Social media
Social media is a communication tool that allows users to interact with, and contribute to, content online. It includes popular online so- cial networks such as Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook, with new platforms emerging. Although social media has a large presence in news and entertainment, when used in the learning setting for educational purposes it has the potential to facilitate com- munication, augmenting the student experience and improving out- comes, by:
- Encouraging interaction and engagement among students
- Nurturing a student-centric learning setting
- Extending the learning environment beyond the classroom
- Facilitating the flow of information between students, faculty, and the campus community
Social media continuously keops changing and as such it is difficult to assian a fixed dofinition to it as Jackaand Scott (2011), argued that there is no singlo recognized definition for social media. However some scholars havo dofinod it in different perspectivos over tho past years. Kaplan and Haenlain (2010), dofinad social media as a group of internmet- based applications that build on the ideological and technological foun- dations of Wob 2.0 and allow the creation and exchange of user-gen- crated content. The Oxford dictionary (2011), also defined social me- dia as "wobsites and applications used for social networking". Another definition of social media is that "it is a communication channel which is very popular, extremely fast and broad, has proven to be highly effective, as well as trusted by billions of people, to share and discover content concerning individuals, brands, information, entertainment and knowhow" (Dearborn, 2014). One theme that all these definitions un- derpin is that social media involves some form of communication be- tween individuals over the internet. Social media began in the late 1990s with the first recognized social media network called "SixDegrees " in 1997 and this technology enabled people to upload a profile and make friends. From 1997 to 2001 a number of community tools; Asian Avenue, blackplanet and MiGente began supporting various combina- tion of profile and publicly articulated friend (Boyd, Danah, Ellison and Nicole, 2007). There has been tremendous improvement since this era and today.
There exist uncountable social networking sites either developed for local use, specific purpose or international use. Kaplan and Haenlein (2010), classified social media into six (6) different categories as fol- lows;
1. Collaborative project (Wikipedia)
2. Blogs and micro blogs (Twitter)
3. Content communities (Youtube)
4. Social networking sites (FB, 2go, BB chat)
5. Virtual game World (World of War Craft)
6. Virtual second world (Second Life)
This classification of social media into classes has been useful to scholars and individuals for easy identification and study of a particu. lar social media type but today a difficulty may arise due the hich proliferation of social media and one may wonder which group a new developed social media type fits into. Social media is considered to be the fastest growing web application in the 21"century and this rapid development is being backed by technological advancement (Heyam, 2014). Mankind has enormously benefited and continues to benefit from it and as such cannot underestimate its importance as far as communication is concerned. Today, social media has taken a new dimension and has encouraged more participation through the intro- duction of mobile phones that support social networks applications. The use of mobile phones that are powered by Android applications to social network is termed as Mobile Social Networking. According to Humphreys (2007), in his study titled "Mobile Social Networks and Social Practices" social network applications have now been migrated from the computer to themobile phone, network information and com- munication can be integrated into the public space; and these new services that are developed for mobile phones allow users to create, develop, and strengthen their social ties.