Use of Social Media in Academic Activities by LIS Students: a study in a public university in Bangladesh

Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and other social media sites are frequently used in our day-to-day conversation, uploading photos and videos, sharing news and views and so on. Being frequent users of social media, students use it not only for communication purposes but also as a tool for supporting their education. The main aim of this study was to explore how the Library and Information Science (LIS) students of University of Dhaka are using various social networking sites in their academic activities. The study also investigated the diversified uses of social media by the students, frequency of using social media and whether social media has a positive or negative impact on their education. A structured questionnaire was surveyed online and 123 students responded. Collected data were analyzed using SPSS and different non-parametric tests were obtained. The study found that Facebook and YouTube are most commonly used social media by LIS students. Students mainly prefer to use Facebook groups and messenger groups for sharing departmental information notices and exchanging documents and lecture sheets among them provided by their teachers. It was also found that majority of the students perceived a positive impact of using social media on their academic activities