Social media as academic quicksand: A ...

Learning and Individual Differences 44 (2015) 40–45

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Learning and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/lindif

Social media as academic quicksand: A phenomenological study of student experiences in and out of the classroom Abraham E. Flanigan a,⁎, Wayne A. Babchuk b a b

Department of Educational Psychology, 231 Teachers College Hall, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA Department of Educational Psychology, 225 Teachers College Hall, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 25 March 2015 Received in revised form 14 October 2015 Accepted 4 November 2015 Keywords: Social media Self-regulation Delay of gratification Technology Net Generation

a b s t r a c t The widespread use of social media and its potential to hinder academic performance has received the attention of researchers and is a growing concern of educators. This phenomenological study explored the perceived impact of social media on the educational experiences of university students in the United States, both in and out of the classroom. Analysis of semi-structured interviews revealed several pervasive themes, all of which can be viewed as barriers to academic success. Participants reported that using social media during academic activities diminishes achievement, increases the amount of time it takes to complete tasks, and reduces how much information students retain from study and lecture sessions. Additionally, participants indicated how a lack of situational and topic interest increases social media's temptation. We argue that educators and students would benefit from a more complete understanding of social media's role as a barrier to academic success. Implications for educators are discussed. © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction University students are often confronted with technological distractions (e.g., cell phones, social media, laptops) as they attend to academic tasks (Junco & Cole-Avent, 2008; Pew Research Center, 2011). In fact, today's students have grown up in such a technologically-rich environment that they are often referred to as the Net Generation (Tapscott, 1998). For these students, technological distractions are often within arm's reach, including as they study and do homework (Junco, 2012) or attend lectures (Kuznekoff, Munz, & Titsworth, 2015; McCoy, 2013). One potential technological distraction that has received the attention of researchers is social media, which is generally considered to encompass electronically-based platforms (e.g., social networking outlets, texting, video sharing services) that (a) are accessed by multiple users to create online communities, (b) are used to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content, and (c) facilitate high-speed interactions between the users (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy, & Silvestre, 2011). Examples of social media sites include Facebook and Twitter. University students have easy access to social media through their cell phones or laptops. In the United States, nearly 90% of all university-aged adults own a cell phone (Smith, 2011), more than 80% own laptops (Pew Research Center, 2010), and virtually all create social media accounts (McGough & Salomon, 2013). Additionally, more than 90% of university students bring their cell phones to ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: abrahamfl[email protected] (A.E. Flanigan), [email protected] (W.A. Babchuk).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2015.11.003 1041-6080/© 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

class (Jacobsen & Forste, 2011) and more than a quarter bring their laptops (Aguilar-Roca, Williams, & O'Dowd, 2012), creating a situation where university students have easy access to social media in and out of the classroom. For those concerned with student success, it is important to consider what impact constant exposure to social media and other forms of technology has on students' learning, achievement, and motivation. For many, it may seem intuitive to believe the Net Generation consists of tech-savvy students who can leverage technology to their professional and academic advantage. However, according to Switzer and Switzer (2013), this conjecture is largely unfounded. These authors propose that, while skilled at using technology for personal and leisure use, the Net Generation has little to no experience using technology for professional or educational purposes. Rather, research has demonstrated how the presence of technological distractions hinders the Net Generation's learning and achievement outcomes (Duncan, Hoekstra, & Wilcox, 2012; Fries & Dietz, 2007; Junco, 2011). The purpose of our phenomenological study was to explore how Net Generation university students perceive their experiences with social media as they attend to academic tasks in and out of the classroom. As noted by Creswell (2009, 2013), phenomenological research involves “The exploration of (a) phenomenon with a group of individuals who have all experienced the phenomenon” (p. 78). In line with this definition, our study was concerned with understanding how social media use (a growing phenomenon for university students) impacts the academic experiences of university students. Although previous research has demonstrated how university students' almost unlimited access to technological distractions diminishes their learning and achievement

A.E. Flanigan, W.A. Babchuk / Learning and Individual Differences 44 (2015) 40–45

outcomes (e.g., Fox, Rosen, & Crawford, 2009; Lepp, Barkley, & Karpinski, 2014), few studies have explored university students' perceptions of their social media use. Our study sought to help fill this gap in the literature.

