Abstract:

Nowadays, technologies are part of students' lives. They have grown up surrounded by mobile phones, PCs and tablets, and they use social media every day. Therefore, universities need to adapt their programmes to this new reality by combining both formal and informal learning (video tutorials, open content and social media that allow learning anywhere and anytime) as well as promoting digital literacy.

In this context, the aim of this paper is to explore the tendencies related to the social media/networks used by university students and their specific use for learning in higher education in order to identify whether they are currently changing.

To achieve this objective, we present a descriptive analysis with two samples made up with students from the 4th year of the Bachelor in Business Administration (BBA) at the University of Cantabria, Spain. The first sample was obtained in 2021 and 49 students took part, while the second one, carried out with 98 students, was obtained in 2023.

At the beginning of the course, a questionnaire was designed to collect data. The students provided information about their use of the most important social media: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, Snapchat and Linkedin. The results showed that the most popular are Instagram and YouTube (more than 90% of our students use them regularly in 2023), followed by TikTok (61.86%) and Twitter (59.79%). The comparison between 2021 and 2023 shows two interesting differences: firstly, the use of Facebook has been reduced drastically (more than 51% of the students used Facebook in 2021, but only 26.80 % use it in 2023); and secondly, the use of TikTok has been increased (from 26.53% in 2021 to 61.86% in 2023). Reddit, Snapchat, Pinterest and Facebook have less than 27% of users in 2023. Thus, instructors interested in promoting learning by using social media should focus on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter or Linkedin.
In relation to the students’ aim use of social media, the results of our empirical study show that they use them for leisure, to search for information and, in the case of YouTube, to acquire knowledge. YouTube is the most popular social network used for learning purposes (almost 42% of the students surveyed use it to study), while Reddit and Snapchat have never been used for academic reasons. Linkedin, on the other hand, is more focused on professional networking and, as expected, most users use it to work (almost 80%).

The results also show that the favourite social network in 2023 is Instagram followed by Twitter. The results in 2021 were the same but with differences: while in 2021 Instagram was the favourite for 77% and Twitter for 8% of the students, in 2023 the percentages were 57 and 22 respectively. These findings show the importance of carrying out projects for learning based upon Instagram or Twitter.

Keywords:

Social media, active learning, innovative learning, mobile learning, Instagram, Twitter.