social media in education during pandemic

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Social media for knowledge acquisition and dissemination: the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on collaborative learning driven social media adoption.

• 1 School of Social and Behavioral Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
• 2 Research Institute of Educational Science, Hunan University, Changsha, China
• 3 School of Information Management, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
• 4 School of Management Sciences, Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology, Swabi, Pakistan
• 5 School of Sports Science and Physical Education, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China

During the COVID-19 outbreak, educational institutions were closed, and students worldwide were confined to their homes. In an educational environment, students depend on collaborative learning (CL) to improve their learning performance. This study aimed to increase the understanding of social media adoption among students during the COVID-19 pandemic for the purpose of CL. Social media provides a learning platform that enables students to easily communicate with their peers and subject specialists, and is conducive to students' CL. This study addresses the key concept of CL during the COVID-19 pandemic by assessing social media use among students in higher education. The relationship between social media use and students' performance is crucial to understanding the role of social media during a pandemic. This study is based on constructivism theory and the technology acceptance model. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the conceptual model using SmartPLS. The research findings indicate that social media plays an important role during the pandemic because it provides opportunities for students to enhance CL under the aforementioned situations. This study makes noteworthy theoretical and practical contributions.

Introduction

The onset of the COVID-19 outbreak is a historically unparalleled adverse occurrence ( Venkatesh, 2020 ) with unprecedented lockdowns imposed across nations Pandemics are large outbreaks of an infectious disease over a wide geographical area and can result in widespread morbidity and mortality ( Madhav et al., 2017 ). Various governments have imposed restrictions on citizens' movements, canceled social activities, and advised people to stay at home to prevent the spread of COVID-19 ( Laato et al., 2020 ). The grim fact is that thousands of people have experienced and will continue to experience the negative impacts of COVID-19, including its induced constraints ( Dwivedi et al., 2020 ).

COVID-19 has disrupted many aspects of life, such as the medical system, economy, and education ( Li et al., 2020 ). Educational institutions saw forced closures, and students were required to remain at home. This has led to procedural changes in the day-to-day operations of academic institutions. Because of the pandemic, digital advances have been made in the global higher education sector ( Dwivedi et al., 2020 ). Colleges and universities have canceled classes, and administrators have struggled to convert courses into an online format in a matter of days or weeks ( McMurtrie, 2020 ). To efficiently deliver this online content, educational institutions have created official websites and applications to enable students to continue their education. Several academic institutions have implemented “e-learning,” a web-based learning ecosystem for the dissemination of information and communication to support instructors in their transition to online learning ( McMurtrie, 2020 ).

During the pandemic, people tended to spend more time on social media (SM) as they practice social distancing. SM sites saw an increase of 61% in web traffic compared to the typical rates during the first 3 months of the COVID-19 outbreak. In the past, students reported that SM adoption is, in part, motivated by the need to contact family, teachers, classmates, colleagues, and friends ( Holmes, 2020 ). SM is a medium of communication that enables teachers and students to communicate through numerous online learning applications while adhering to social distancing regulations ( Vordos et al., 2020 ). Furthermore, during COVID-19, the role of SM for educational purposes has become more significant, as it enhances connectivity and brings collaborative opportunities to people who are now beginning to use SM ( Islam et al., 2020 ). SM tools enable teachers, students, and academic institutions to change their teaching or learning methods in a bid to overcome COVID-19 induced restrictions. With the growth of social networks and the increased online presence of many academic institutions, students enjoy live streaming services through SM (e.g., Instagram, Facebook) whereby they participate in regular discussions on trending topics and keep in touch with peers or instructors via online forums ( Abi-Rafeh et al., 2019 ; Abi-Rafeh and Azzi, 2020 ). Regarding teaching and learning purposes in the context of assessing education sustainability, researchers have examined the incorporation of learning via SM in the higher education curriculum ( Alamri et al., 2020 ).

Most Pakistani people are increasingly using SM for communication, work, educational purposes, and entertainment. According to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), the overall Internet traffic in the country has increased by 15%, with SM platforms accounting for the largest proportion of this increase ( Ramsha, 2020 ). Due to the ban on public gatherings, Pakistani users want to connect and communicate on Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, and Twitter, as evidenced by the increase in the number of active users on all platforms during the COVID-19 period ( Khan, 2020 ). Moreover, during March and April 2020, Facebook usage increased from 2.8 to 6.94% in its Pakistani user base. As offices, schools, and universities become more accessible remotely, the need for messaging connectivity continues to grow. WhatsApp, the most widely used messenger service in Pakistan, saw its usage increase by 23.5% over the same period at the start of the outbreak ( Ramsha, 2020 ). Most academic institutes provide online classes using different applications, such as Zoom, WhatsApp, and Google Classroom ( Adnan, 2020 ). As per the PTA report, video conferencing calls increased five-fold during COVID-19. The data show that on February 26, Zoom users totaled 4,149, while on April 8, its user base reached 84,469. Likewise, the number of Zoom application users increased from 5,404 to over 23,000 over 44 days ( Ramsha, 2020 ). Figure 1 shows the impact of COVID-19 on global education systems. The traditional education system has been tremendously impacted by social distancing and other health-related measures adopted worldwide due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, online education systems have supported the continuance of education using the already available Internet technology. In this scenario, SM platforms have provided an extensive learning platform to involve individuals in the discussion process related to learning topics among peers and student-teacher interactions. Moreover, SM platforms have helped in learning further topics in the related areas of study. Social media platforms provide an alternative to face-to-face discussions, extensively supporting students worldwide.

Figure 1 . Social media adoption during the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, multiple studies have been conducted in various research directions, including SM misinformation ( Islam et al., 2020 ), knowledge dissemination ( Chan et al., 2020 ), social distancing ( Greenhow and Chapman, 2020 ), shaping knowledge ( Karasneh et al., 2021 ), business education ( Krishnamurthy, 2020 ), and games ( Laato et al., 2020 ). In contrast, research on SM adoption for collaborative learning (CL) purposes by students facing the ongoing COVID-19 constraints is limited. Therefore, this study's main emphasis lies in the student community adopting the use of SM platforms for CL. Considering the literature gap identified, our study's main objectives were as follows:

• To investigate the factors that trigger SM adoption by the student community during COVID-19.