41

Moustakas, 1994; Vagle, 2014). For this study, university students' experiences using social media while they attend to academic tasks represented the central, shared phenomenon of interest. As such, the goal of this study was to describe the essence of participants' shared experiences using social media during academic tasks.

1.1. Technological distractions and student success 3.1. Sample and site selection For the Net Generation, technological devices and activities are part of their daily lives (e.g., texting, emailing, and blogging). In what follows, we provide a brief synopsis of the research literature focusing on the impact that technological distractions have on students as they attend inclass lectures or study and complete homework outside of the classroom. The majority of university students multitask with digital devices as they attend classroom lectures (McCoy, 2013) or study and work on homework outside of class (Junco, 2012; Mokharti, Delello, & Reichard, 2015). During classroom lectures, McCoy (2013) found that the majority of university students report using digital devices during class periods for non-class purposes. Participants reported using digital devices during class for a range of activities, including social media and web surfing, that result in consequences such as not paying attention (89.8% of participants), missing instruction (80.4%), and losing grade points (26.6%). Other studies have augmented these findings, underscoring how using digital devices for off-task purposes during lectures diminishes the amount of lecture notes students record (Kuznekoff et al., 2015; Kuznekoff & Titsworth, 2013) and their achievement outcomes (Burak, 2012; Hembrooke & Gay, 2003; Kraushaar & Novak, 2010; Sana, Weston, & Cepeda, 2013). Outside of the classroom, researchers have found that the majority of university students attempt to either (a) simultaneously use technological devices and social media for non-academic purposes as they study or work on homework or (b) actively switch back and forth between their digital devices and academic tasks (e.g., Head & Eisenberg, 2011; Mokharti et al., 2015). Such off-task behaviors have been associated with decreases in students' grades (Rosen, Carrier, & Cheever, 2013; Junco, 2011, 2012) and the productivity of their homework and study sessions (Levine, Waite, & Bowman, 2007; Bowman, Levine, Waite, & Gendron, 2010). Collectively, the literature supports Switzer and Switzer's (2013) contention that Net Generation students do not possess a predisposition to leverage technology to their academic benefit. Instead, the presence of social media and other technological distractions appears to disrupt student learning. 2. Research questions Previous studies have demonstrated how university students' almost unlimited access to social media and technological devices diminishes their learning and achievement outcomes. However, few have explored university students' perceptions of how social media impacts their academic experience. To address this gap in the literature, the central research question driving this phenomenological study was: How do university students describe their experiences with social media as they complete academic tasks inside and outside of the classroom? Sub-questions included: SQ1: How do university students define social media? SQ2: How do university students feel that social media interferes with their academic motivation? SQ3: How do university students perceive their social media use to impact their academic success? 3. Methodology Phenomenology is a qualitative research methodology effective for exploring how individuals experience a shared phenomenon (Creswell, 2009, 2013; Finlay, 2011; Merriam, 2009; Moran, 2000;

After obtaining approval from the university's Institutional Review Board, we obtained instructor permission to recruit participants from undergraduate classrooms on campus. Purposeful, criterion-based sampling was used to obtain participants who had experience using social media while attending to academic tasks in and out of the classroom setting. Participants were given a $15 gift card to a university bookstore for their participation in this study. Ten undergraduate students (M = 19.7 years old) at a large, public, Midwestern university in the United States participated in this study during the Spring 2014 semester. The majority of participants reported being White, non-Hispanic (n = 7) and a majority also reported having a cumulative GPA above 3.0 on a 4.0 scale (n = 7). Participants were mixed with respect to year in school (5 freshmen, 3 sophomores, 1 junior, and 1 senior) and were evenly split with regard to gender (5 male; 5 female). Collectively, participants represented a diversity of eight different majors. 3.2. Data collection A semi-structured interview protocol consisting of 12 open-ended questions was developed by the researchers (see Appendix A). The primary investigator conducted face-to-face interviews with the participants in the secondary researcher's office on the university campus. All interviews were recorded and later transcribed by the primary investigator. To protect the participants' identities, each was assigned a pseudonym. Participants were subsequently referred to by their pseudonym and their actual names were never attached to interview data. 3.3. Data analysis Moustakas (1994) phenomenological approach to data analysis was used to identify emerging themes in the responses. Initially, the primary investigator explored the transcriptions using Creswell's (2012) preliminary exploratory analysis procedure. During this process, critical memos were written within the transcripts to provide a general sense of the data. Following this analysis, the procedure of horizontalization (Moustakas, 1994) was applied to the interview data. Through this procedure, “significant statements” related to university students' experiences with social media were identified. This process resulted in the identification of 185 significant statements within the interview response data. These were provided to the secondary investigator for peer review, feedback, and continued analysis. After identifying significant statements, the researchers engaged in the open coding process (Charmaz, 2014; Creswell, 2009, 2013). Through this approach, codes were assigned to the significant statements, resulting in 48 open codes for the interview data. Focused coding procedures were then used to explore for redundancy and overlap, thereby reducing the number of codes from 48 to 21. These 21 codes were organized into “clusters of meaning” based on similarities in their content and were cross-checked by the secondary investigator. For example, responses coded as “no perceived impact on homework quality” and “social media use impacts study quality” were merged together to form the “Social media use has differential impacts on homework and study quality” theme. Codes were combined into clusters of meaning until the point of saturation was achieved and no new themes emerged (Creswell, 2012). This process ultimately resulted in the emergence of seven themes related to university students' experiences using social media. These themes were provided to the secondary researcher

