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Effects of Social Media on Middle Grades

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A research project for students in grades 6-8 Created with Knovio.

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What are the effects of social media on students in grades 6-8?

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What are the effects of social media on students in grades 6-8?

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For use with students in grades 6-8

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Learners follow ethical and legal guidelines for gathering and using information by: 3. Evaluating information for accuracy, validity, social and cultural context, and appropriateness for need.

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How do you think social media affects students in grades 6-8?

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Resource 1 - American Public University article about positive and negative effects of social media

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Resource 1 - American Public University article about positive and negative effects of social media

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https://www.apu.apus.edu/area-of-study/business-and-management/resources/how-social-media-sites-affect-society/

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By Linda C. Ashar, J.D. | 05/02/2024

Once upon a time, social exchanges involved conversation around the kitchen table, on the front porch, over the back fence, and on the telephone's party line. Western Union was the original Twitter. Mail was sent by letter that went through the postal system, and news was published in print media.

The advent of radio and television sped things up. Later, the internet came, connecting people on the World Wide Web, and everything changed again.

What Is Social Media?

Social media now refers to web-based applications that promote the creation and exchange of user-generated content. Social media's range is global, with its scope of topic and type of user virtually unlimited. Social media includes internet sites such as Meta's Facebook® and Instagram®, X® (formerly Twitter), YouTube®, Yelp®, and countless blogs.

Social media has become a vast, informal network of online venues - public and private, paid subscription and free, large and small. It can be used for a variety of purposes, such as:

Family celebrations

Political campaigns

Charitable promotions

Health support groups

Sports clubs

Prayer circles

Hobbies and occupations

Fundraisers

Information sources

Social media wields cultural influence on fashion and food trends, family and adolescent health issues, world news and local events, political and community action events. Social media has spawned a new type of marketing through the use of a unique, virtual public personality: the social influencer.

Social media has become a complex phenomenon because it is much more than individuals exchanging words. Social media sites - the venues where communications happen - are controlled by their platform owners.

Conglomerates like Meta have come under fire with allegations of exerting censorship on the one hand and insufficient control of content on the other. In the U.S., these problems are considered under the First Amendment. Other countries' laws might differ.

According to a 2023 Surfshark article, people in China, Iran, and Turkmenistan have been denied access to Facebook, YouTube, and X for 14 years. YouTube has been blocked in Eritrea for almost 14 years, and most major social media sites have been barred in North Korea for up to 8 years.

As Surfshark notes, that means multiple generations of 1.6 billion people are cut off from social media. Those people are confined to a cloistered, narrow world, where they have limited access to each other, as well as to other nations' people and events. These nations' blocking of social media access to their populations is tacit testimony to the power of social media at the grassroots level of society.

Social media has clarified one aspect of human behavior that is above dispute. People enjoy:

Talking with like-minded people

Railing at each other

Sharing life's joys, interests, and grief

Spending time with each other

Watching each other

Technology has enabled the social media revolution. But from the beginning, its success has been driven by this human need this human need to communicate.

The History of Social Media

Humanity is a social species by nature. When the internet entered daily life around 1983, worldwide connections became an instant possibility.

Talking to the next-door neighbor became anyone on the planet, and the backyard fence was traded for a computer monitor. Whether for private purposes or business, communication is what humans do - not always gracefully or truthfully, but certainly continuously.

Social media had its first seeds in email. The pleasure of receiving a letter from a friend in a physical mailbox expanded to the computer.

"You've Got Mail!" became a daily electronic notice in business and personal correspondence. Then, technology proliferated from clunky desktop computers to sleek compact laptops and mobile phones.

With email came email groups organized on internet sites - electronic discussion groups for people with similar interests. A leading example was YahooGroups (which closed in 2020).

The internet enabled online bulletin boards and chat room forums for information exchange and group talk. In the 1990s, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) and ICQ allowed real-time text messages.

In 1994, the wiki was born. A wiki is a user-collaborative information site that can be edited by any user through a browser. According to Katie Terrell Hanna of TechTarget, "wiki wiki" means "fast" in Hawaiian, which is how the name originated.

According to Wikipedia, computer programmer Ward Cunningham created WikiWikiWeb in 1994. Today, there are reportedly hundreds of thousands of wiki sites.

The inherent catch of wiki sites is the ability of nameless users to post and edit information that is not vetted for accuracy, so other users must evaluate and correct it. This accuracy problem gives rise to a concern about "fake news." However, academic and evidence sources can also post data in wikis.

The worldwide collaborative, interactive, free access to information on virtually any topic makes wiki social media sites an important component of the social media revolution. At the very least, they are information gateways to other research sources.

In 1999, Pyra Labs launched Blogger®, a publishing platform acquired by Google in 2003. Mat Honan of Wired explains that Blogger "was a revolutionary web product" that "gave push-button publishing to the people."

Today, information is available digitally to anyone with access to a computer or mobile phone. As a result, this widespread change in communication has enabled a dramatic shift in information sharing and acquisition of knowledge that, in turn, affected lifestyles and social mores.

The 'Invention' of Social Media

The recognition of social media as a distinct entity was in 1997 with Andrew Weinreich's launch of SixDegrees. Called the " father of social networking," Weinreich forecast the social media phenomenon seven years ahead of Facebook.

SixDegrees' base was a site for email connection links. In simple terms, Weinreich's vision was networking.

Social media's networking capacity is exponential for connecting social media users' who share interests, have questions, and want to connect with others. But in 1997, the technology to facilitate such capacity had not yet caught up with Weinreich's full vision.

Weinreich sold SixDegrees for $125 million in 1999 and moved on in the industry. Social media technology, however, took off in the new millennium.

Social Media's Explosion in the 21st Century

The timeline of social media innovations in the 2000s highlights just how quickly the social media revolution advanced in that era. While wikis and other online sites were focused on general information, easier personal connections for social media use came into their own in slick online sites.

The launch of Friendster® in 2002 expanded the concept of networking occupied by email groups and virtual bulletin boards. Also in 2002, LinkedIn® established a social media site for professional and business networking.

MySpace® launched in 2003, followed quickly by Facebook in 2004. Originally created for college students, Facebook grew into the global colossus that is Meta today, eclipsing Friendster and MySpace.

In 2005, YouTube appeared. YouTube has since expanded from a collection of user-uploaded videos to include live streaming, music, advertisements, and marketing channels.

The year 2006 introduced Twitter - a real-time dialogue, news, and opinion posting system called "micro-blogging," that limits messages to short posts. Twitter quickly wielded a powerful influence, connecting social media users in real time worldwide, a popularity somewhat narrowing since Elon Musk changed the site to X in 2023.

Digital image sites like Pinterest® added a visual dimension to social exchanges in 2010. By 2016, amateur entertainment and personal influencer reels became a hit on TikTok, rivaled by Snapchat®, , Facebook's Reels, and Instagram. That same year, live-streaming took off on Facebook and Periscope (with the latter ending its activities in 2021).