• To investigate the impact of using social media-based CL on students' learning performance.

• To investigate how students during COVID-19 collaborate with peers by using SM. Based on the study objectives, this study can open up new opportunities to integrate SM into progressive education and to leverage the exciting benefits of CL tools. We investigated how CL and perceived enjoyment (PE) may motivate individuals' SM adoption and how users' technology-related beliefs, specifically perceived ease of use (PEU) and perceived usefulness (PU) of SM, may intervene in the relationship between these factors. The target population was narrowed down to the Pakistani public university student community. Based on the technology acceptance model (TAM) by Davis (1989) and constructivism theory (CT) by Vygotsky (1978) , this study contributes to the literature by conceptualizing and empirically testing a student SM adoption model.

Literature Review

Social media for learning.

COVID-19 was first identified on December 8, 2019, in Wuhan (Hubei Province, China) ( Khan et al., 2020 ). First, it began to spread in China and soon spread globally. UNESCO reported that the closure of academic institutes caused by the pandemic has affected 890 million students in 114 countries. Online learning has become a new routine for some students; however, it has brought huge challenges. According to Almaiah et al. (2020) online learning does not only involve infrastructure issues but also some other issues such as online learning system technical issues, change management issues, course design issues, computer self-efficacy, and financial support issues. Given the social inequalities in many countries, not all students have access to this kind of education ( UNESCO, 2020 ). More than 144 countries closed academic institutions, affecting more than 67.7% of students worldwide. Some other countries closed academic institutions at the regional level, and if these closures occur at the national level, millions of other students will suffer disruption in their education ( UNESCO, 2020 ). The social distance phenomenon has led to many rapid changes in the higher education landscape. Historically, the collective student community has never suddenly shifted from face-to-face instruction to distant instruction using digital technologies. Academic institutions have been compelled to adopt new ways to keep operating and maintain communication using digital technology, and to entirely restructure their education models in responding to pandemic-specific demand criteria. Digital technologies are increasingly used in business and educational sectors, and, on a societal level, increased digital technology use enables people worldwide to keep in touch ( Dwivedi et al., 2020 ).

In the educational context, the adoption level of emerging web technologies is rapidly increasing. The extensive popularity of SM in education makes it essential for teachers and students to understand and adopt SM sites to establish future educational strategies and deploy present course materials on emerging technology-powered platforms ( Sarwar et al., 2019 ; Bai et al., 2021 ). The use of the Internet for social networking is prevalent among youth. Collaborative technology contributes to an online community that can interact rapidly and easily. SM adoption in education has been investigated in several contexts. However, in the context of higher education only one study, which was a small-scale study, has closely observed students' adoption of SM for e-learning ( Gunasagaran et al., 2019 ). During a pandemic, higher education institutions can use e-learning systems to help manage, plan, deliver, and track students' academic learning and faculty teaching activities ( Almaiah et al., 2020 ). Furthermore, SM promote collaboration and participation among students and improve their learning performance ( Al-Rahmi et al., 2020 ). Increased SM assimilation and use has become an important prerequisite for different learning applications and other related resources. Such aspects are considered useful because SM tools work through Internet-based mechanisms to disseminate and exchange information and create an environment for collaboration ( Esam and Hashim, 2016 ).

Besides, the unprecedented rise of mobile technology in recent years has positively impacted the interaction and collaboration between teachers and students. SM provide unique features, such as CL, open-loop feedback, and two-way communication. These features enable many people to easily share their ideas, opinions, experiences, prospects, information, and knowledge freely via SM ( Rau et al., 2008 ; Al-Rahmi et al., 2018 ). Moreover, SM usage enhances students' communication skills, and this means of communication enables them to collaborate and communicate despite geographical constraints, boosting their learning performance ( Williams et al., 2012 ; Qi, 2019 ; Berkani, 2020 ) and encouraging them to work in groups; thus, members help each other by correcting each other's errors, improving their learning progress or performance ( Paul et al., 2005 ). SM provides a platform for students and teachers to discuss their concepts and examine them with their peers ( Tess, 2013 ). It is also a suitable way for students to easily receive feedback from their peers ( Rahman et al., 2019 ). Considering all these advantages, we believe that SM is a valuable educational tool that can be used to enrich learning behavior ( Al-Bahrani et al., 2015 ).

Technology Adoption Models

Technology acceptance among its users is vital to ensuring the success of the system's implementation. Hence, it is important to understand and identify the factors that affect students' acceptance of SM learning. Scholars have presented several theories to determine the important factors that contribute to the acceptance of technology and SM in teaching and learning. Among these theories, the TAM, developed by Davis (1989) , has been widely used in studies aiming to determine the factors affecting users' acceptance of new technology ( Almaiah et al., 2016 ). The TAM model focuses on two primary factors, namely PEU and PU, which influence individuals' intention to use new technology. According to the TAM model, external variables influence individuals' internal beliefs, and the sequential relationship between individuals' personal beliefs, attitudes, and behavioral intentions leads them to use the actual system, which, in turn, helps researchers predict the acceptance of technology by its users. Many studies have used the TAM to explore the acceptance of technology among students in its original form ( Davis, 1989 ), while others have used the extended model ( Almaiah et al., 2016 ).

In addition to the TAM, other theories such as the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), the Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT), DeLone and McLean's Information System Success Model (DL&ML model), and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) are also used to investigate dominant determinants of accepting technology in learning environments. The TRA, developed by Fishbein and Ajzen (1975) , suggests that individuals' behavior is determined by their intention to perform the behavior. This theory holds that one's intention to engage in a specific behavior is the best predictor of his/her engagement in that behavior. Regarding the IDT, Rogers proposed a diffusion process in which innovation is transferred and adopted within certain social systems over time, involving four basic elements: innovation, communication channel, time, and the social system. This diffusion results in the adoption of new ideas and behaviors among individuals who are part of the social system. However, for adoption to occur, individuals must perceive the behavior as new or innovative. The DL&ML model, developed by DeLone and McLean (2003) , offers a broad assessment of the extent of information system success, which involves six components of which three, namely, service quality, system quality, and information quality, affect user satisfaction and intention to use, which, in turn, result in net benefits. Aside from these models, Venkatesh et al. (2003) proposed the UTAUT model by combining usage models to explain individuals' acceptance of an information technology and intention to use the same.