42


for cross-checking. After identification of the emerging themes, followup emails were sent to participants for member checking of the themes. Participant responses verified that the emerging themes represented their shared experience with social media. 4. Findings Our study explored university students' shared experiences with social media. Based on the open-ended interview response data, we found that university students have well-formulated beliefs about what social media is and how it impacts their academic experiences. 4.1. Defining “social media” To explore participants' shared experiences with social media, we first needed to understand how the participants envision social media use and its parameters. Participants were asked to define social media for themselves (free of any predetermined definition or description provided by the researchers) and collectively described numerous overarching elements of what they believed constitutes social media. For them, social media: (a) is internet-based, (b) exists across multiple platforms (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, text messages), (c) facilitates connection and communication with others, (d) makes it possible to share information, ideas, and life updates with others, and (e) takes place across numerous types of multimedia (e.g., images, videos, audio files). Collectively, these elements combined to form our study's working definition of social media: Social media consists of electronic, often web-based platforms (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, and sending text messages) that allow users to connect with a wide audience (e.g., family, friends, and strangers) to share information, ideas, and life updates across numerous types of multimedia (e.g., text, images, videos, audio files).

4.2. Analysis of themes Emergent themes centered on two distinct areas: out-of-class and in-class use of social media. 4.2.1. Out-of-class themes From the interview responses, several collective themes emerged. Participants' shared experiences with social media suggest that, while studying or completing homework outside of the classroom, social media (a) is constantly available, (b) is frequently accessed during homework and study sessions, (c) infiltrates study and homework experiences, and (d) is perceived to have differential impacts on homework and study quality. 4.2.1.1. Social media is a constantly available distraction. Previous research suggests that university students are constantly exposed to technology and social media. When describing their own experiences, students agreed that the temptation to use social media is nearly constant. For Chip, many of his homework assignments are computerbased in nature, which means that, “When I'm working on my homework it will be on my laptop and it (social media) is always just a click away.” Flo agreed, stating that social media is “right at my fingertips.” However, university students did not view this constant availability as a positive. Marissa lamented, “They (social media outlets) are available, but I wish they weren't because it's really distracting to me.” These responses suggest that the participants are consistently exposed to social media's presence and do not view this constant exposure positively. 4.2.1.2. Frequent use of social media during homework and study. Although participants indicated that they do not view social media's consistent presence in a positive light, this does not appear to minimize the