According to Pew Research Center, Facebook and YouTube are the most widely-used platforms as of 2024. But as of March 2024, Slashdot lists 101 social media platforms. These sites lure users and advertisers to participate in a marketplace of social chat, to see and be seen, to buy and sell, and to be heard.

If one platform does not last in popularity, another will take its place. Emerging sites cater to niche interests and facilitate family and friend connections. They also offer emotional support and promote boutique products, health aids, charities, business brands, education, political activism, and so much more.

Whether - and how - to control of all this activity is an ongoing debate. The U.S. government has recently moved to either limit or ban TikTok® in the U.S. due to Chinese ownership interests. Sparking further controversy, the U.S. Supreme Court is considering a case about federal government involvement on social media.

Social media usage is widespread and continues to grow with a variety of options. People have exchanged the backyard fence and the kitchen table for a carnival's midway of fluid conversation groups and virtual booths of barker's wares.

It is still early days for understanding all the implications of people's online habits and the inevitable changes being wrought by social media sites. Nevertheless, surveys, studies, and experts have ventured some observations and predictions about the effects of these online platforms.

The Positive Effects of Social Media

Social media wields a powerful influence. Some of the positive effects include:

Improving users' mental health

Providing an outlet for creativity

Offering opportunities for professional networking

Creating educational opportunities and social awareness

Building new business opportunities and marketing channels

Improvements to Mental Health

Social media's impact has created many positive effects for society. Mesfin Awoke Bekalu and Rachel F. McCloud concluded in a 2020 Harvard study that routine daily use of social media positively correlated with "three health-related outcomes: social well-being, positive mental health, and self-rated health."

While this national study of adult use of social media did not discount the potential negative aspects of addiction to or overuse of social media, Dr. Bekalu reported, "Our findings suggest that the ways in which people are using social media may have more of an impact on their mental health and well-being than just the frequency and duration of their use." This positive networking in turn reduces feelings of loneliness, social isolation, and low self-esteem.

Social media has created complex human interaction at several levels that happen simultaneously in a single venue, ranging from the most personal to general entertainment and news events in ways formerly segmented in separate communication channels - telephone, print media, one-way radio/TV shows, and telegraph messages.

Social media sites provide opportunities for individuals to connect with friends, family, and like-minded individuals, even across geographical distances. These connections help maintain relationships and interests, fostering a sense of belonging, self-esteem, and support in users.

Personal Expression and Creativity

In today's world, social media provides a cornucopia of offerings in art, innovation, and creativity. Part of social media's complex connections are the opportunities for sharing knowledge on virtually any topic, collaborative projects, and creative endeavors.

Whether through online forums, sharing documents, group chats, or how-to videos, individuals can work together with others to achieve common goals, create meaningful content, and solve problems collectively. They can learn how to do something they want to achieve for themselves, practice a new hobby, or pursue a sport. Outlets and tutorials foster a sense of camaraderie, community, and social well-being.

Opportunities for Professional Networking

Social media platforms offer opportunities for people to expand their social networks and forge new connections with other individuals around the world that they might not have otherwise encountered. By broadening their professional circles, people can access diverse perspectives, experiences, and resources, which can enrich their lives and enhance their social capital.

This opportunity for professional development was the idea behind LinkedIn early on. The LinkedIn platform has expanded exponentially in 22 years, a testimony to the value of professional connections for both individuals and businesses in a global marketplace.

Research supports the value of social networks in building and maintaining professional relationships. As Makena Shultz at Michigan State University noted, "A great thing about social media is that it allows you access to both your strong and weak connections. Increasing the spectrum of possible connections can help individuals and organizations identify specific parties with shared interests or goals, experience solving similar challenges, or even developed tools or methods for completing a mutual task."

The instant reach of digital technology and the variety of ways online companies have devised to maintain connections allows professionals to collaborate and share knowledge, opportunities, and innovative ideas.

Educational Opportunities and Social Awareness

Internet sites offer educational resources such as online courses and tutorials, making learning accessible to a global audience, often for free and regardless of a user's location or socioeconomic status. Many of these educational opportunities account for overcoming language barriers.

Hand-in-hand with educational opportunities are social awareness initiatives and advocacy efforts for humanitarian and social causes on both a local and a worldwide scale. Social media use enables advocates to more easily reach a global audience and discuss solutions to social issues that can better lives, such as increasing physical activity for better health and getting more fun out of life.

New Business Opportunities and Marketing Channels

Businesses can leverage social media platforms with broad audiences for brand promotion, marketing campaigns, and customer engagement. With the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) and algorithms, users' search activity on a commercial or search site is directed to brands on social media pages.

For example, a user who searches for "types of mattresses" on Google, where mattresses are not sold, may later be served mattress ads on Facebook as a result of that search activity. A tracker on the search tags the user and links the user to pinpoint mattress ads on social media, which is known as remarketing or retargeting.

Sean Craig of Elite Digital Marketing explains that "User tracking is not limited to just one platform or website. Ad retargeting is a common practice where advertisements are placed on multiple websites based on a user's web browsing history. This technique allows companies to reach their target audience across multiple different platforms."

For example, the user's search activity suggests an intention to buy a mattress. Since the user appears to be in the market for a mattress, the Facebook ads help that user get to a decision and buy an advertiser's mattress.

Facebook is in it for the ad revenue, and the mattress companies hope to make a sale. The user might or might not want a mattress, but this type of advertising makes it possible to find one more easily.

Social media provides these types of marketing opportunities for businesses, individuals, and nonprofit groups. For nonprofit groups, online platforms may be used to raise awareness of a troubling issue - such as abuse or chronic disease - and for fundraising campaigns.

Social platforms host community trade groups, barter pages, garage sale days, and nonprofit events. These sites do on a large scale what local community bulletin boards traditionally have done.

The Negative Aspects of Social Media

Social media's power can sometimes be used in the wrong way to hurt others. Some of the negative effects of social media use include:

Cyberbullying

Social media use is fertile ground for cyberbullying. The Cyberbullying Research Center (CRC) defines cyberbullying as "when someone repeatedly and intentionally harasses, mistreats, or makes fun of another person online or while using cell phones or other electronic devices."

While cyberbullying can happen to people of any age, it is of particular concern for students ages 13 to 17. In a CRC 2023 national study of this age group, researchers found that 55% of them had experienced cyberbullying to the detriment of their self-worth.

Cyberbullying can take many creative forms, such as:

Embarrassing comments

Negative posts or photos

Compromising sexual images (which might be fake)

Using social media to spread rumors

Threats to the person, the person's family, or pet

Offensive videos or webpages

Cyberbullying acts can be pernicious and harmful long-term, far beyond a passing embarrassment. In the case of a young Ohioan, severe cyberbullying allegedly caused her suicide and led to the state enacting the Jessica Logan Act, requiring schools to implement active countermeasures to cyberbullying.

Doxxing

A type of privacy invasion enabled by social media use is called "doxxing." Identity theft expert Max Sheridan explains doxxing as "the unauthorized collection and public distribution of personally identifying information or private material for malicious purposes."

An example is posting a person's name, home address, email, and telephone number without that person's permission on a public social media platform. The post might be flavored with a false allegation of association with a hate group.

