Abstract:

The research explored the use and perspectives of social media by accounting academics. The arrival of social media has profoundly changed our daily activities. The choice to participate or not requires an understanding of what social media is and its impact on our daily existence, rituals and interactions with others. This new form of collaboration is only in its infancy. We have a lot to learn. How is it impacting us and in turn how do we shape its future? What values and purposes does it help or hinder? Is living in a data cloud good for our health? How are we actually using it in our education spaces? And more importantly, why? To what end?

As Kevin Kelly, blogged in 2011, “Twenty years ago if I had been paid to convince an audience of reasonable, educated people that in twenty years time we’d have street and satellite maps for the entire world on our personal hand held phone devices – for free – and with street views for many cities – I would not be able to do it. I could not have made an economic case for how this could come about ‘for free’.”

The change in computer technology since its first development in the 1940s has been immense. The change was steady but exploded with the digital revolution. Now most people have personal digital devices that are hooked up to a world of information, noises, interactions and interconnections that in totality is beyond what the human mind could possibility comprehend in a life time. Although we can applaud the computer wizardry that enabled this, there is a need to understand what experience humans are been provided or taken away by the technology.

This research contributes, albeit in a small way, to this understanding. Like Thoreau, the author wanted to ‘live deliberately’, in this digital world ‘and not practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary’. To do this it seemed essential, in the area of accounting (the author’s profession) to discover what was available, what was used and useful, and what perspectives were shared among accounting academics. The paper presents the outcomes of this exploration.

Keywords:

Social media, accounting.