Snap, Tweet and Post: College Student Social Media Perceptions and Heutagogic Practices and Uses

Abstract

The nearly ubiquitous access to technology and the diversity of social media sites has provided students with easy access to a wide range of information and opportunities for interaction with other individuals.  The nature of social media creates a context in which students can determine when they view information, the duration of the viewing, where they view their social media and why they choose to view the media.  The conditions of social media interactions present an opportunity for self-determined learning, or heutagogy.  While heutagogy takes place multiple time during a student’s average day, the self-determined nature of the learning may lead to issues associated with self-regulation and anti-social behaviors.  To study student self-determined perceptions and engagement with social media we developed a mixed methods survey gathering quantitative and qualitative data from 71 undergraduate students.  Our results reveal students do self-determine their engagement with social media and will also self-determine the norms they use for engagement.  We also found that the students perceived that they gave up other activities to engage in social media, and were likely to spend more time studying, exercising, and bettering themselves of they did not spend time interacting with social media.