All these models and theories have been used, modified, and confirmed by prior research examining technology acceptance. Almaiah et al. (2016) employed the TAM model in the Jordanian context to examine students' acceptance of smart technology in learning. This study found that external quality factors positively affect students' adoption of new technology. Almaiah and Alismaiel (2018) combined the TAM with the DL&ML model to examine the effect of quality factors on the acceptance of mobile learning applications and found that the content, service, and quality of the system encourage students to use learning applications. Al-Shihi et al. (2018) combined the TAM and UTAUT models to explore the determinants of mobile learning acceptance in Oman. Cheng (2012) conducted a study in Taiwan to determine the factors influencing mobile learning acceptance by combining the TAM with the IDT. Similarly, Alamri et al. (2020) employed the TAM to explore the impact of SM applications on students' achievements in education sustainability in higher education. Collectively, these cited studies suggest that the TAM is a valuable and beneficial framework for explaining the use of technology and the Internet in educational settings.

Theoretical Background and Hypotheses

In this study, we developed a theoretical framework by merging two theories, TAM and CT. Davis designed the TAM to establish the causal relationship between the internal views, perspective, and users' intentions to adopt computer technology ( Davis, 1989 ). Researchers have widely used the TAM to study computer technology and information systems. For example, Alamri et al. (2020) used the TAM to examine the impact of SM applications on students' achievement in higher education in Saudi Arabia. They combined the key aspects of the constructivist learning approach with TAM to find that SM applications positively affect students' satisfaction and academic performance. Chandra applied TAM to investigate users' adoption of online auctions ( Chandra, 2015 ). Moreover, CT purports that learning is a continuous and life-long process, resulting from acting in situations ( Brown et al., 1989 ). Students learn by collaborating and working together as peers, applying their comprehensive knowledge to solve problems ( Tam, 2000 ). From a constructivist perspective, learning is mutually constructed through cooperation and communication with others. In the same way, based on CT activities, people acquire knowledge through communication with peers ( Golub, 1988 ). Figure 2 shows the conceptual model used in this study.

Figure 2 . Conceptual model based on TAM and CT.

Collaborative Learning

CL refers to how students interact via SM with peers, colleagues, friends, and teachers to communicate for CL purposes. The means of communication and CL environments have changed due to SM platforms. CL is considered an important instructional technique to overcome the communication gap among students ( Bernard and Rubalcava, 2000 ). Students who engage in common interests, including socializing with each other, tend to use different SM sites ( Arteaga Sánchez et al., 2014 ; Sobaih et al., 2016 ). SM also plays an important role in community development, enhancing collaboration, and communication between community members ( Arteaga Sánchez et al., 2014 ). Prior studies demonstrate that SM sites are useful for university and college students for educational purposes ( Forkosh-Baruch and Hershkovitz, 2012 ). Group interaction is positively influenced by CL via SM and participating in social networking, where individuals gain diverse skills through engagement and improved performance ( Mazer et al., 2007 ; Liu et al., 2011 ; Ku et al., 2013 ). SM significantly influence students' academic performance, and it is believed that Facebook is suitable for interacting with classmates and teachers ( Cao and Hong, 2011 ; Lin et al., 2019 ). In terms of education, the utilization of SM promotes CL among students ( Liao et al., 2015 ; Alamri et al., 2020 ). In particular, many researchers have emphasized the significance of CL and highlighted its potential for enhancing academic performance and empowerment. This is possible if students' needs and their formative assessment are prioritized, and a community classroom is created that promotes student participation, improves their academic performance, and manages the exchange of knowledge among them. From this perspective, SM is highly useful for creating academic groups to improve students' academic performance ( Pulido et al., 2020 ). SM enhances students' learning activities and promotes group communication, so their utilization as learning and teaching tools by educational institutions should be encouraged ( Merle and Freberg, 2016 ). Moreover, social networks enable teachers to deliver information, interact with students, and offer students various teaching methods, encouraging them to become active students ( Merle and Freberg, 2016 ). Sugimoto et al. (2015) argue that these enriched learning experiences also help increase students' participation in the classroom. Utilizing social networking sites in education has not only enhanced the learning process itself, but has also enhanced students' psychological health, social interaction, and skills. Universities and higher education institutions should focus on delivering awareness sessions as a way to encourage students and faculty to use mobile SM apps to maximize learning outcomes ( Almaiah et al., 2020 ). Because of their inherent utility and ease of use, students often utilize information and communications technologies, particularly SM, to better collaborate with peers ( Wang, 2010 ; Koh and Lim, 2012 ). Based on the above discussion, the following hypotheses were developed:

H1 : CL is positively related to PEU.

H2 : CL is positively related to SM adoption.

H3 : CL is positively related to PU.

Perceived Enjoyment

PE refers to the degree to which an information technology system serves as an antecedent of perceived user-friendliness and PU. Our study proposes that enjoying technology, specifically enjoying SM, is conducive to the perception of PEU and is perceived as useful for CL. PE pertains to the intrinsic motivation or the affective element that affects the PEU and user acceptance constructs of the TAM ( Van der Heijden et al., 2003 ; Venkatesh and Bala, 2008 ). PE is defined as the degree to which the service provided by the learning management systems is considered to be enjoyable per se , excluding any performance concern regarding the use of the system ( Venkatesh, 2000 ; Van der Heijden, 2004 ). Scholars have reported adopting new technologies as performance-enhancing devices and pleasure sources ( Venkatesh, 2000 ; Koenig-Lewis et al., 2015 ). Furthermore, Van der Heijden (2004) and Agarwal and Karahanna (2000) suggest that PE can be a precursor to PEU and PU, showing that pleasant technology is also considered easier to use and more useful. Based on the above literature, we proposed the following hypotheses:

H4 : PE is positively related to PEU.