The private information is often obtained through social media. Doxxing is intended to cause harm and is typically motivated by revenge, hate, bullying, terrorism, or bad faith tactics.

Real-life examples of doxxing include:

Releasing the personal information of the agent and lawyer of a 2016 presidential candidate (reported by Ranker)

Publicizing the physical addresses of certain U.S. Supreme Court justices after the decision overturning Roe vs. Wade (according to Cybersixgill))

Parking a "Doxxing truck" on a college campus - the truck displayed certain faculty names and images with the accusation they are "antisemites" (reported by The Denver Post)

According to Sheridan, privacy has become an "increasingly rare commodity. Internet tools allow anyone with a connection to become an investigator and publisher. This expansive access to info and social media explains how so many have fallen prey to doxxing."

Child Exploitation

A dark side of the internet and social media is child exploitation. The global reach and speed of digital communication have enabled child pornographers and predators to flourish behind digital masks and in shadowy groups.

The ease of using social media apps and platforms on mobile devices enables predatory adults to groom children by text and live streaming, share and consume child pornography, and extort children for sex.

Minors also make this exploitation easier, intended or not, by "sexting." Sexting involves sharing explicit photos through a child's social media account or texting.

Further complicating this exploitation is the rise of "kidfluencers." Kidfluencers are children with their own channels and followers on YouTube, TikTok, or similar platforms.

Children with large groups of followers can often earn money with ad sponsors. But these kids are not considered actors or "workers."

According to Vanessa Cerzarita Cordeiro of Humanium, "Though child actors are able to gain access to numerous protection mechanisms, 'kidfluencers' are treated differently because their activity takes place in a private home setting on a platform in which parents consensually participate." They are not workers due to "the absence of an employer-employee relationship and the fact that children are deemed to be undertaking normal family activities on camera rather than putting on a 'performance.'"

For this reason, the money they are earning from their "kidfluence" has not had much protection under the traditional child labor laws and regulations. But several states and Congress are working on improving this protection, as well as privacy laws, for these minors. For example, Illinois passed a law to provide some measure of protection for kidfluencers.

Addiction

Excessive use of social media platforms and their contribution to poor mental health, especially in young people, may be cause for concern. According to the Addiction Center, social media addiction is not yet a formally diagnosed condition that damages a user's psychological well-being, but it is sufficiently recognized to be treatable and covered by some insurance providers.

The Addiction Center defines this type of addiction as a behavioral condition, characterized by "being overly concerned about social media, driven by an uncontrollable urge to log on to or use social media, and devoting so much time and effort to social media that it impairs other important life areas." In other words, the person is obsessed with social media habits such as scrolling, texting, and posting, will spend time online to the exclusion of other life activities, and may ignore family members and friends.

How can such an addiction and damage to a user's psychological well-being happen? Social media use stimulates the pleasure centers of the brain - too much for some people. The Addiction Center explains that constant interaction with an online platform triggers the "brain's reward area" chemically in the same way as drugs like cocaine, or like "a syringe of dopamine being injected straight into the system."

Social Media Use Shines a Light on Basic Human Nature

Like everything else in life, social media use is a choice. According to researchers Jenna L. Clark, Sara B. Algoe, and Melanie C. Green, the key to social media's contribution to the positive impact on mental health and social welfare is where it fosters real human connection. The way to make the best of social media is for users to choose credible providers and to be aware of social media's pitfalls.

Hawra Hashem, marketing manager and communication strategist, emphasizes that social media use can be "more beneficial than not" if users "keep a healthy perspective about social media's role in [their] lives ... [and] use it to inspire, educate, show empathy, and become better communicators." In other words, use social media with the same respect and demeanor as with in-person relationships.

Considering its positive aspects and its negative risks, social media's growth seems a given. Statista notes that "Social media consistently expands, advances, and grows around the world. The total number of social media users is expected to hit over 5.85 billion individuals by 2027, which would be over half of the world population." Considering social media's unlimited exponential capacity, this prediction could well be underestimated.

The social media revolution is well under way. The massive changes social media use has wrought in how people connect and communicate are largely positive and have improved other people's lives. It is driven by humans' very nature to communicate, collaborate, and share information.

But social media shows the dark side of human nature. It is not social media that casts darkness, but its users. Social media exposes the problems humanity needs to solve as well as the pleasures to enjoy.
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Blogger is a registered trademark of Google, LLC.
Friendster is a registered trademark of Friendster, LLC.
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MySpace is a registered trademark of MySpace, LLC.
Pinterest is a registered trademark of Pinterest, Inc.
TikTok is a registered trademark of Bytedance, Ltd.
Snapchat is a registered trademark of Snap, Inc.

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Social Media Impact: How Social Media Sites Affect Society

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Social media impact - how does it affect people in society? This article explains the origin of social media and its positive and negative effects.

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Resource 2 - Public School Works', "Promoting Safe Social Media Use for Students and Teachers"

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Resource 2 - Public School Works', "Promoting Safe Social Media Use for Students and Teachers"

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https://corp.publicschoolworks.com/resource/promoting-safe-social-media-use-for-students-and-teachers/

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Promoting Safe Social Media Use for Students and Teachers - PublicSchoolWORKS

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Explore the impact of social media on education, from its benefits to risks, and learn how to ensure safe and responsible usage in schools.

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Resource 5 - American Psychological Association's article, "Social media brings benefits and risks to teens"

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Resource 5 - American Psychological Association's article, "Social media brings benefits and risks to teens"

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Social media brings benefits and risks to teens. Psychology can help identify a path forward

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New psychological research exposes the harms and positive outcomes of social media. APA’s recommendations aim to add science-backed balance to the discussion.

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Resource 3 - The National Institute of Health's article, "The effect of social media on the development of students’ affective variables"

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Resource 3 - The National Institute of Health's article, "The effect of social media on the development of students’ affective variables"

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Front Psychol. 2022; 13: 1010766.

Abstract

The use of social media is incomparably on the rise among students, influenced by the globalized forms of communication and the post-pandemic rush to use multiple social media platforms for education in different fields of study. Though social media has created tremendous chances for sharing ideas and emotions, the kind of social support it provides might fail to meet students' emotional needs, or the alleged positive effects might be short-lasting. In recent years, several studies have been conducted to explore the potential effects of social media on students' affective traits, such as stress, anxiety, depression, and so on. The present paper reviews the findings of the exemplary published works of research to shed light on the positive and negative potential effects of the massive use of social media on students' emotional well-being. This review can be insightful for teachers who tend to take the potential psychological effects of social media for granted. They may want to know more about the actual effects of the over-reliance on and the excessive (and actually obsessive) use of social media on students' developing certain images of self and certain emotions which are not necessarily positive. There will be implications for pre- and in-service teacher training and professional development programs and all those involved in student affairs.

