Abstract:

In this study, the status of using social networking sites by university students and their purposes of using these sites, and the student opinions on negative and positive effects of social networking sites on university students, on integrating social networking sites into university education and on using social networking sites in educational context were investigated. Survey method has been used in this descriptive research. The research has been conducted with 659 university students. Data have been collected by using four different scales. Data have been analyzed using percentage, frequency and chi-square test. Results of the study indicate that students use social networking sites intensively, mostly ranging from one to three hours, that their aim in using these sites is generally related to sharing photographs, video and messaging, that a great majority of the students has more than 200 friends in social networking sites, that they use these sites to continue already existing friendships rather than making new friends. The university students consider social networking sites unreliable in terms of safety of private information. They have stated that positive features of social networking sites are expressing one's self comfortably and easing communication, while the negative ones are taking too much time, possibility of information theft, and decrease in the efficiency of self-studying. The results of the study reveal that student are ready to use the social networking sites in university education and they expect to benefit from these sites in terms of information-source sharing, group work, and sharing instructional materials.

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