Summaries, 1st Assignment

8. Article Summary

In her post 'How YouTube is Impacting Current and Future College Students', Josie Ahlquist, a student affairs educator at California Lutheran University, highlights the strong influence of YouTube on viewers, especially college students. She believes that, as the third most visited website in the world (Cayari, 2011), YouTube is one of the most important forms of social media that affects teens’ behavior and communication skills. The author argues that this new channel for interacting with the youth places 'YouTubers' or 'YouTube Stars' in a special role where they can even impact the way that teenagers establish and explore their own identity. They can also teach educators about many things including online community building behavior, using YouTube content in classrooms, and students’ technology trends, interests, and struggles. Despite these significant effects of YouTube and YouTubers, research in this area, particularly from an educational perspective, has not been enough. That is the reason why the author intends to facilitate an educational session in an upcoming conference to communicate with well-known YouTubers and hear about their experiences with young people on YouTube. She ends her post by listing some of the outcomes from studies on YouTube that she is planning to mention in the educational session. One of the interesting findings is that 'share' is the main feature of this digital platform, which results in enhancement of social circles and interactions among teens (Haridakis & Hanson, 2009).  (S.V.)

References

Ahlquist, J. (2013, October 29). How YouTube is Impacting Current and Future College Students [Blog]. Retrieved from http://josieahlquist.com/2013/10/29/youtubecollege/

Cayari, C. (2011). The YouTube effect: How youtube has provided new ways to consume, create, and share music. International Journal of Education & The Arts, 12(6), 1-28.

Haridakis, P., & Hanson, G. (2009). Social interaction and co-viewing with YouTube: blending mass communication reception and social connection. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 53(2), 317-335. 

7. Article Summary

                  In the article "Facebook losing its edge among college-aged adults," John McDermott states that the number of "young adult" (college student) users of Facebook is decreasing over time. According to the article, even though Facebook is still the most popular social media tool among college students, the percentage usage of Facebook decreased three percent (from 91.5% to 88.6%) between February 2013 and November 2013. On the other hand, some other social platforms increased their usage among the college students in the same time period: Instagram increased the percentage of usage by 7.5% (from 44%to 51.5%) among college students, because college students feel that it is easier to express themselves by using pictures. Twitter usage increased 3.6% (from 40.1% to 43.7%) because people can make short comments about games, shows etc. The usage of Tumblr increased 4.5% (from 31% to 35.5%). Snapchat and Vine have the greatest amount of usage increase rates. The usage of Snapchat increased 22.7%. (from 3.2% to 25.9%). The reason behind that increase is that college students feel that they have more privacy while using Snapchat. Finally, the usage of Vine increased 25% (from 0% to 25%). College students prefer Vine due to the fact that its 6 second video making time is easy to use and it is easier to be famous by using Vine. (S.K.)

McDermott, J. (2014, January 21). Facebook losing its edge among college-aged adults. Digiday.

Retrieved from  http://digiday.com/platforms/social-platforms-college-kids-now-prefer/

6. Summary: Do college student spend too much time on Facebook, YouTube and other social networking sites?

The author raises the question of whether college students who spend less time on Facebook or other social networking sites will get better grades. The University of New Hampshire did research about the social networking usage and grades for college students. They found that there is no apparent relationship between the time of social media usage and the students’ grades, because most of the heavy social media using students can get better grades. In addition, the research found Facebook and YouTube are most popular among the social media among college students. Furthermore, the research shows that there is an increasing trend for using social media among the surveyed students. Moreover, they found most students use social media for social or entertainment reasons, not for the academic reasons. (X.Z.)

Reference:

Bart, M. (2009, Dec. 30). Do college student spend too much time on Facebook, YouTube and other social networking sites? Faculty Focus.  www.facultyfocus.com/articles/edtech-news-and-trend/

5. Summary (Why do we hate Facebook Hashtags?)

First of all, this author is talking about the relationship between users and Facebook. He said “Facebook is a repository of someone’s life, where Twitter is like a thought-stream, at least in terms of usage.” Also, he compares between Facebook and other social media such as Twitter and Instagram. He assumes that “Posts with hashtags actually have less Viral Reach, on average, than posts without hashtags.” In addition, the user has a limit of letters in Twitter and Instagram, but in Facebook he can write a more letters than in them. Also, he is talking about privacy in social media; many people use nicknames in social media and they hide their real characters. Finally, he said that Facebook users are unable to explore a certain topic like they would on the other, more open social networks. (F.A.)