Keywords: affective variables, education, emotions, social media, post-pandemic, emotional needs

Introduction

Social media has turned into an essential element of individuals' lives including students in today's world of communication. Its use is growing significantly more than ever before especially in the post-pandemic era, marked by a great revolution happening to the educational systems. Recent investigations of using social media show that approximately 3 billion individuals worldwide are now communicating via social media ( Iwamoto and Chun, 2020). This growing population of social media users is spending more and more time on social network groupings, as facts and figures show that individuals spend 2 h a day, on average, on a variety of social media applications, exchanging pictures and messages, updating status, tweeting, favoring, and commenting on many updated socially shared information ( Abbott, 2017).

Researchers have begun to investigate the psychological effects of using social media on students' lives. Chukwuere and Chukwuere (2017) maintained that social media platforms can be considered the most important source of changing individuals' mood, because when someone is passively using a social media platform seemingly with no special purpose, s/he can finally feel that his/her mood has changed as a function of the nature of content overviewed. Therefore, positive and negative moods can easily be transferred among the population using social media networks ( Chukwuere and Chukwuere, 2017). This may become increasingly important as students are seen to be using social media platforms more than before and social networking is becoming an integral aspect of their lives. As described by Iwamoto and Chun (2020), when students are affected by social media posts, especially due to the increasing reliance on social media use in life, they may be encouraged to begin comparing themselves to others or develop great unrealistic expectations of themselves or others, which can have several affective consequences.

Considering the increasing influence of social media on education, the present paper aims to focus on the affective variables such as depression, stress, and anxiety, and how social media can possibly increase or decrease these emotions in student life. The exemplary works of research on this topic in recent years will be reviewed here, hoping to shed light on the positive and negative effects of these ever-growing influential platforms on the psychology of students.

Significance of the study

Though social media, as the name suggests, is expected to keep people connected, probably this social connection is only superficial, and not adequately deep and meaningful to help individuals feel emotionally attached to others. The psychological effects of social media on student life need to be studied in more depth to see whether social media really acts as a social support for students and whether students can use social media to cope with negative emotions and develop positive feelings or not. In other words, knowledge of the potential effects of the growing use of social media on students' emotional well-being can bridge the gap between the alleged promises of social media and what it actually has to offer to students in terms of self-concept, self-respect, social role, and coping strategies (for stress, anxiety, etc.).

Exemplary general literature on psychological effects of social media

Before getting down to the effects of social media on students' emotional well-being, some exemplary works of research in recent years on the topic among general populations are reviewed. For one, Aalbers et al. (2018) reported that individuals who spent more time passively working with social media suffered from more intense levels of hopelessness, loneliness, depression, and perceived inferiority. For another, Tang et al. (2013) observed that the procedures of sharing information, commenting, showing likes and dislikes, posting messages, and doing other common activities on social media are correlated with higher stress. Similarly, Ley et al. (2014) described that people who spend 2 h, on average, on social media applications will face many tragic news, posts, and stories which can raise the total intensity of their stress. This stress-provoking effect of social media has been also pinpointed by Weng and Menczer (2015), who contended that social media becomes a main source of stress because people often share all kinds of posts, comments, and stories ranging from politics and economics, to personal and social affairs. According to Iwamoto and Chun (2020), anxiety and depression are the negative emotions that an individual may develop when some source of stress is present. In other words, when social media sources become stress-inducing, there are high chances that anxiety and depression also develop.

Charoensukmongkol (2018) reckoned that the mental health and well-being of the global population can be at a great risk through the uncontrolled massive use of social media. These researchers also showed that social media sources can exert negative affective impacts on teenagers, as they can induce more envy and social comparison. According to Fleck and Johnson-Migalski (2015), though social media, at first, plays the role of a stress-coping strategy, when individuals continue to see stressful conditions (probably experienced and shared by others in media), they begin to develop stress through the passage of time. Chukwuere and Chukwuere (2017) maintained that social media platforms continue to be the major source of changing mood among general populations. For example, someone might be passively using a social media sphere, and s/he may finally find him/herself with a changed mood depending on the nature of the content faced. Then, this good or bad mood is easily shared with others in a flash through the social media. Finally, as Alahmar (2016) described, social media exposes people especially the young generation to new exciting activities and events that may attract them and keep them engaged in different media contexts for hours just passing their time. It usually leads to reduced productivity, reduced academic achievement, and addiction to constant media use ( Alahmar, 2016).

The number of studies on the potential psychological effects of social media on people in general is higher than those selectively addressed here. For further insights into this issue, some other suggested works of research include Chang (2012), Sriwilai and Charoensukmongkol (2016), and Zareen et al. (2016). Now, we move to the studies that more specifically explored the effects of social media on students' affective states.

Review of the affective influences of social media on students

Vygotsky's mediational theory (see Fernyhough, 2008) can be regarded as a main theoretical background for the support of social media on learners' affective states. Based on this theory, social media can play the role of a mediational means between learners and the real environment. Learners' understanding of this environment can be mediated by the image shaped via social media. This image can be either close to or different from the reality. In the case of the former, learners can develop their self-image and self-esteem. In the case of the latter, learners might develop unrealistic expectations of themselves by comparing themselves to others. As it will be reviewed below among the affective variables increased or decreased in students under the influence of the massive use of social media are anxiety, stress, depression, distress, rumination, and self-esteem. These effects have been explored more among school students in the age range of 13-18 than university students (above 18), but some studies were investigated among college students as well. Exemplary works of research on these affective variables are reviewed here.

In a cross-sectional study, O'Dea and Campbell (2011) explored the impact of online interactions of social networks on the psychological distress of adolescent students. These researchers found a negative correlation between the time spent on social networking and mental distress. Dumitrache et al. (2012) explored the relations between depression and the identity associated with the use of the popular social media, the Facebook. This study showed significant associations between depression and the number of identity-related information pieces shared on this social network. Neira and Barber (2014) explored the relationship between students' social media use and depressed mood at teenage. No significant correlation was found between these two variables. In the same year, Tsitsika et al. (2014) explored the associations between excessive use of social media and internalizing emotions. These researchers found a positive correlation between more than 2-h a day use of social media and anxiety and depression.

Hanprathet et al. (2015) reported a statistically significant positive correlation between addiction to Facebook and depression among about a thousand high school students in wealthy populations of Thailand and warned against this psychological threat. Sampasa-Kanyinga and Lewis (2015) examined the relationship between social media use and psychological distress. These researchers found that the use of social media for more than 2 h a day was correlated with a higher intensity of psychological distress. Banjanin et al. (2015) tested the relationship between too much use of social networking and depression, yet found no statistically significant correlation between these two variables. Frison and Eggermont (2016) examined the relationships between different forms of Facebook use, perceived social support of social media, and male and female students' depressed mood. These researchers found a positive association between the passive use of the Facebook and depression and also between the active use of the social media and depression. Furthermore, the perceived social support of the social media was found to mediate this association. Besides, gender was found as the other factor to mediate this relationship.