H5 : PE is positively related to PU.

H6 : PE is positively related to SM adoption.

Perceived Ease of Use and Usefulness

PEU refers to the degree to which a user believes that using a specific information technology system will be simple and comparatively free of physical or mental effort ( Davis, 1989 ). In the context of SM, PEU refers to the degree to which SM sites are easy to use ( Carlos Martins Rodrigues Pinho and Soares, 2011 ; Rauniar et al., 2014 ). PEU and PU are reliable predictors of the adoption rate of different information technologies, such as mobile learning and Internet-based learning systems ( Saadé and Bahli, 2005 ; Althunibat, 2015 ). Bhattacherjee (2001) stated that PU is the user's perception of the benefits of using a technology system, while Davis (1989) explains PU as subjective, optimistic ideas about the potential benefits of a certain technology system that arise after its use. This research expands on these definitions by defining PU as a positive subjective notion held by users that the adoption of SM would enhance CL. Based on the above discussion, the following hypotheses were proposed:

H7 : PEU is positively related to PU.

H8 : PEU is positively related to SM adoption.

H9 : PU is positively related SM adoption.

Materials and Methods

We decided to study the driving factors behind SM adoption of by public university students in Pakistan who experienced interruption in regular CL processes during the COVID-19 period from July to August.

Measurement Development

Due to geographical constraints, for faster distribution, and to minimize the issue of invalid or missing data, an online survey method was used to collect primary data from those who were expected to display excessive SM usage patterns ( Luo and Chea, 2020 ) and who widely adopt SM ( Arshad and Akram, 2018 ). To research SM adoption, five constructs are measured using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Strongly Agree) to 5 (Strongly Disagree). These constructs include PU, PEU ( Alenazy et al., 2019 ), CL, PE ( Sarwar et al., 2019 ), and SM adoption ( Al-Rahmi et al., 2018 ). We developed a questionnaire in English to collect corresponding data. All participants signed a consent letter to participate in the study voluntarily. At the beginning of the survey, respondents were also provided with a concise overview of the aim of the research to increase their basic understanding. Respondents were also ensured that the data would only be used for educational purposes, so they were not asked to provide other information. A pilot study (pilot test) with 23 respondents who used SM for more than 2 h a day revealed a Cronbach's alpha value of 0.7 for each construct, providing an appropriate statistical basis for further in-depth research. Subsequently, revisions based on the feedback obtained were implemented, resulting in the formal survey.

The validity of any inference derived from data relies on the use of appropriate measurement methods. Consistent with previous literature on explanatory and confirmatory research ( Henseler et al., 2016 ), a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach, partial least squares (PLS), was selected as the core measurement method. PLS produces exemplary consistent estimations of a composite model ( Benitez et al., 2020 ) and has been found to have improved accuracy over covariance-based SEM ( van Riel et al., 2017 ). Additionally, PLS enables us to circumvent the necessity of variables to follow a multivariate normal distribution ( Chin et al., 2003 ) by performing component-based SEM. After the primary data collection, it is necessary to assess the common method bias to ensure that there is no systemic bias affecting the collected data ( Podsakoff et al., 2003 ; Valaei et al., 2017 ).

Formal Survey

The revised questionnaire was distributed via email, Facebook, WhatsApp, and WeChat over a period of 27 days. To prevent bias, no personal data other than gender and age were obtained. The tools used to conduct the analysis were Jamovi software, for demographic analysis, and SmartPLS 3 software for data analysis of our conceptual model.

Sample Characteristics and Descriptive Statistics

The demographic characteristics of the participants are presented in Table 1 . A total of 325 responses were obtained, 289 of which were deemed valid. Of these, 172 respondents were male, and 117 were female. Validity was defined as abiding by two parameters: (1) a complete observation, and (2) participants reporting a minimum use of SM of 2 h per day.

Table 1 . Respondents' demographics.

Common Method Variance

We performed a Harman single factor test to assess the potential existence of common method variance (CMV) in our data ( Podsakoff et al., 2012 ). The results revealed that the first-factor value was 38.3%, which was lower than the threshold value of 50%. As such, we concluded that there was no common method bias in the data, and no CMV issue existed in the data. Second, the common latent factor approach suggested by Podsakoff et al. (2012) was also employed. As per this approach, standard regression weights were first computed using a confirmatory factor analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis was then conducted by including a common latent factor in the research model. The comparison of the regression weights of both analyses revealed no dominant factor emerging from the results, meaning that the common method bias was not an issue in this study.

Research Analysis

For this study, we performed SEM analysis to determine the consistency of the measuring tool and to compare it with the study hypotheses, we used SmartPLS 3.0 and applied the PLS method ( Molinillo et al., 2018 ). PLS-SEM is suitable for studying technology acceptance that stresses predictive modeling ( Venkatesh and Davis, 2000 ; Venkatesh and Bala, 2008 ). The results of this study are divided into two parts: the first part describes the measurement model and reports checks of the consistency between the endogenous and exogenous variables by identifying the composite reliability (CR), convergent validity (CV), Cronbach's alpha (CA), average variance extracted (AVE), factor loadings, and rho_A. The second part discusses our structural model and evaluation of the study hypotheses.

Measurement Model

The reliability and validity results of our measurement model are listed in Table 2 . The CR values of all constructs in our measurement model were >0.60, as recommended by Hair et al. (2017) . The AVE value of each construct should be larger than the suggested threshold of 0.50 ( Fornell and Larcker, 1981 ), and we observed it to be as so. Furthermore, our study's results indicated that all constructs' CA values were above the recommended value of 0.70 ( Fornell and Larcker, 1981 ; Kannan and Tan, 2005 ; Lee et al., 2005 ; Wu et al., 2007 ).

Table 2 . Construct validity.

As an alternative metric for measuring reliability, Dijkstra and Henseler (2015) proposed the rho_A. Our study results of all constructs using Dijkstra-Henseler's rho_A were all above the threshold value of 0.70, indicating construct reliability. Table 3 indicates the discriminant validity (DV) results based on the Fornell-Larcker criterion.

Table 3 . Discriminant validity.

