The use of social media has been proliferating throughout society since the invention of Web 2.0. Despite the negative issues about the inappropriate use of social media, such as personal privacy, technical constraints, concerns of ambiguity and workload, through various recent studies, its existence is valuable in supporting teaching and learning at the higher education level where these activities are more autonomous and flexible. It facilitates the creation and dissemination of learning resources, provides constructive learning activities, and evaluates the learning process and results. This phenomenon happens because social media has unique traits humans need to survive in this digital era. Therefore, higher education institutions have begun opening themselves to social media as a crucial educational tool. This narrative review aims to conceptualise and identify social media traits that create harmonious higher education teaching and learning in the digital era. The review meticulously analyses 26 selected studies from the Proquest, Science Direct, and Google Scholar databases from 2020-2024. The results have revealed seven traits of social media that are instrumental in the context of teaching and learning at higher education levels. These traits, grouped into four dimensions, are as follows: engagement, interpersonal (affirmation, collaboration, and emotional contagion), cognitive (hypermedia and straightforward), and creation. This study recommends further research on the traits to understand better their functions and impacts, which can be the basis for the emergence of notions about social media applications for education.

Authors:
Dian Wahyuningsih, University of Southampton, United Kingdom
John Schulz, University of Southampton, United Kingdom
Nora McIntyre, University of Southampton, United Kingdom

About the Presenter(s)
Dian Wahyuningsih is a postgraduate researcher at the School of Education, University of Southampton, UK.

Connect on Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dian-wahyuningsih-a34555215/

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