more others, and each group had particular interests different from others.  However, we will discuss the results of survey in the next section.    

Results:

We will view the sample of the survey that was taken from Texas Tech University students by our group.  The survey showed the majority of this sample was from American undergraduate students, who represent 95% of all Texas Tech University students, and 5% were international students. Also, the survey stated nearly 56% were undergraduate students and approximately 44% were graduate students (Figure 2). For more details about categories of survey, there are 52% female undergraduate students and there are 48% overall of the survey who were male undergraduate students. We obtained several results from our survey which showed differences between males and females, graduate students and undergraduate students in Texas Tech University. 

(Figure 2)

There are several social media applications that were included in our survey such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, Ello, Vine and Google+. The user numbers of Texas Tech University students were different from one to another in social media. We compared numbers of Texas Tech University students who had accounts in social media; we found YouTube obtained 24%, which was the biggest percentage, then Google+ got 19% of users who were included in the survey, then Twitter took third place with 17%. The percentages of users for Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, Vine social media were between from 11% to 7% of user percentages of those who were included the survey. The Ello social media had the lowest percentage of users; it got 1% of users of those who were included in the survey (Figure 3). 

 (Figure 3)

Moreover, the survey stated various results when we wanted to see the interaction between Texas Tech University students and social media. We merged numbers of students who post regularly and post /use occasionally to become numbers of students who work on social media. After that, we found Facebook got the highest number of users with 108 users of these who were included in the survey, that means it got 71% of user percentages of those who were included the survey.  The second social media interaction was Instagram, which contained 73 of out 152, that means it got 48% of user percentages of those who were included the survey. Snapchat had 68 users; that means it got 44% of user percentages of those who had accounts on social media. Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest took numbers of users between from 40 to 45 users, approximately 26% to 29% of user percentages of who those had accounts on social media, but Google+ and Vine got less than 20 users who were included in the survey (Figure 4). 

(Figure 4)

At this point, we will focus our analysis on Facebook and Twitter, because they are popular social media in the world. Facebook has gotten the highest number, for interaction in social media, when we wanted to divide this number between males and females and graduate and undergraduate. In addition, we noted that undergraduate students posted more than graduate students on Facebook. Furthermore we noted TTU female students used Facebook more than TTU male students (Figure 5).  Also, TTU students used Facebook in different ways; most of them posted on Facebook (if we collect students who chose “post regularly” and “post occasionally” together) and a few students do not know Facebook (Figure 6).

On the other hand, Twitter got the same results that Facebook got, where undergraduate female students used Twitter more than undergraduate male students, but male graduate students used Twitter more than female graduate students. Combinations of numbers of the survey showed graduate male students worked on Facebook more than graduate female students used Twitter. Also, the undergraduate female students worked on Facebook more than undergraduate male students (Figure 7). Moreover, graduate students have accounts on Twitter more than undergraduate students, but the undergraduate students posted on Twitter are more than gradute students.  Furthermore, undergraduate students who not know Twitter more than graduate students (Figure 8). 

Otherwise, we will illustrate numbers of YouTube social media, because it took highest number in users who have accounts on it than other social media. In fact, female students have accounts on YouTube more than male students. Also, the undergraduate female students worked on YouTube more than undergraduate male students (Figure 9).  All this survey can be considered as a sample of university students in the United States who used social media.       

 

(Figure 5)

(Figure 6) 

(Figure 7)

(Figure 8)

(Figure 9)

 Discussion:

In this section, we will try to explain survey results and find some explanations for these numbers from the survey. The survey showed the majority of this sample was from American undergraduate students, who represent 95% of all Texas Tech University students, and 5% were international students. That result came like that because most TTU students were from the United States which means they have American nationality.  Also, the survey showed that 56% were undergraduate students and approximately 44% were graduate students because it is knows that undergraduate students are more than graduate students in all universities. Otherwise, the numbers from the survey indicated that 53% of TTU females used social media, which is more than TTU males, because most of our survey was from TTU females. Also, the result that female undergraduate students were more than male undergraduate students referred to the fact that most TTU students are females. The survey obtained several results from our survey which showed differences between males and females, graduate students and undergraduate students in Texas Tech University.