As shown in bold, the values of the square root of the AVE on the diagonals are greater than the correlations among the constructs. This shows that the constructs are strongly related to their respective indicators compared to other models ( Fornell and Larcker, 1981 ), indicating better DV ( Hair et al., 2016 ). Furthermore, as an alternative, Dijkstra and Henseler proposed the heterotrait-monotrait ratio of correlations (HTMT), where values smaller than 0.85 or 0.90 reliably distinguish latent variable validity ( Dijkstra and Henseler, 2015 ). In our study, all values met significant thresholds, as shown in Table 3 . In summary, the measurement model showed appropriate reliability, CV, and DV in our conceptual model.

Structural Model Assessment

Previous literature suggests assessing the structural model by looking at the beta value (β-value), the R 2 -value, and the corresponding t values obtained via a bootstrapping procedure with 5,000 resamples ( Hair et al., 2016 ). Furthermore, it is recommended to report the effect sizes (f 2 ) and predictive relevance ( Q 2 ), the results of which are shown in Table 4 . f 2 > 0, 0.15, and 0.35 indicate a small, medium, and large effect size, respectively, and Q 2 > 0, 0.25, and 0.50 indicate small, medium, and large predictive relevance, respectively ( Hair et al., 2019 ).

Table 4 . Standard assessment criteria of a structure model.

As Sullivan and Feinn (2012) argue, the p -value determines whether the effect exists, but it does not reveal the size of the effect. The collinearity values were evaluated by producing the variance inflation factor (VIF). VIF values higher than 5 indicate collinearity. The recovered VIF values were entirely within acceptable range values, that is, <5 ( Mason and Perreault, 1991 ; Becker et al., 2014 ), as shown in Table 5 .

Table 5 . Standard assessment criteria of a structure model.

From the results, we conclude that collinearity did not exist in our data. The results of the structural model assessment are shown in Figure 3 and Table 6 . Our study hypothesis results showed that CL (β = 0.302, t = 5.838, p < 0.001) and PE (β = 0.405, t = 7.953, p < 0.001) had a significant relationship with PEU. This result supports H3 and H5. Additionally, CL was found to be significantly associated with SM adoption (β = 0.191, t = 5.293, p < 0.001), which also provides grounds for accepting H6. Moreover, PEU and PU (β = 0.462, t = 8.915, p < 0.001) were positively and significantly associated. Finally, the H8 (β = 0.301, t = 7.861, p < 0.001) and H9 (β = 0.460, t 13.595, p < 0.001) results revealed that the relationship of PEU and PU with SM adoption was positive and significant. Overall, the results supported all hypotheses.

Figure 3 . Bootstrapping path coefficient results.

Table 6 . Path coefficient results.

From its onset until December 31, 2020, over 81 million new COVID-19 cases were reported by the World Health Organization (2021) . The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted every facet of life, including healthcare, education, and the economy ( Li et al., 2020 ). Educational institutes were shut down, and students globally were confined to staying at home. As yet, it is uncertain when the imposed lockdowns will be lifted. Social distancing has led to increased SM use among students. SM is a convenient way of communication, and it enables students and teachers to connect and practice social distancing more effectively ( Vordos et al., 2020 ).

This study investigates the basic motivation behind the adoption of SM for CL in the student community during COVID-19. To achieve the aim of this study, we proposed a conceptual framework that expands on the TAM and CT. In the present model, we defined an SM feature, CL, as the key variable underlying SM adoption and identified PEU and PU as important contributing variables. For the proposed hypotheses testing, we collected data by surveying students. The results suggest that CL plays a key role in determining the user's verdict to adopt SM. Moreover, the PEU and PU of SM play a mediating role in the relationship between SM characteristics and adoption. Overall, the study's findings strongly support the adoption of SM for educational purposes. This notion is strengthened by the alignment, which is consistent with results reported in previous studies ( Sobaih et al., 2016 ; Berger, 2017 ).

Online learning is becoming more mainstream, and discussions are ripe between researchers about the utility of this medium given the breakthroughs in the ease of use of SM for academic communication. In addition, the study is well-placed to strengthen and advance the literature on CL, PE, and its role in SM adoption by students ( Mazman and Usluel, 2010 ; Arteaga Sánchez et al., 2014 ).

The study results support the notion that the SM feature CL is a predictor of SM adoption by students in Pakistan. This reveals that students considered that SM enables CL, enhancing communication between friends and classmates. Besides, this result is consistent with that of a previous study by Arshad and Akram (2018) . Our study also shows that students engage in various SM sites where they discuss their educational issues and collaborate with others, which positively impacts their learning performance. Furthermore, the results imply that SM facilitates students to become more creative and dynamic and enables them to easily collaborate with instructors. The study results are supported by a previous study ( Ansari and Khan, 2020 ).

Our findings demonstrate that CL significantly affects PU, PEU, and SM. Students in higher education who adopt SM tend to consider that this platform is useful for collaborating with others, which is consistent with the CT of learning. This result aligns with that of previous studies by Ebner (2009) and Arshad and Akram (2018) , who found that SM sites such as blogs are useful for CL between students and tutors. Furthermore, PE has a significant effect on PU, PEU, and SM. This finding demonstrates that the extensive popularity of SM among students is partly due to its ease of use. Students use SM for different purposes, such as enjoyment, knowledge sharing, and CL; this result is consistent with previous literature ( Koenig-Lewis et al., 2015 ; Al-Rahmi et al., 2020 ). Similarly, our study results indicate that PU and PEU also have a positive relationship with SM adoption. SM tools facilitate resource sharing, as learners perceive this medium to be easy to use and useful because it helps them share information with the relevant person more effectively and efficiently. This result echoes previous research ( Al-Rahmi et al., 2018 ; Sarwar et al., 2019 ). In addition, in this study, PEU was shown to have a significant relationship with PU, which was also reported by Alenazy et al. (2019) .