Vernon et al. (2017) explored change in negative investment in social networking in relation to change in depression and externalizing behavior. These researchers found that increased investment in social media predicted higher depression in adolescent students, which was a function of the effect of higher levels of disrupted sleep. Barry et al. (2017) explored the associations between the use of social media by adolescents and their psychosocial adjustment. Social media activity showed to be positively and moderately associated with depression and anxiety. Another investigation was focused on secondary school students in China conducted by Li et al. (2017). The findings showed a mediating role of insomnia on the significant correlation between depression and addiction to social media. In the same year, Yan et al. (2017) aimed to explore the time spent on social networks and its correlation with anxiety among middle school students. They found a significant positive correlation between more than 2-h use of social networks and the intensity of anxiety.

Also in China, Wang et al. (2018) showed that addiction to social networking sites was correlated positively with depression, and this correlation was mediated by rumination. These researchers also found that this mediating effect was moderated by self-esteem. It means that the effect of addiction on depression was compounded by low self-esteem through rumination. In another work of research, Drouin et al. (2018) showed that though social media is expected to act as a form of social support for the majority of university students, it can adversely affect students' mental well-being, especially for those who already have high levels of anxiety and depression. In their research, the social media resources were found to be stress-inducing for half of the participants, all university students. The higher education population was also studied by Iwamoto and Chun (2020). These researchers investigated the emotional effects of social media in higher education and found that the socially supportive role of social media was overshadowed in the long run in university students' lives and, instead, fed into their perceived depression, anxiety, and stress.

Keles et al. (2020) provided a systematic review of the effect of social media on young and teenage students' depression, psychological distress, and anxiety. They found that depression acted as the most frequent affective variable measured. The most salient risk factors of psychological distress, anxiety, and depression based on the systematic review were activities such as repeated checking for messages, personal investment, the time spent on social media, and problematic or addictive use. Similarly, Mathewson (2020) investigated the effect of using social media on college students' mental health. The participants stated the experience of anxiety, depression, and suicidality (thoughts of suicide or attempts to suicide). The findings showed that the types and frequency of using social media and the students' perceived mental health were significantly correlated with each other.

Discussion

The body of research on the effect of social media on students' affective and emotional states has led to mixed results. The existing literature shows that there are some positive and some negative affective impacts. Yet, it seems that the latter is pre-dominant. Mathewson (2020) attributed these divergent positive and negative effects to the different theoretical frameworks adopted in different studies and also the different contexts (different countries with whole different educational systems). According to Fredrickson's broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions ( Fredrickson, 2001), the mental repertoires of learners can be built and broadened by how they feel. For instance, some external stimuli might provoke negative emotions such as anxiety and depression in learners. Having experienced these negative emotions, students might repeatedly check their messages on social media or get addicted to them. As a result, their cognitive repertoire and mental capacity might become limited and they might lose their concentration during their learning process. On the other hand, it should be noted that by feeling positive, learners might take full advantage of the affordances of the social media and; thus, be able to follow their learning goals strategically. This point should be highlighted that the link between the use of social media and affective states is bi-directional. Therefore, strategic use of social media or its addictive use by students can direct them toward either positive experiences like enjoyment or negative ones such as anxiety and depression. Also, these mixed positive and negative effects are similar to the findings of several other relevant studies on general populations' psychological and emotional health. A number of studies (with general research populations not necessarily students) showed that social networks have facilitated the way of staying in touch with family and friends living far away as well as an increased social support ( Zhang, 2017). Given the positive and negative emotional effects of social media, social media can either scaffold the emotional repertoire of students, which can develop positive emotions in learners, or induce negative provokers in them, based on which learners might feel negative emotions such as anxiety and depression. However, admittedly, social media has also generated a domain that encourages the act of comparing lives, and striving for approval; therefore, it establishes and internalizes unrealistic perceptions ( Virden et al., 2014; Radovic et al., 2017).

It should be mentioned that the susceptibility of affective variables to social media should be interpreted from a dynamic lens. This means that the ecology of the social media can make changes in the emotional experiences of learners. More specifically, students' affective variables might self-organize into different states under the influence of social media. As for the positive correlation found in many studies between the use of social media and such negative effects as anxiety, depression, and stress, it can be hypothesized that this correlation is induced by the continuous comparison the individual makes and the perception that others are doing better than him/her influenced by the posts that appear on social media. Using social media can play a major role in university students' psychological well-being than expected. Though most of these studies were correlational, and correlation is not the same as causation, as the studies show that the number of participants experiencing these negative emotions under the influence of social media is significantly high, more extensive research is highly suggested to explore causal effects ( Mathewson, 2020).

As the review of exemplary studies showed, some believed that social media increased comparisons that students made between themselves and others. This finding ratifies the relevance of the Interpretation Comparison Model ( Stapel and Koomen, 2000; Stapel, 2007) and Festinger's (1954) Social Comparison Theory. Concerning the negative effects of social media on students' psychology, it can be argued that individuals may fail to understand that the content presented in social media is usually changed to only represent the attractive aspects of people's lives, showing an unrealistic image of things. We can add that this argument also supports the relevance of the Social Comparison Theory and the Interpretation Comparison Model ( Stapel and Koomen, 2000; Stapel, 2007), because social media sets standards that students think they should compare themselves with. A constant observation of how other students or peers are showing their instances of achievement leads to higher self-evaluation ( Stapel and Koomen, 2000). It is conjectured that the ubiquitous role of social media in student life establishes unrealistic expectations and promotes continuous comparison as also pinpointed in the Interpretation Comparison Model ( Stapel and Koomen, 2000; Stapel, 2007).

Implications of the study

The use of social media is ever increasing among students, both at school and university, which is partly because of the promises of technological advances in communication services and partly because of the increased use of social networks for educational purposes in recent years after the pandemic. This consistent use of social media is not expected to leave students' psychological, affective and emotional states untouched. Thus, it is necessary to know how the growing usage of social networks is associated with students' affective health on different aspects. Therefore, we found it useful to summarize the research findings in recent years in this respect. If those somehow in charge of student affairs in educational settings are aware of the potential positive or negative effects of social media usage on students, they can better understand the complexities of students' needs and are better capable of meeting them.

Psychological counseling programs can be initiated at schools or universities to check upon the latest state of students' mental and emotional health influenced by the pervasive use of social media. The counselors can be made aware of the potential adverse effects of social networking and can adapt the content of their inquiries accordingly. Knowledge of the potential reasons for student anxiety, depression, and stress can help school or university counselors to find individualized coping strategies when they diagnose any symptom of distress in students influenced by an excessive use of social networking.

Admittedly, it is neither possible to discard the use of social media in today's academic life, nor to keep students' use of social networks fully controlled. Certainly, the educational space in today's world cannot do without the social media, which has turned into an integral part of everybody's life. Yet, probably students need to be instructed on how to take advantage of the media and to be the least affected negatively by its occasional superficial and unrepresentative content. Compensatory programs might be needed at schools or universities to encourage students to avoid making unrealistic and impartial comparisons of themselves and the flamboyant images of others displayed on social media. Students can be taught to develop self-appreciation and self-care while continuing to use the media to their benefit.