amount of time they use social media. In fact, all participants reported using social media on a regular basis during their homework and study sessions. Several participants reported that using social media accounts for nearly one-fourth of the total amount of time they spend on homework or studying. Others were more specific about the amount of time their social media use adds to their homework and study sessions. For Marissa, social media use adds a total of “three hours in a whole night of doing homework,” while Kayleigh reported that social media wastes nearly an hour of her time each night. According to the participants, using social media is seen as a normal part of their everyday life, even as they attend to academic tasks. Woody described this as, “I think a lot of us have an urge to go on (social media) in the middle of studying. It's like a tendency we do, a lot of us.” These responses suggest that, although these students do not hold an overly favorable view of social media's presence during their homework and studying experiences, they still devote a substantial amount of time using it. 4.2.1.3. Social media infiltrates homework and study experiences. Another goal of our research was to understand how social media use enters into students' homework and studying experiences. Participants indicated that social media use occurs both subconsciously (i.e., they find themselves using it without planning to do so) and consciously (i.e., making the conscious decision to stop what they were working on and use social media). When describing how social media use occurs without any conscious decision, Kayleigh said, “You don't even mean to do it. Like, I could get on my computer, open it up, and mean to go to Google and I'm typing Facebook (into the web browser).” Rose shared a similar experience, saying, “(When) I'm working on homework, I slowly move towards my computer, click on Facebook, and will be on there for a while.” For other students, using social media is much more intentional. Flo described how the inability to delay gratification from social media often pulls her off-task. Flo said, “I have my laptop and I type on it. But, when my cell phone rings, I stop what I was working on and check it instead of finishing the sentence I was on…it's basically constant like that.” Regardless of their intention to use social media, Dennis emphasized that once students give into social media's temptation, it is difficult to get back on task. Dennis said, “I would describe it as a toilet bowl of distraction. Once you fall in, it's hard to climb back out.” 4.2.1.4. Social media use has differential consequences on homework and study quality. For educators, one of the most important implications concerns how using social media affects students' academic performance. To this end, students described how using social media has two distinctly different impacts depending on whether they are working on homework or studying. Participants did not believe that using social media while completing homework negatively impacts the quality of their work. Although participants had previously described how social media is constantly available and frequently used, they still believed in the importance of producing quality homework. According to Chip, “I know I'm here to do the task at hand and I need to complete my homework because it is more important.” Jordan agreed, stating, “I don't feel like it affects the quality of my work.” Instead of viewing their social media use as a detriment to the quality of their work, participants focused on the extra time that social media use adds to their homework experiences. In fact, the impact on homework quality was summarized by Kayleigh as, “The quality of the homework, not so much. I'll spend the extra two hours if I need to.” However, students believed that using social media has a negative impact on their study outcomes. According to the participants, using social media as they study decreases the amount of information they are able to retain and negatively impacts their academic success. For Kayleigh, using social media during study divides her attention and, once she shifts it away from her textbook and towards social media, she tends to “forget everything I just learned.” Marissa agreed, saying, “I think I would retain a lot more information without social media.”


4.2.2. In-class themes In addition to their out-of-class experiences, participants identified shared experiences using social media in the classroom. Specifically, participants indicated that using social media (a) occurs regularly during class, (b) combats boredom, and (c) has a negative impact on their academic success.

4.2.2.1. Social media use is a regular in-class experience. In addition to being a regular fixture in their out-of-class experiences, participants described consistent use of social media during class, ranging from a few glances at their phones to extended use. Ease of access to social media through their cell phones and laptops was a major reason why they use it so often in class. According to Chip: It is so easy to slip out your phone under the desk…I would say you kill five to ten minutes every class on your phone. And, a lot of people bring their laptops to class. If they get to a point where they can stop typing it is really easy for them to click over in a different tab and access (social media). For Marissa, using social media begins when she takes her seat. “I would say (I use it) right away,” she said, “I think it's just more of a reflex to check your phone and social media.” For others, using social media is spread through-out their time in class. Flo estimates that she uses it “about half of the whole class time.” Drew wasn't very far behind, suggesting that he uses social media “25% of the time” he is in class.

4.2.2.2. Social media use combats boredom during class. Combating boredom was cited as a major determinant of whether or not the participants use social media during class. Jordan described this by saying, “(During) a really boring, un-interactive lecture where time is just going by slow, then I'll try and go on (social media) just to make time go by a little faster.” Marissa agreed, saying, “If it's boring, that's when I resort to using my phone and social media.” Although instructors attempt to create stimulating educational experiences for their students, the participants suggested that the way instructors teach their courses often leads to social media use. Jordan described this process as, “In the classes where you can just sit back, the PowerPoints are already uploaded (to Blackboard), or there is no required note taking, then I'm definitely going to be checking social media.” Flo agreed by saying, “When I don't need to look at what they're saying because it's all in the book and their reading off the PowerPoints, I think I don't need to pay attention.” Although uploading course documents to the internet may provide students with easy access to them, this may inadvertently lead to increased social media use during class.