SM can change the conventional educational method and provide a platform for students where they can directly communicate and collaborate with different people globally ( Reid and Ostashewski, 2010 ; Forkosh-Baruch and Hershkovitz, 2012 ). This point is supported by two theoretical perspectives: the CT and computer-mediated learning (CML). The emphasis of CT on social contact and collaboration lies in the fact that CML eradicates topographical hurdles. Hence, to gain useful learning experiences related to CL, it is imperative to develop social groups to exercise and use CL setting abilities on SM networks.

Research Implications

The present study has important implications for students, higher educational institutions, and policymakers. The relationship between the use of SM and its positive impact on students' performance is crucial to understanding the role of SM during a pandemic. The findings are relevant to those interested in enhancing online learning or the SM tools utilized for CL. This study furthers our understanding of why students choose to adopt SM sites during COVID-19. Through a greater comprehension of intention determinants, inclination toward e-learning among students, and useful technology, informed policy decisions can be reached for educational technology implementation in tertiary education institutions. The findings of this study will increase educational administrators' awareness of the benefits of advanced technology, such as SM in academic institutions, and assist them in developing an interesting and suitable online learning environment for the student community. Furthermore, teachers and students should consider SM as an informal learning tool that creates a comfortable environment for CL and social interaction. Educational administrators, policymakers, and teachers can use SM as a complementary learning tool, and students can use it for CL. Further, based on our study results, we suggest that educational institutions develop their own pages and groups on different SM platforms and invite students to join these groups and pages, which may help students tackle educational problems. Students can join groups or pages using official email addresses. Such initiatives may reduce student search effort, a constraint, and thus more efficiently achieve favorable CL with peers regardless of location or time.

Limitations and Future Work

The present study identified some interesting findings; nevertheless, several limitations exist. Notably, the sample population was limited to public universities in Pakistan. Hence, this study's results may not conclusively reflect private university students' tendency toward SM adoption during COVID-19 in Pakistan. Additionally, this study did not distinguish between specific SM platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. As such, it did not yield detailed platform-specific descriptive statistics for use during COVID-19 for educational purposes or collaboration. Accordingly, future research should be confined to a specific SM platform. Future research should be conducted with faculty members to understand their perspective on SM adoption for CL during the pandemic. Although the model has been tested in Pakistan, future research should replicate or extend the proposed conceptual model in technologically advanced countries with different economic and cultural conditions.

This study advances research on SM adoption by students during COVID-19 for the purpose of CL. This is achieved by proposing and empirically testing a conceptual model based on the TAM and CT. Social media, as a tool, as well as its features, is indispensable and extremely vital for students in higher education. Concurrently, SM may be useful in enhancing learning performance, knowledge sharing, and collaboration among students. Social media provides a learning platform for students where they can easily communicate with their peers, teachers, and subject specialists. Furthermore, the use of SM is conducive to enhancing learners' CL. Particularly in a time of growing focus on expedient delivery of coursework through digital technologies, students, higher educational institutions, and policymakers may ascertain a positive impact on CL through SM adoption by students. The study results indicate that CL, PE, PEU, and PU are vital contributors of SM adoption by students in higher education. With an extended understanding of the determinants of SM adoption motivation and inclination toward e-learning between students who experience constraints during a pandemic, informed policy decisions can be reached. Crucially, however, scope restrictions, in particular, the small sample of the study, comprising 289 public university students, and the geographic restriction of Pakistan, impede the ability to draw conclusive inferences on the effectiveness of the conceptual model; thus, replicative research in technologically advanced countries with different economic and cultural conditions is warranted.

Data Availability Statement

The data analyzed in this study is subject to the following licenses/restrictions: data is available on request. Requests to access these datasets should be directed to azeem20037@gmail.com .

Ethics Statement

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Hunan University, Nanjing University. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author Contributions

MNK and MAA: conceptualization and formal analysis. MNK and DS: methodology. MNK: software. MNK, MAA, and DS: resources and writing—original draft preparation. MNK, MAA, KUK, and RAL: writing—review and editing. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

The authors disclose receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: this study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.: 71950410624).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank all students who showed interest in our study and helped us in the data collection during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Abi-Rafeh, J., and Azzi, A. J. (2020). Emerging role of online virtual teaching resources for medical student education in plastic surgery: covid-19 pandemic and beyond. J. Plast. Reconstr. Aesthet. Surg. 73, 1575–1592. doi: 10.1016/j.bjps.2020.05.085

PubMed Abstract | CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Abi-Rafeh, J., El-Hawary, H., and Azzi, A. J. (2019). PRS medical student corner: the value of collaboration and mentorship in plastic surgery. Plast. Reconstr. Surg. Glob. Open 7:e2319. doi: 10.1097/gox.0000000000002319

Adnan, M. (2020). Online learning amid the Covid-19 pandemic: students perspectives. J. Pedagogical Sociol. Psychol. 1, 45–51. doi: 10.33902/jpsp.2020261309

CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Agarwal, R., and Karahanna, E. (2000). Time flies when you're having fun: cognitive absorption and beliefs about information technology usage. MIS Q. 24:665. doi: 10.2307/3250951

Alamri, M. M., Almaiah, M. A., and Al-Rahmi, W. M. (2020). Social media applications affecting students' academic performance: a model developed for sustainability in higher education. Sustainability 12:6471. doi: 10.3390/su12166471

Al-Bahrani, A., Patel, D., and Sheridan, B. (2015). Engaging students using social media: the students' perspective. Int. Rev. Econ. Educ. 19, 36–50. doi: 10.1016/j.iree.2015.06.001

Alenazy, W. M., Mugahed Al-Rahmi, W., and Khan, M. S. (2019). Validation of tam model on social media use for collaborative learning to enhance collaborative authoring. IEEE Access 7, 71550–71562. doi: 10.1109/access.2019.2920242

Almaiah, M. A., and Alismaiel, O. A. (2018). Examination of factors influencing the use of mobile learning system: an empirical study. Educ. Inform. Technol. 24, 885–909. doi: 10.1007/s10639-018-9810-7

Almaiah, M. A., Al-Khasawneh, A., and Althunibat, A. (2020). Exploring the critical challenges and factors influencing the e-learning system usage during COVID-19 pandemic. Educ. Inform. Technol. 25, 5261–5280. doi: 10.1007/s10639-020-10219-y

Almaiah, M. A., Jalil, M. A., and Man, M. (2016). Extending the TAM to examine the effects of quality features on mobile learning acceptance. J. Comput. Educ. 3, 453–485. doi: 10.1007/s40692-016-0074-1

Al-Rahmi, W. M., Alias, N., Othman, M. S., Marin, V. I., and Tur, G. (2018). A model of factors affecting learning performance through the use of social media in Malaysian higher education. Comput. Educ. 121, 59–72. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2018.02.010

Al-Rahmi, W. M., Yahaya, N., Alturki, U., Alrobai, A., Aldraiweesh, A. A., Omar Alsayed, A., et al. (2020). Social media – based collaborative learning: the effect on learning success with the moderating role of cyberstalking and cyberbullying. Inter. Learn. Environ. doi: 10.1080/10494820.2020.1728342. [Epub ahead of print].