The teachers' role as well as the curriculum developers' role are becoming more important than ever, as they can significantly help to moderate the adverse effects of the pervasive social media use on students' mental and emotional health. The kind of groupings formed for instructional purposes, for example, in social media can be done with greater care by teachers to make sure that the members of the groups are homogeneous and the tasks and activities shared in the groups are quite relevant and realistic. The teachers cannot always be in a full control of students' use of social media, and the other fact is that students do not always and only use social media for educational purposes. They spend more time on social media for communicating with friends or strangers or possibly they just passively receive the content produced out of any educational scope just for entertainment. This uncontrolled and unrealistic content may give them a false image of life events and can threaten their mental and emotional health. Thus, teachers can try to make students aware of the potential hazards of investing too much of their time on following pages or people that publish false and misleading information about their personal or social identities. As students, logically expected, spend more time with their teachers than counselors, they may be better and more receptive to the advice given by the former than the latter.

Teachers may not be in full control of their students' use of social media, but they have always played an active role in motivating or demotivating students to take particular measures in their academic lives. If teachers are informed of the recent research findings about the potential effects of massively using social media on students, they may find ways to reduce students' distraction or confusion in class due to the excessive or over-reliant use of these networks. Educators may more often be mesmerized by the promises of technology-, computer- and mobile-assisted learning. They may tend to encourage the use of social media hoping to benefit students' social and interpersonal skills, self-confidence, stress-managing and the like. Yet, they may be unaware of the potential adverse effects on students' emotional well-being and, thus, may find the review of the recent relevant research findings insightful. Also, teachers can mediate between learners and social media to manipulate the time learners spend on social media. Research has mainly indicated that students' emotional experiences are mainly dependent on teachers' pedagogical approach. They should refrain learners from excessive use of, or overreliance on, social media. Raising learners' awareness of this fact that individuals should develop their own path of development for learning, and not build their development based on unrealistic comparison of their competences with those of others, can help them consider positive values for their activities on social media and, thus, experience positive emotions.

At higher education, students' needs are more life-like. For example, their employment-seeking spirits might lead them to create accounts in many social networks, hoping for a better future. However, membership in many of these networks may end in the mere waste of the time that could otherwise be spent on actual on-campus cooperative projects. Universities can provide more on-campus resources both for research and work experience purposes from which the students can benefit more than the cyberspace that can be tricky on many occasions. Two main theories underlying some negative emotions like boredom and anxiety are over-stimulation and under-stimulation. Thus, what learners feel out of their involvement in social media might be directed toward negative emotions due to the stimulating environment of social media. This stimulating environment makes learners rely too much, and spend too much time, on social media or use them obsessively. As a result, they might feel anxious or depressed. Given the ubiquity of social media, these negative emotions can be replaced with positive emotions if learners become aware of the psychological effects of social media. Regarding the affordances of social media for learners, they can take advantage of the potential affordances of these media such as improving their literacy, broadening their communication skills, or enhancing their distance learning opportunities.

Conclusion

A review of the research findings on the relationship between social media and students' affective traits revealed both positive and negative findings. Yet, the instances of the latter were more salient and the negative psychological symptoms such as depression, anxiety, and stress have been far from negligible. These findings were discussed in relation to some more relevant theories such as the social comparison theory, which predicted that most of the potential issues with the young generation's excessive use of social media were induced by the unfair comparisons they made between their own lives and the unrealistic portrayal of others' on social media. Teachers, education policymakers, curriculum developers, and all those in charge of the student affairs at schools and universities should be made aware of the psychological effects of the pervasive use of social media on students, and the potential threats.

It should be reminded that the alleged socially supportive and communicative promises of the prevalent use of social networking in student life might not be fully realized in practice. Students may lose self-appreciation and gratitude when they compare their current state of life with the snapshots of others' or peers'. A depressed or stressed-out mood can follow. Students at schools or universities need to learn self-worth to resist the adverse effects of the superficial support they receive from social media. Along this way, they should be assisted by the family and those in charge at schools or universities, most importantly the teachers. As already suggested, counseling programs might help with raising students' awareness of the potential psychological threats of social media to their health. Considering the ubiquity of social media in everybody' life including student life worldwide, it seems that more coping and compensatory strategies should be contrived to moderate the adverse psychological effects of the pervasive use of social media on students. Also, the affective influences of social media should not be generalized but they need to be interpreted from an ecological or contextual perspective. This means that learners might have different emotions at different times or different contexts while being involved in social media. More specifically, given the stative approach to learners' emotions, what learners emotionally experience in their application of social media can be bound to their intra-personal and interpersonal experiences. This means that the same learner at different time points might go through different emotions Also, learners' emotional states as a result of their engagement in social media cannot be necessarily generalized to all learners in a class.

As the majority of studies on the psychological effects of social media on student life have been conducted on school students than in higher education, it seems it is too soon to make any conclusive remark on this population exclusively. Probably, in future, further studies of the psychological complexities of students at higher education and a better knowledge of their needs can pave the way for making more insightful conclusions about the effects of social media on their affective states.

Suggestions for further research

The majority of studies on the potential effects of social media usage on students' psychological well-being are either quantitative or qualitative in type, each with many limitations. Presumably, mixed approaches in near future can better provide a comprehensive assessment of these potential associations. Moreover, most studies on this topic have been cross-sectional in type. There is a significant dearth of longitudinal investigation on the effect of social media on developing positive or negative emotions in students. This seems to be essential as different affective factors such as anxiety, stress, self-esteem, and the like have a developmental nature. Traditional research methods with single-shot designs for data collection fail to capture the nuances of changes in these affective variables. It can be expected that more longitudinal studies in future can show how the continuous use of social media can affect the fluctuations of any of these affective variables during the different academic courses students pass at school or university.

As already raised in some works of research reviewed, the different patterns of impacts of social media on student life depend largely on the educational context. Thus, the same research designs with the same academic grade students and even the same age groups can lead to different findings concerning the effects of social media on student psychology in different countries. In other words, the potential positive and negative effects of popular social media like Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, etc., on students' affective conditions can differ across different educational settings in different host countries. Thus, significantly more research is needed in different contexts and cultures to compare the results.

There is also a need for further research on the higher education students and how their affective conditions are positively and negatively affected by the prevalent use of social media. University students' psychological needs might be different from other academic grades and, thus, the patterns of changes that the overall use of social networking can create in their emotions can be also different. Their main reasons for using social media might be different from school students as well, which need to be investigated more thoroughly. The sorts of interventions needed to moderate the potential negative effects of social networking on them can be different too, all requiring a new line of research in education domain.

Finally, there are hopes that considering the ever-increasing popularity of social networking in education, the potential psychological effects of social media on teachers be explored as well. Though teacher psychology has only recently been considered for research, the literature has provided profound insights into teachers developing stress, motivation, self-esteem, and many other emotions. In today's world driven by global communications in the cyberspace, teachers like everyone else are affecting and being affected by social networking. The comparison theory can hold true for teachers too. Thus, similar threats (of social media) to self-esteem and self-worth can be there for teachers too besides students, which are worth investigating qualitatively and quantitatively.