According to the survey, 56% of TTU students, who were included the survey, were undergraduate students; that means undergraduate students use social media more than graduate students. Normally, younger people like fun and to use any new things more than older people; that could explains why undergraduate students use social media more than graduate students. Also, we noted that the survey indicated that 53% of TTU females used social media, more than TTU males, because the most sample of TTU students were from females. I think that has a relationship with females psychology, because it is common that females are more social than males. The behavioral female psychology makes them use social media more than males.  This is just trying to explain the relationship between females and social media. 

 In focus on kind of social media, we noted YouTube and Google+ had high percentages - 24% and 19% respectively - of students who have accounts on them. The reason YouTube and Google+ had higher percentages than other social media is there they request from users to open accounts in their social media. On the other hand, the small percentages of students who had accounts on social media were 1%, 7% and 7% for Ello, Snapchat, and Vine respectively. Explanation of these decreased percentages could be that these kinds of social media are new for users and some of them are more complicated to use than others. 

  In spite of the fact that YouTube and Google+ had high percentages of students who have accounts, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat got high percentages of students who posted. Facebook was awarded the highest percentage, which was 25%. This is a high percentage for Facebook because it gives its users full options to design their website page and post on it what they want. The other social media which had high percentage were  Instagram, which took 17%, and Snapchat which got 16%; that could be cause to these kinds of social media allow their users to post pictures and videos and share them with other users, which makes people more active with other people.

On the other hand, here we will try to understand the difference between Facebook and Twitter. They are more popular than other social media; a comparison between Facebook and Twitter is necessary to discover which one is more used than others among TTU students. The survey indicated that 88% of TTU students use Facebook, while 64% of TTU students use Twitter; that means TTU students use Facebook more than Twitter. Facebook has special advantage of discovering old friends for you because it displays persons had studied with you in the same school or in the same job, or with same interests, and so on. Furthermore, TTU undergraduate students are more likely to be working on Facebook and Twitter than TTU graduate students. I think that is because Facebook is more fun than Twitter, which is more to exchange news between its users.  Also, I noted TTU graduate students were more likely to have accounts on Twitter than TTU undergraduate students. I think that is because Twitter is more serious than others, where users use it to exchange news and to know any new happening such as any new science, technology or happened in the world.

  Finally, all of information in our survey was about on TTU students. We chose some important result and we tried to analyze these results. There are many differences between females and males, and also between undergraduate students and graduate students. In fact, each group of TTU students had different interests from other groups.

Conclusion:

            Social media is very important in our lives. To discover this information, we made a survey, which included 152 students of Texas Tech University; 80 of them were females and the other 72 were males. Also, the graduate students were 59 students and undergraduate students were 85 students. In addition, American students were 120 students and International students were 32 students.  The study showed differences between males and females and graduate students and undergraduate students in Texas Tech University. Also, the survey indicated that TTU female students used social media more than TTU male students. Furthermore, Texas Tech University students who had accounts in social media YouTube obtained the biggest percentage, then Google+ got many users, after that comes Twitter took third place between other social media. We learned from the survey that TTU students use Facebook more than Twitter where Facebook has more power than Twitter. On the other hand, the results showed what normally happens among university students, but the results sometimes were a surprise for us. However, this social media study of TTU students was a small sample which included 152 TTU students, and gave us the general trends for using social media between TTU students. The sample of TTU students should include at least 3000 TTU students to get perfect results.

 Reference:

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            http://friendship.about.com/od/Social_Networking/tp/Ways-Social-Networking- Ruins-Friendship.htm 

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Yang, C., Hsu, Y., & Tan, S. (2010). Predicting the determinants of users’ intentions for using YouTube to share video: Moderating gender effects. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 13(2), 141-152. 

Texas Tech University (2014). Texas Tech University web page. Retrieved (October 10, 2014) http://www.depts.ttu.edu/officialpublications/facultyHB/general.php