Social Media: Time Wasting, Anxiety Causing, or Learning Assisting Tools? A Case Study of Five Saudis
Location
1048
Format Type
Event
Format Type
Workshop
Start Date
January 2018
End Date
January 2018
Abstract
Social media includes network-building activities over the internet using a variety of media resources such as images, text and multimedia content. Social media today is about shared dialogue, information seeking and education. The increasing number of social networking sites has led to an enormous increase in their popularity resulting in a tremendous opportunity for learning to occur among international learners. This proposal discusses the current state of social media in Saudi Arabia and what can be done to promote learning cross-culturally. The paper qualitatively interviews five Saudi individuals who use three social media websites: WhatsApp, Twitter, and Youtube. The average hours spent by the participants on these three social media outlets is 2.5 hours a day. It was found that although engaging in these websites caused some anxiety to the participants, “wasted their times,” and made them addicts, participants learned from these social media websites about other cultures and that these websites served as “cross-cultural teaching tools.” Participants reported that they now know more than before about different cultural aspects in different parts around the world, and that they have better “cultural competence” than before. The paper concludes with recommendations on how to increase awareness of the social media websites as learning tools.
Social Media: Time Wasting, Anxiety Causing, or Learning Assisting Tools? A Case Study of Five Saudis
1048
Social media includes network-building activities over the internet using a variety of media resources such as images, text and multimedia content. Social media today is about shared dialogue, information seeking and education. The increasing number of social networking sites has led to an enormous increase in their popularity resulting in a tremendous opportunity for learning to occur among international learners. This proposal discusses the current state of social media in Saudi Arabia and what can be done to promote learning cross-culturally. The paper qualitatively interviews five Saudi individuals who use three social media websites: WhatsApp, Twitter, and Youtube. The average hours spent by the participants on these three social media outlets is 2.5 hours a day. It was found that although engaging in these websites caused some anxiety to the participants, “wasted their times,” and made them addicts, participants learned from these social media websites about other cultures and that these websites served as “cross-cultural teaching tools.” Participants reported that they now know more than before about different cultural aspects in different parts around the world, and that they have better “cultural competence” than before. The paper concludes with recommendations on how to increase awareness of the social media websites as learning tools.
Comments
Breakout Session C