Probably a new line of research can be initiated to explore the co-development of teacher and learner psychological traits under the influence of social media use in longitudinal studies. These will certainly entail sophisticated research methods to be capable of unraveling the nuances of variation in these traits and their mutual effects, for example, stress, motivation, and self-esteem. If these are incorporated within mixed-approach works of research, more comprehensive and better insightful findings can be expected to emerge. Correlational studies need to be followed by causal studies in educational settings. As many conditions of the educational settings do not allow for having control groups or randomization, probably, experimental studies do not help with this. Innovative research methods, case studies or else, can be used to further explore the causal relations among the different features of social media use and the development of different affective variables in teachers or learners. Examples of such innovative research methods can be process tracing, qualitative comparative analysis, and longitudinal latent factor modeling (for a more comprehensive view, see Hiver and Al-Hoorie, 2019).

Author contributions

Both authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

Funding

This study was sponsored by Wuxi Philosophy and Social Sciences bidding project-"Special Project for Safeguarding the Rights and Interests of Workers in the New Form of Employment" (Grant No. WXSK22-GH-13). This study was sponsored by the Key Project of Party Building and Ideological and Political Education Research of Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications-"Research on the Guidance and Countermeasures of Network Public Opinion in Colleges and Universities in the Modern Times" (Grant No. XC 2021002).

Conflict of interest

Author XX was employed by China Mobile Group Jiangsu Co., Ltd. The remaining author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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The effect of social media on the development of students' affective variables

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The use of social media is incomparably on the rise among students, influenced by the globalized forms of communication and the post-pandemic rush to use multiple social media platforms for education in different fields of study. Though social media has ...

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Identifying and Addressing Student Pain Points with Student-Centered Social Media Strategies

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Learn how to use student-centered social media strategies to identify student pain points and address them with relevant content tailored.

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Resource 8 - Sprout Social's, "15 Ways to Use Social Media for Education

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Resource 8 - Sprout Social's, "15 Ways to Use Social Media for Education

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With remote learning and emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), social media is an integral part of education more than ever. There are many different ways to use social media for education inside and outside the classroom.

Because we believe in the power of social media to make nearly anything easier, we will share 15 ways to use social media for education, based on insights shared with us from top institutions.

Benefits of social media in education

Here are our top three benefits of using social media in education:

Benefit 1: Extends learning opportunities

Social media unleashes more learning opportunities. Online classes and remote jobs are the new norm, so teaching students to work from a distance becomes a necessity for digital literacy and preparing them for their careers. Social media platforms support educators in various ways from sharing announcements to holding live lectures.

Benefit 2: Create connections with students and alumni

Social provides a way for institutions to quickly and directly communicate with students, faculty, staff and alumni, fostering connections across various audiences. Social content can attract prospective students, keep parents informed, grow alumni networks, promote on-campus events and more.

Focusing on nurturing community and publishing engaging content can also help increase enrollment. According to our Higher Education Social Media Benchmarks for 2023 report, 41% of school officials can directly attribute increased enrollment to social strategy.

For example, Keele University said their campus photos on Instagram help students solidify their college decision. One student came to the university because she saw their posts on Facebook and it helped confirm her decision, later becoming a digital ambassador for the school.

Benefit 3: Build brand identity

Social supports and amplifies university branding. University marketing teams use social media to maintain a positive brand reputation for their institutions. With the right strategy, colleges and universities can attract more students, increase endowments, promote events or initiatives and improve alumni relations.

Social media in the classroom

From preschool to college, there are so many methods for using social media in the classroom to communicate and educate. Here are seven ways to use social media in the classroom across platforms:

1. Use posts to broadcast updates and alerts

Instructors and colleges can meet students where they are by incorporating social media platforms they're likely already familiar with like Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter).

Have students follow a class Facebook Page or join a Facebook Group to view posts about course updates, homework assignments and tests. Universities can have publicly accessible pages dedicated to specific schools or departments that students can see even if they aren't active on Facebook.

When using social media for education, it's important to maintain a professional boundary. Email students a direct link to the Facebook Group for access and avoid sending friend requests. Groups are the perfect "home base," especially for online courses because it makes it easy to connect with students. Similarly, instructors and departments can use Posts on X to keep students informed.

2. Use live streaming for lectures and discussions

Instructors can use Facebook Groups, Instagram Live, YouTube Live or LinkedIn Live to stream lectures and facilitate more accessible learning. If a student can't come to the lecture hall, they can join online or review later. Adding live captions helps students who may be deaf or hard of hearing, non-native speakers, or learn visually. And platforms like Instagram and YouTube allow live streams to be recorded, providing students with review material for midterms and finals season.

Recorded live streams also widen the institution's reach and authority by making lectures available to scholars and professors from other colleges, states or countries.

3. Use X for class updates and more

X is a great option for providing quick updates and reminders to students. Teachers can create a single handle per class and reuse it every year, or they can create a new handle each school year. Use X threads to share resources like practice quizzes, interesting perspectives or thought-provoking quotes to foster critical thinking. Hashtags can mark specific discussions or chats with guest speakers.

4. Create a class blog for discussions and cross-channel learning

Blogs are another great outlet for incorporating social media in the classroom. Students can link to the class blog on other social channels. For example, a student might share a photo from their visual essay on LinkedIn to attract the attention of recruiters for job or internships. Using blogs as a semester-long assignment can improve students' short-form writing and critical thinking.

Don't feel limited to just an English or writing class; this use of social media in education can be transferred across all subjects. There are also several platforms professors can use to create class blogs, such as Tumblr, Medium or WordPress. The course syllabus, updates and resources can be shared on the blog as well.

5. Use Instagram for digital storytelling

Have students practice storytelling on Instagram by creating class-specific accounts where they can present photos or graphics (and delete them once the course is over, if they so choose). This can work especially well in visual-heavy classes: Have photojournalism students post essays or challenge the social media marketing class to create a faux-brand campaign.

6. Create a class-specific Pinterest board

Educators can use Pinterest to prepare and organize resources, lesson plans and worksheets for their classes in one place. They can also set up Pinterest boards for each of their classes and save pins that are relevant to lessons.

Create boards according to class or subject, and create sub-topic boards for weekly units, projects or worksheets. Pinterest can also be useful for students to curate a digital bibliography for research projects, papers or group assignments. Students can pin websites, books or videos to a board on a single topic and refer back to it when it's time to write an essay or thesis.

7. Prep for post-graduation and create alumni relationships

LinkedIn can help current students develop networking skills, craft their personal brand and connect with alumni. Flexing these career muscles could help them earn internships, gain mentors and secure job offers before they walk across the stage on graduation day.

Institutions can use LinkedIn for university colleges as well. For example, a business school may have several private LinkedIn Groups for regional alumni chapters to connect them with students and faculty for internships, fundraising, volunteer opportunities and events.

Encouraging students to post relevant articles, projects and research, internship experiences and other academic accomplishments helps the university develop social proof on the platform. This is also an excellent example of the importance of incorporating advocacy into your social strategy.

Social media for education marketing

Just as there were many ways to use social media in the classroom, there are also many uses for social media in education marketing. Social media marketing can help if you're looking to reach a larger audience for your college or university. Let's dive into how social media can empower education marketing.