4.2.2.3. Social media use has a negative impact on student success. Participants described how using social media during class has a direct, negative impact on their academic success. Kayleigh said, “If I'm texting or something else, that's all I'm focused on. Then I get out of class and it's like I learned nothing.” Marissa agreed, saying that focusing on social media during class, “Definitely takes away from my learning and how much information I retain (during lectures).” Missing information and not taking advantage of learning opportunities can translate into diminished academic success. Drew described how the use of social media can drag down students' grades by saying, “It can affect your 89.9%. Like, if you're trying to get an A, it (social media use) can knock it down.” For Marissa, this impact was extremely pronounced. Marissa said, “Right now, I'm at a 3-something (GPA), but I think that if it wasn't for social media I could probably be like, higher 3's almost a 4.0 (GPA).” These responses highlight the negative impact that university students felt social media has on their academic success.

43

4.3. Participants' closing reflections Along with describing their experiences with social media as they attend to academic tasks in and out of the classroom, several participants described their feelings of how social media use impacts university students as a whole. These participants felt that social media has placed members of the Net Generation at a disadvantage for success. According to Kayleigh, “The distractions are there. I just feel like we're being set up to fail. Like, everything is being modernized and it's not good. I don't like it because it is failing me.” Marissa agreed, saying, “I wish that I didn't have as much access to it as I do. Because, it definitely impacts the way I live life.” Finally, Rose wished that the educational system would assess the current situation that social media availability has created and make adjustments to benefit the students. Rose said: If we went away from (the current situation) and back to a more traditional setting that was maybe 10 or 20 years ago, I think that students in this day and age would, you know, revert back to where they should be instead of where social media is leading them. These opinions encapsulated the quagmire that students find themselves in. Responses of the participants suggest that they are aware of the pitfalls associated with using social media. Its constant availability, easy access, and status as a fixture in their daily lives creates a situation in which students find themselves habitually pulled in by social media's temptation. 5. Discussion Our study described Net Generation students' shared experiences with social media as they attend to academic tasks in and out of the classroom. Students voiced strong opinions about the impact social media has on their academic experiences. When asked to provide their own definition of social media, participants focused on the depth of information that can be shared across social media and the vast audience they connect with through video, audio, and textual messages. Participants indicated that in order to process all this information they must allocate their time, attention, and energy away from their academic responsibilities. While popular media attempts to paint a picture of Net Generation students embracing technology and using it to their advantage, the participants in this study described a different experience. Consistent with Switzer and Switzer's (2013) assertion, students in the Net Generation did not describe leveraging social media to their academic advantage. Instead, our participants chronicled how social media hijacks their attention during lectures, infiltrates their homework and studying experiences, and lowers their learning and achievement outcomes. Our study identified several emergent themes related to participants' shared experiences with social media. Participants described social media as a readily available, frequently accessed distraction in and out of the classroom. Participants recognized that using social media often decreases the quality of study sessions, leads to missed information from lectures, harms academic performance, and more. Yet, despite this awareness, social media's temptation oftentimes proves too great of an obstacle to overcome. The findings of our study relate closely to other studies that have explored the impact of technologically-based distractions. First, our findings support the work of Fries and Dietz (2007), who found that students' motivation and ability to stay on task were diminished by the presence of distractions. According to our participants, social media often pulls them off task and decreases their motivation to study, complete homework, or pay attention to lectures. Second, our study reinforces McCoy's (2013) finding that university students often use digital devices for non-class purposes during class. Participants in our study frequently use their cell phones and laptops to access social media during class. Finally, our research supports Wood et al. (2012),