Reference: 

McHugh, M. (2013, Sep. 3). Why do we hate Facebook Hashtags. Digital Trends. http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/why-do-we-hate-facebook-hashtags/#!bNSzV7.

4. The summary of “Facebook losing its edge among college-aged adults” 

John McDermott (2014) wrote an article to argue that Facebook was losing its edge among college-aged adults. In this article, he thought Facebook wasn’t cool anymore by quoting the viewpoint from President Obama. He also pointed out that Facebook remained the most widely used social network for college-aged adults while its attractiveness decreased by citing a survey about social media. In this survey, Facebook’s penetration among college-aged adults decreased from Feb. 2013 to Nov. 2013 while its opponents, like Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, Snapchat and Vine increased their traction with college-aged adults at this time. (FL)

Reference

McDermott, J. (2014). Facebook losing its edge among college-aged adults. Digiday. http://digiday.com/platforms/social-platforms-college-kids-now-prefer/ [accessed date: Sep 4, 2014]

3. Summary

In Mary Bart's article, she explores the question of whether there is a relationship between spending time on social networks and the performance of college students. This article is based in a study made by the University of New Hampshire. The study was made with a survey of 1,127 UNH students. The information collected in the survey was the time spent in social networks and the grades of each student. The research team did not find any correlation between time spent in social media and grades of the students.

Despite this, one of the most important findings was that around 96% of the students use Facebook. This means that this is the most successful social network among college students. Also they found a growth in social networking use in students through time. Finally the most important uses of social networks are social and entertainment reasons (more than 79% of surveyed students). (M.C.R.B.)

Reference

Bart, M. (2010, December 30). Do College Students Spend Too Much Time on Facebook, YouTube and Other Social Networking Sites? EdTech News and Trends.

2. Summary: The Evolution of Social Media Use among College Students

This article mainly talks about the evolution of social media use among college students. Since mobile devices are becoming popular for young people, instant and simple mobile communication tools, such as Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and WhatsApp, are more widely used than Facebook and email. Statistically, college students spend 3.6 hours per day on average playing with their smartphones (Kalkbrenner and McCampbell, 2011). However, adults in college are still used to reading and sending emails. Thus, administrators in college should have at least one mobile social media in their smartphones in order to connect with students instantly. (Y.L.)

Reference

Kalkbrenner, J., & McCampbell, A. (2011). The advent of smartphones: a study on the effect of handheld electronics on personal and professional productivity. Journal of Applied Global Research, 4(8).

1. Summary: Study Finds 77% of College Students Use Snapchat Daily
   
In this article “Study Finds 77% of College Students Use Snapchat Daily,” author Kurt Wagner explains a study which is about using Snapchat on a daily basis. The study, in which more than 1600 college student participated, states that most pictures are taken as a ‘selfie’. The author thinks that the information that people use Snapchat on Friday and Saturday is not that surprising. The study shows that almost 50% of students would not ignore a snap from a brand that they have never heard about. Also, “Close to 70% of students said they would even add a brand as a friend,” according to Kurt Wagner. Besides, according to ‘Sumpto’ which saves the data from Snapchat, some brands send gifts to college students so that they post about the brand and the brand could reach more people.

 

The article provides that there are different ways of using Snapchat. “The most popular Snapchat use case was ‘creativity’ (37%), followied by ‘keeping in touch’ (27%) and 'easier than texting’ (23%) (Wagner, 2014). Also the study shows that even though most people do not approve, ‘sexting’ and ‘sending inappropriate messages’ are the some of functions of using Snapchat. (KNA)

References  

Wagner, K. (2014, Feb 24). Study Finds 77% of College Students Use Snapchat Daily. Mashable. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2014/02/24/snapchat-study-college-students/