8. Leverage TikTok creators and influencers for user-generated content

Although many public universities have banned TikTok from campus Wi-fi, some educators and institutions embrace the app to educate and connect with students. Student and teacher influencers can provide user-generated content that satisfies a prospective student's desire to see authentic content from their peers and future professors.

For example, Chapman University professor @itsmattprince went viral after challenging his class to earn 1 million likes on a TikTok video in exchange for canceling their final:

Fun, yet real-world applications like this illustrate the power of social influence-plus who doesn't love a canceled final?

9. Include social media links on your school website

In the Higher Education Social Media Benchmarks for 2023 report, we found that 68% of high school students use social channels to research schools. Many parents and prospective students will check a school's website first if they're interested, and offering even more ways to follow the school creates a different insight into campus life.

Make it easy for parents and students to find your school's social media profiles by adding links to the website's main navigation or creating a social media directory that houses them all in one place.

10. Give a glimpse into student life through photo and video

If you want to attract new students and parents to your school, share photos of campus events to showcase what they could expect. Use short-form video like Reels, TikTok or YouTube Shorts to help prospective students envision themselves attending college there.

Highlighting events, sports, extracurriculars and the beauty of campus can make your school stand out from the rest. While school and university websites tend to follow the same mold, social media allows you to be more unique and casual like this Barbenheimer-inspired post from the University of Georgia:

11. Create alumni community groups

Many alumni want to remain involved with their alma mater after graduation. Creating a dedicated community via Facebook Groups or LinkedIn Groups can increase engagement.

For example, the University of Newcastle has over 148,000 alumni. Their team features current students, staff and alumni to amplify the career opportunities that manifest from being part of their community.

Alumni groups, groups for different graduating classes or departments, and groups for different extracurriculars and organizations allow former and current students to engage and meet others with common interests. Take a look at our alumni engagement best practices guide to learn more ways to keep the school spirit flowing.

12. Incorporate a social media crisis strategy

How would you communicate to the entire campus during an emergency? Whether it's a fire, tornado or other immediate campus emergency, a social media crisis plan can help institutions proactively prepare. Keep parents and students updated on the situation by sharing information about the crisis and if authorities are involved. Many campuses have automated messaging alerts set up, but using social also enables people to be updated in real time.

Institutions can use social listening, which involves analyzing conversations and trends related to your brand, to aid with public relations crisis management plans. Seneca College leveraged Sprout's capabilities a few years ago when 12,000 staff members went on strike. Using Brand Keywords and the Smart Inbox, the social media team was able to sort through and respond to a deluge of inbound feedback from concerned students.

13. Use chatbots to support students outside of office hours

In our higher education social media playbook, we talk about the importance of social customer service. Using automated replies or chatbots can help the student body get their questions answered immediately, or at least guide them to a solution faster.

Keele University used chatbots via Sprout's Bot Builder to respond immediately to common questions about courses and bursary information. In the five months after using chatbots, nearly 500 conversations addressed a variety of topics from housing applications to international student services.

14. Iterate social strategy to create student-centric content

Using social media for education allows educators and marketers to meet students where they are by connecting on channels they use everyday. Social creates an opportunity for institutions to be more even more student-centric. But to keep students engaged, institutions will need to produce content that caters to the wants and needs of their audience(s).

If you want to manage your institution's social channels successfully, you'll need to iterate and improve your strategy by reviewing the top and lowest performing content.

Dartmouth College uses Sprout's Sent Messages report to determine content performance and iterate their overall social strategy as needed. After reviewing which posts performed well, they schedule new posts with similar content to inform their content calendar.

15. Manage your communities all under one roof

Social media empowers universities to bring their various audiences together. Many institutions have an extensive community of prospective and current students, faculty, staff and alumni, but this causes a common pain point: decentralization.

Since colleges and universities have multiple social media accounts, it can be difficult to manage them all seamlessly. However, using a social media management software centralizes multiple networks in one place, so overseeing various accounts becomes more manageable and scalable.

Texas A&M University, one of the largest public universities in the nation, uses social media to connect with these various communities. The university has hundreds of departments, 16 colleges and 19 NCAA sports, so using a social media management tool is essential. Their social team uses Sprout's publishing suite to discuss strategy, collaborate on content creation and provide feedback to interns all on one platform. In just six months, between August 2020 and January 2021, Texas A&M earned over 131 million impressions and 8.3 million content engagements across X, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

A tool like Sprout Social can help make social media management a breeze, regardless of whether you're a solo marketer or a full marketing department. Multiple users can use the Sprout platform to create content with consistent messaging and schedule posts across networks at the best time using our ViralPost® feature.

And the Post Performance report takes the guesswork out of identifying what content resonates because teams can pinpoint top posts and view engagement across channels.

Sprout enables you to monitor and manage multiple accounts across different networks, which is ideal for educational institutions. Each department or teacher at your school might have their own separate social media accounts for specific information, and a social media management tool can help you ensure the right posts are going out on each of these accounts.

And if there is news or content relevant to multiple departments, Sprout enables users to share the same content across multiple profiles with a single click.

Start using social media for education

Using social media for education goes beyond the classroom because it helps educators shape a modern holistic learning experience, build community and establish academic authority.

Take some of these ideas for a test drive, and sign up for a free Sprout Social trial to help you manage it all.

Jamia Kenan

Jamia Kenan is a Content Specialist for Sprout Social based in Atlanta, GA. When she's not writing, you'll find her talking about the Internet from the latest TikTok trends to NFTs and the metaverse. She also enjoys trying new restaurants, hiking and watching movies.

Read all articles by Jamia Kenan

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15 ways to use social media for education

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There are many different ways to use social media for education, so we've identified 15 ways to use it, inside and outside the classroom.

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Resource 9 - NEA's, "Social Media in Education" page

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Resource 9 - NEA's, "Social Media in Education" page

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The use of social media in the education environment presents myriad challenges. We outline potential concerns and offer recommendations for educators, school districts, and state and local union affiliates.

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Resource 10 - United Nations UNESCO Report

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Resource 10 - United Nations UNESCO Report

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UNESCO report spotlights harmful effects of social media on young girls

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Digital technologies and algorithm-driven software - especially social media - present high risks of privacy invasion, cyberbullying and distraction from learning to young girls, according to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) latest Global Education Monitor (GEM) report released on Thursday.

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Resource 7 - Commonsense.org's list of social networks for students and teachers

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Resource 7 - Commonsense.org's list of social networks for students and teachers

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Social Networks for Students and Teachers | Common Sense Education

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Social Networks for Students and Teachers is a list of 20 apps, games, and websites curated by Common Sense Education editors.

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Resource 6 - Kids on the Yard's article, "Social Media for Students: Ways to Navigate Today’s Digital Landscape" 

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Resource 6 - Kids on the Yard's article, "Social Media for Students: Ways to Navigate Today’s Digital Landscape" 

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Kids on the Yard | Articles , Blog, Resources

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Social Media For Students: Ways To Navigate Today’s Digital Landscape

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Letting your child roam the depths of the internet a place where the safety and well-being of K-12 students is a pressing concern, can feel daunting.