In gathering information regarding the use of social media, I employed the widespread reach of Facebook along with the data collection power of Google Forms. During my data collection, I surveyed 15 people, 14 from Hawaii and one from New York. The respondents were mostly female (53%) and were predominantly under 44 years of age (93%). A point to note is that there was an error in the Google Form related to age. Ages were grouped 22-34 and 25-44. Because of this, I grouped ages 22-44 together. Results also showed that 47% of respondents use social media multiple times a day and 60% of respondents use social media technologies for a mix of personal, business and educational purposes. When evaluating which social media technologies were used, an overwhelming 100% of users surveyed use Facebook and 60% of users surveyed use Instagram. 47% of respondents reported using Google+ and 40% use Twitter.
Using the Pew Research Center’s Demographics of Social Media Users 2012, I found that my results echoed the overwhelming dominance of Facebook in social media usage. Unfortunately, that is where the similarities between our surveys end. Pew Research Center reported that 16% of respondents reported using Twitter compared to my 40%, and a very underwhelming 13% of respondents using Instagram compared to my 47%. I attribute the differences in results to the survey methods (Pew using telephone interviews, and me using an online survey sent via Facebook) as well as the sample size (Pew having 1,802 and mine being 15). The Demographics of Social Media Users 2012 is an excellent resource for this project. It not only gives relevant data separated by a number of demographics, it gave me an example of better questions to ask when surveying the public. I would rate this resource a 5 of 5.
When evaluating the use of social media in education, it seems that Facebook and Twitter is again king of the technoworld. According the the Reform Support Network’s Measurable Success, Growing Adoption, Vast Potential: Social Media Use Among State and Local Education Agencies, over 95% of state and local educational agencies plan to, or are currently using Facebook and Twitter. Twitter is actually being used multiple times a day by 62% of agencies polled. 70% of these agencies are using these social media technologies to inform their target audiences and 52% of them are using the social media to directly communicate with target audiences. Of those who responded to the survey, 43% reported that their agency did not have a Social Media policy, 51% did have a policy and 6% didn’t know. This information points to a need for some agencies to develop and promote their social media policies as social media is currently being used within the organizations. The information contained in this report was very relevant and contained a good cross section of agencies from around the country (Hawaii included). I would rate this resource a 5 of 5.
Web 2.0 Presentation:
http://prezi.com/4ufyxkq75v9a/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy
References:
Duggan, M. & Brenner, J. (2012). The demographics of social media users-2012. Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. Washington, DC Retrieved from http://pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2013/PIP_SocialMediaUsers.pdf
Reform Support Network. (2012) Measurable Success, Growing Adoption, Vast Potential Social Media Use Among State and Local Education Agencies. Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/implementation-support-unit/tech-assist/social-media-use.pdf
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