Al-Shihi, H., Sharma, S. K., and Sarrab, M. (2018). Neural network approach to predict mobile learning acceptance. Educ. Inform. Technol. 23, 1805–1824. doi: 10.1007/s10639-018-9691-9

Althunibat, A. (2015). Determining the factors influencing students' intention to use m-learning in Jordan higher education. Comput. Hum. Behav. 52, 65–71. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2015.05.046

Ansari, J. A., and Khan, N. A. (2020). Exploring the role of social media in collaborative learning the new domain of learning. Smart Learn. Environ. 7:9. doi: 10.1186/s40561-020-00118-7

Arshad, M., and Akram, M. S. (2018). Social media adoption by the academic community: theoretical insights and empirical evidence from developing countries. Int. Rev. Res. Open Distrib. Learn. 19, 243–262. doi: 10.19173/irrodl.v19i3.3500

Arteaga Sánchez, R., Cortijo, V., and Javed, U. (2014). Students' perceptions of Facebook for academic purposes. Comput. Educ. 70, 138–149. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2013.08.012

Bai, J., Mo, K., Peng, Y., Hao, W., Qu, Y., Lei, X., et al. (2021). The relationship between the use of mobile social media and subjective well-being: the mediating effect of boredom proneness. Front. Psychol. 11:568492. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.568492

Becker, J., Ringle, C. M., Sarstedt, M., and Völckner, F. (2014). How collinearity affects mixture regression results. Mark. Lett. 26, 643–659. doi: 10.1007/s11002-014-9299-9

Benitez, J., Henseler, J., Castillo, A., and Schuberth, F. (2020). How to perform and report an impactful analysis using partial least squares: guidelines for confirmatory and explanatory is research. Inform. Manag. 57:103168. doi: 10.1016/j.im.2019.05.003

Berger, P. (2017). Beyond plain acceptance or sheer resistance: a typology of university instructors' attitudes to students' media use in class. Teach. Teach. Educ. 67, 410–417. doi: 10.1016/j.tate.2017.07.009

Berkani, L. (2020). A semantic and social-based collaborative recommendation of friends in social networks. Software Pract. Exper. 50, 1498–1519. doi: 10.1002/spe.2828

Bernard, R. M., and Rubalcava, B. R. (2000). Collaborative online distance learning: issues for future practice and research. Dis. Educ. 21, 260–277. doi: 10.1080/0158791000210205

Bhattacherjee, A. (2001). Understanding information systems continuance: an expectation-confirmation model. MIS Q. 25:351. doi: 10.2307/3250921

Brown, J. S., Collins, A., and Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educ. Res. 18, 32–42. doi: 10.3102/0013189X018001032

Cao, Y., and Hong, P. (2011). Antecedents and consequences of social media utilization in college teaching: a proposed model with mixed-methods investigation. Horizon 19, 297–306. doi: 10.1108/10748121111179420

Carlos Martins Rodrigues Pinho, J., and Soares, A. M. (2011). Examining the technology acceptance model in the adoption of social networks. J. Res. Inter. Mark. 5, 116–129. doi: 10.1108/17505931111187767

Chan, A. K., Nickson, C. P., Rudolph, J. W., Lee, A., and Joynt, G. M. (2020). Social media for rapid knowledge dissemination: early experience from the covid-19 pandemic. Anaesthesia 75, 1579–1582. doi: 10.1111/anae.15057

Chandra, C. P. (2015). The adoption of E-auction in Indonesia: the extended technology acceptance model study. iBuss Manag. 3, 423–433.Available online at: http://publication.petra.ac.id/index.php/ibm/article/view/3770

Google Scholar

Cheng, Y. M. (2012). Effects of quality antecedents on e-learning acceptance. Inter. Res. 22, 361–390. doi: 10.1108/10662241211235699

Chin, W. W., Marcolin, B. L., and Newsted, P. R. (2003). A partial least squares latent variable modeling approach for measuring interaction effects: results from a monte carlo simulation study and an electronic-mail emotion/adoption study. Inform. Syst. Res. 14, 189–217. doi: 10.1287/isre.14.2.189.16018

Davis, F. D. (1989). Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Q. 13, 319–340. doi: 10.2307/249008

DeLone, W. H., and McLean, E. R. (2003). The DeLone and McLean model of information systems success: a ten-year update. J. Manag. Inform. Syst. 19, 9–30. doi: 10.1080/07421222.2003.11045748

Dijkstra, T. K., and Henseler, J. (2015). Consistent partial least squares path modeling. MIS Q. 39, 297–316. doi: 10.25300/misq/2015/39.2.02

Dwivedi, Y. K., Hughes, D. L., Coombs, C., Constantiou, I., Duan, Y., Edwards, J. S., et al. (2020). Impact of covid-19 pandemic on information management research and practice: transforming education, work and life. Int. J. Inform. Manag. 55:102211. doi: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102211

Ebner, M. (2009). Introducing live microblogging: how single presentations can be enhanced by the mass. J. Res. Innov. Teach. 2, 91–100. Available online at: https://www.nu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/7638_JournalofResearch09.pdf#page=96

Esam, N. M., and Hashim, N. (2016). The impact of social media use on academic performance among UITM Puncak Perdana students. Res. Hub 2, 16–23. Available online at: https://researchhub.uitm.edu.my/pdf/Hidayah1.pdf