44


Kuznekoff and Titsworth (2013), and Sana et al.’s (2013) findings that using technologically-based distractions during lectures decreases the amount of information students retain from those lectures. Our participants believe using social media during class diminishes the amount of information they retain from lectures and negatively impacts their grades and GPAs. While the findings of our study align closely with other investigations into the impact of technological distractions, it also makes important contributions to the existing literature. First, our participants indicated that using social media has become a habitual part of their lives, where consistent use of social media feels normal and opting to delay social media feels unnatural. Drew said, “Social media is just today's life and society. Really, how we communicate and how we know people.” These kinds of responses suggest social media is used for more purposes than entertainment or combating boredom. Instead, our participants believe social media has become an integral part of how they communicate and interact with the world around them. Second, our study suggests university students calculate a costbenefit analysis when deciding whether to use social media while attending to academic tasks. This is consistent with Flowerday and Shell's (2015) finding that topic interest (i.e., personal interest in the course content) and situational interest (i.e., spontaneous interest arising from a novel situation or environment) impact students' engagement and attitude. For our participants, lecture-based classroom activities and large class sizes diminish situational interest. Additionally, studying, working on homework, or attending lectures based on courses or material deemed irrelevant to their major(s) negatively impacts topic interest. As a result, when the perceived benefits (e.g., combating boredom) outweigh the potential consequences (e.g., missing instruction), participants indicated they are likely to use social media. For an example, consider Jordan's comment that uploading PowerPoints to Blackboard can negatively incentivize students to pay attention during class. Due to this often-made instructional decision, students may decide that using social media represents a much more appealing alternative to paying attention to material they can easily access on Blackboard after class. Educators would be wise to consider how uploading PowerPoints and other instructional design decisions influence students' decisions to turn to social media during class. 5.1. Implications for higher education In light of our findings, it is imperative that instructors take action to help students minimize their social media use and avoid the associated learning and achievement consequences. Fortunately, instructors have several tools at their disposal. First, instructors can incorporate policies prohibiting the use of digital devices and social media during class time for non-class purposes. Although it was not a major theme, participants indicated that instructors who incorporate such policies into their syllabi and enforce them during class deter the use of digital devices and social media. These responses reinforced prior research (e.g., Finn & Ledbetter, 2013) which suggests that instructors who develop and enforce policies related to technology use in the classroom appear more credible to their students and can successfully combat against off-task behaviors. Second, participants attributed much of their social media use during class to boredom caused by passive, teacher-centered classrooms. Rather than forcing students to be passive in the classroom, instructors may be able to fend off social media use by creating dynamic, engaging classrooms where students are expected to participate in discussions, activities, or group work. The findings of this study and prior research (e.g., Taneja, Fiore, & Fischer, 2015) suggest that students in the Net Generation may be likely to become bored and turn to social media when confronted with passive classroom experiences. Students are left to themselves to overcome social media's temptation outside of class. However, instructors can help their students overcome this temptation by embedding strategy instruction into their

courses. By teaching students about setting homework goals, the benefits of minimizing distractions, or the pitfalls of using social media, instructors can help students understand the importance of delaying social media use until they are finished with homework or studying. Additionally, teaching students about effective learning strategies can help transform them into what Zimmerman and Schunk (1989) referred to as self-regulated learners—students who become active agents in their learning process and take ownership over their learning and achievement outcomes.

5.2. Limitations and future research Although our study contributed to a better understanding of the impact that social media use has on students' academic experiences, there were a few limitations. First, although our participants represented a collection of eight different majors, we only recruited from introductory sociology and anthropology courses. This recruitment strategy may have limited our access to students from majors which do not make these courses part of their general education requirements. Second, although our sample size was in line with recommendations for conducting phenomenological research (Creswell, 2009, 2013) obtaining larger sample sizes may allow future researchers to uncover even more detailed descriptions of undergraduates' experiences with social media. Third, each participant was only interviewed once. As a result, we were unable to ask follow up questions. Although member checking verified that the emergent themes accurately reflected the shared experiences of the participants, conducting multiple interviews may have generated even richer and more complete data. Fourth, while our study focused on students' perceptions of their social media use, future studies may benefit from obtaining response data from instructors. Obtaining instructors' perceptions of students' social media use in the classroom would allow future studies to obtain a new perspective about how social media permeates the classroom setting. Finally, future studies would benefit from exploring how social media use can be used as a tool for learning. Although this line of research is currently underway (e.g., Seo, Pellegrino, & Engelhard, 2012), the findings of our study suggest that researchers must continue to uncover ways of turning social media into a tool for learning, instead of a source of distraction.

