Research Background
Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr are but a few examples of social networking sites. People of all ages are converging to the Internet and are signing up for social networking sites by the millions. Facebook, for example, boasted 1.32 billion monthly active users and 1.09 billion mobile monthly active users resulting in 829 million daily active users on average in June 2014. http://newsroom.fb.com/company-info/ This popularity of social networking sites is constantly growing. Educators are looking forward to use these sites that provide collaboration tools and discussion opportunities to their advantage for secondary and higher education. Despite the fact that there are limited guidance on how educators can combine social networking sites into subjects which have been traditionally delivered face to face, they are on the lookout for information on the potential benefit or negative impacts of using these sites as a new way to try to engage students and improve student achievement. The question that we will discuss is, “Will social networking sites bring negative impacts when used in the classroom?”
For the purpose of this research paper, we will define online social networking sites as web-based services that permit individuals to create a public or semi-public profile, display a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and view and navigate through their list of connections and those made by others within the system. In general terms, social networking could be seen as a way of describing the modelling of everyday practices of social interaction, including those that take place within family structures, between friends, and in neighborhood and communities. Most social networking sites include a range of communication tools mobile connectivity, blogs, and photo or video sharing. For example, a student or teacher could post a comment