6. Conclusion The findings of our study suggest that university students have strong views on the impact that social media has on their academic experiences. Overall, students described how habitual use of social media disrupts their lecture learning, infiltrates their homework and studying experiences, and negatively impacts their academic achievement. These findings support Switzer and Switzer's (2013) contention that members of the Net Generation do not naturally leverage technology to their professional and academic advantage. Instead, our participants described how social media represents a constant temptation that must be overcome in order to stay on task. Given our participants' shared view of social media a source of constant distraction, one question that comes to mind is, “Can the Net Generation's academic experiences, both in and out of the classroom, really be separated from the digital world in which they live?” This study and those that preceded it suggest that access to social media and mobile technologies is changing the nature of students' learning experiences. Whether studying in the library or attending a lecture, students are always just a click or Tweet away from communicating with hundreds of family members, friends, and strangers. We implore our colleagues in higher education to be mindful of how undergraduates' experiences are impacted by being imbedded within today's rapidly advancing digital age.


Acknowledgments We would like to extend our sincere gratitude to Dr. Hefer Bembenutty of Queens College of The City University of New York, professors Barney McCoy and Justin Olmanson of the University of Nebraska—Lincoln, and Julia Roehling of the University of Nebraska—Lincoln for their guidance, feedback, and contributions. Appendix A. Interview protocol 1. How would you define “social media” and why do you define it this way? What are some examples of social media that you most often use? 2. How do you typically access the sources of social media that you most commonly use? 3. Are these sources readily available to you while you work on academic tasks outside of the classroom setting? 4. When you are working on academically-related tasks outside of the classroom, what types of social media do you find yourself most distracted by? Why are they so distracting to you? 5. How does social media impact the way you complete your academic tasks outside of the classroom? 6. What factors influence how motivated you are to delay using social media use until you are finished studying or working on an assignment? Why are these factors important? 7. What aspects of your studying/homework environment impact whether or not you might try to use social media while studying or working on an assignment? 8. When you are working on an independent academic task, what emotions do you typically experience as a result of temptation to use social media? 9. Do you think that social media has a positive impact, negative impact, or no impact on your ability to complete academic tasks outside of a classroom setting? Why do you think so? 10. How would you describe your experiences with social media inside of the classroom setting? 11. How does your use of social media during class impact your academic experience? 12. What else would you like to add related to your experiences with social media while you are studying or working on an assignment? References Aguilar-Roca, N.M., Williams, A.E., & O'Dowd, D.K. (2012). The impact of laptop-free zones on student performance and attitudes in large lectures. Computers & Education, 59(4), 1300–1308. Bowman, L.L., Levine, L.E., Waite, B.M., & Gendron, M. (2010). Can students really multitask? An experimental study of instant messaging. Computers & Education, 54, 927–931. Burak, L. (2012). Multitasking in the university classroom. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 6(2), 8 (Available at http://digitalcommons. georgiasouthern.edu/ij-sotl/vol6/iss2/8). Charmaz, K. (2014). Constructing grounded theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Creswell, J.W. (2009). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Creswell, J.W. (2012). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc. Creswell, J.W. (2013). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches (3rd ed.). Sage: Thousand Oaks, CA. Duncan, D.K., Hoekstra, A.R., & Wilcox, B.R. (2012). Digital devices, distraction, and student performance: Does in-class cell phone use reduce learning. Astronomy Education Review, 11(1), 1–4. Finlay, L. (2011). Phenomenology for therapists. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Finn, A.N., & Ledbetter, A.M. (2013). Teacher power mediates the effects of technology policies on teacher credibility. Communication Education, 62(1), 26–47.

45

Flowerday, T., & Shell, D.F. (2015). Disentangling the effects of interest and choice on learning, engagement, and attitude. Learning and Individual Differences, 40, 134–140. Fox, A.B., Rosen, J., & Crawford, M. (2009). Distractions, distractions: Does instant messaging affect college students' performance on a concurrent reading comprehension task? Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 12(1), 51–53. Fries, S., & Dietz, F. (2007). Learning in the face of temptation: The case of motivational interference. The Journal of Experimental Education, 76(1), 93–112. Head, A.J., & Eisenberg, M.B. (2011, Oct. 12). Balancing act: How college students manage technology while in the library during crunch time. Retrieved from http://files.eric. ed.gov/fulltext/ED535168.pdf Hembrooke, H., & Gay, G. (2003). The laptop and the lecture: The effects of multitasking in learning environments. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 15(1), 46–64. Jacobsen, W.C., & Forste, R. (2011). The wired generation: Academic and social outcomes of electronic media use among university students. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 14(5), 275–280. http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2010.0135. Junco, R. (2011). Too much face and not enough books: The relationship between multiple indices of Facebook use and academic performance. Computers in Human Behaviorhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2011.08.026. Junco, R. (2012). In-class multitasking and academic performance. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(6), 2236–2243. Junco, R., & Cole-Avent, G.A. (2008). An introduction to technologies commonly used by college students. New Directions for Student Services, 124, 3–17. http://dx.doi.org/10. 1002/ss.292. Kaplan, A.M., & Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media. Business Horizons, 53(1), 59–68. Kietzmann, J.H., Hermkens, K., McCarthy, I.P., & Silvestre, B.S. (2011). Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media. Business Horizons, 54(3), 241–251. Kraushaar, J.M., & Novak, D.C. (2010). Examining the effects of student multitasking with laptops during the lecture. Journal of Information Systems Education, 21, 241–251. Kuznekoff, J.H., & Titsworth, S. (2013). The impact of mobile phone usage on student learning. Communication Education, 62(3), 233–252. Kuznekoff, J.H., Munz, S., & Titsworth, S. (2015). Mobile phones in the classroom: Examining the effects of texting, Twitter, and message content on student learning. Communication Education, 1-22http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2015.1038727. Lepp, A., Barkley, J.E., & Karpinski, A.C. (2014). The relationship between cell phone use, academic performance, anxiety, and satisfaction with life in college students. Computers in Human Behavior, 31(1), 343–350. Levine, L.E., Waite, B.M., & Bowman, L.L. (2007). Electronic media use, reading, and academic distractibility in college youth. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 10(4), 560–566. http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/cpb.2007.9990. McCoy, B.R. (2013). Digital distractions in the classroom: Student classroom use of digital devices for non-class related purposes. Journal of Media Education, 4(4), 5–14. McGough, B.L., & Salomon, D. (2013). Engaging students through social media. Paper presented at Charleston Library Conference (Retrieved from Purdue e-Pubs). Merriam, S.B. (2009). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation. SanFrancisco: Jossey-Bass. Mokharti, K., Delello, J., & Reichard, C. (2015). Connected yet distracted: Multitasking among college students. Journal of College Reading and Learning, 45(2), 164–180. Moran, D. (2000). Introduction to phenomenology. London New York: Routledge. Moustakas, C. (1994). Phenomenological research methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Pew Research Center (2010r). Internet and American life project. Retrieved from http:// www.pewinternet.org/ PewResearch Center (2011r). College students and technology. Retrieved from http:// www.pewinternet.org/2011/07/19/college-students-and-technology/ Rosen, L.D., Carrier, L.M., & Cheever, N.A. (2013). Facebook and texting made me do it: Media-induced task-switching while studying. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(3), 948–958. Sana, F., Weston, T., & Cepeda, N.J. (2013). Laptop multitasking hinders classroom learning for both users and nearby peers. Computers & Education, 62, 24–31. Seo, J., Pellegrino, D.A., & Engelhard, C. (2012). Designing problem-driven instruction with online social media. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Smith, A. (2011). Americans and text messaging: 31% of text message users prefer texting to voice calls, and young adults stand out in their use of text messaging Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org Switzer, J.S., & Switzer, R.V. (2013). The myth of the tech-savvy student: The role of media educators in a web 2.0 world. Journal of Media Education, 4(4), 15–27. Taneja, A., Fiore, V., & Fischer, B. (2015). Cyber-slacking in the classroom: Potential for digital distraction in the new age. Computers & Education, 82(1), 141–151. Tapscott, D. (1998). Growing up digital: The rise of the net generation. New York: McGrawHill. Vagle, M.D. (2014). Crafting phenomenological research. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Wood, E., Zivcakova, L., Gentile, P., Archer, K., De Pasquale, D., & Nosko, A. (2012). Examining the impact of off-task multi-tasking with technology on real-time classroom learning. Computers & Education, 58(1), 365–374. Zimmerman, B.J., & Schunk, D.H. (1989). Self-regulated learning and academic achievement: Theory, research, and practice. New York: Springer-Verlag.