Fishbein, M., and Ajzen, I. (1975). Belief, Attitude, Intention and Behavior: An Introduction to Theory and Research . Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Forkosh-Baruch, A., and Hershkovitz, A. (2012). A case study of Israeli higher-education institutes sharing scholarly information with the community via social networks. Inter. High. Educ. 15, 58–68. doi: 10.1016/j.iheduc.2011.08.003

Fornell, C., and Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. J. Mark. Res. 18, 39–50. doi: 10.2307/3151312

Golub, J. (1988). Focus on Collaborative Learning. Classroom Practices in Teaching English. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

Greenhow, C., and Chapman, A. (2020). Social distancing meet social media: digital tools for connecting students, teachers, and citizens in an emergency. Inform. Learn. Sci. 121, 341–352. doi: 10.1108/ils-04-2020-0134

Gunasagaran, D. S., Tamilsalvi Mari, D. M., Srirangam, D. S., and Kuppusamy, D. S. (2019). Adoption of social media by architecture students in fostering community SERVICE initiative using technology acceptance model. IOP Conf. Ser. Mater. Sci. Eng. 636:012015. doi: 10.1088/1757-899x/636/1/012015

Hair, J., Hollingsworth, C. L., Randolph, A. B., and Chong, A. Y. (2017). An updated and expanded assessment Of PLS-SEM in information systems research. Industr. Manag. Data Syst. 117, 442–458. doi: 10.1108/imds-04-2016-0130

Hair, J. F., Hult, G. T. M., Ringle, C., and Sarstedt, M. (2016). A Primer on Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), 2nd Edn . London: Sage.

Hair, J. F., Sarstedt, M., and Ringle, C. M. (2019). Rethinking some of the rethinking of partial least squares. Eur. J. Mark. 53, 566–584. doi: 10.1108/ejm-10-2018-0665

Henseler, J., Hubona, G., and Ray, P. A. (2016). “Partial least squares path modeling: updated guidelines,” in The Partial Least Squares Path Modeling Basic Concepts, Methodological Issues and Applications , eds H. Latan and R. Noonan (Cham: Springer), 19–39.

Holmes, R. (2020). “Is COVID-19 Social Media's Levelling up Moment?” Available online at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanholmes/2020/04/24/is-covid-19-social-medias-levelling-up-moment/?sh=7a9be1c86c60 (accessed May 5, 2021).

Islam, A. N., Laato, S., Talukder, S., and Sutinen, E. (2020). Misinformation sharing and social media fatigue during COVID-19: an affordance and cognitive load perspective. Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change 159:120201. doi: 10.1016/j.techfore.2020.120201

Kannan, V. R., and Tan, K. C. (2005). Just in time, total quality management, and supply chain management: understanding their linkages and impact on business performance. Omega 33, 153–162. doi: 10.1016/j.omega.2004.03.012

Karasneh, R., Al-Azzam, S., Muflih, S., Soudah, O., Hawamdeh, S., and Khader, Y. (2021). Media's effect on Shaping knowledge, awareness RISK perceptions and communication practices of pandemic COVID-19 AMONG pharmacists. Res. Soc. Administr. Pharm. 17, 1897–1902. doi: 10.1016/j.sapharm.2020.04.027

Khan, S., Khan, M., Maqsood, K., Hussain, T., and Noor-ul-Huda Zeeshan, M. (2020). Is Pakistan prepared for THE COVID-19 epidemic? A questionnaire-based survey. J. Med. Virol. 92, 824–832. doi: 10.1002/jmv.25814

Khan, T. M. (2020). Use of social media and WhatsApp to conduct teaching activities during the COVID-19 lockdown in Pakistan. Int. J. Pharm. Pract. 29:90. doi: 10.1111/ijpp.12659

Koenig-Lewis, N., Marquet, M., Palmer, A., and Zhao, A. L. (2015). Enjoyment and social influence: predicting mobile payment adoption. Serv. Industr. J. 35, 537–554. doi: 10.1080/02642069.2015.1043278

Koh, E., and Lim, J. (2012). Using online collaboration applications for group assignments: the interplay between design and human characteristics. Comput. Educ. 59, 481–496. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2012.02.002

Krishnamurthy, S. (2020). The future of business education: a commentary in the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic. J. Bus. Res. 117, 1–5. doi: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.05.034

Ku, H., Tseng, H. W., and Akarasriworn, C. (2013). Collaboration factors, teamwork satisfaction, and student attitudes toward online collaborative learning. Comput. Hum. Behav. 29, 922–929. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2012.12.019

Laato, S., Laine, T. H., and Islam, A. N. (2020). Location-based games and the covid-19 pandemic: an analysis of responses from game developers and players. Multimodal Technol. Inter. 4:29. doi: 10.3390/mti4020029

Lee, M. K., Cheung, C. M., and Chen, Z. (2005). Acceptance of internet-based learning medium: the role of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Inform. Manag. 42, 1095–1104. doi: 10.1016/j.im.2003.10.007

Li, C. H., Rajamohan, A. G., Acharya, P. T., Liu, C. S. J., Patel, V., Go, J. L., et al. (2020). Virtual read-out: radiology education for the 21st century during the COVID-19 pandemic. Acad. Radiol. 27, 872–881. doi: 10.1016/j.acra.2020.04.028

Liao, Y., Huang, Y., Chen, H., and Huang, S. (2015). Exploring the antecedents of collaborative learning performance over social networking sites in a ubiquitous learning context. Comput. Hum. Behav. 43, 313–323. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2014.10.028

Lin, M., Vijayalakshmi, A., and Laczniak, R. (2019). Toward an understanding of parental views and actions on social media influencers targeted at adolescents: the roles of parents' social media use and empowerment. Front. Psychol. 10:2664. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02664

Liu, C. C., Liu, K. P., Chen, W. H., Lin, C. P., and Chen, G. D. (2011). Collaborative storytelling experiences in social media: influence of peer-assistance mechanisms. Comput. Educ. 57, 1544–1556. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2011.02.002

Luo, M. M., and Chea, S. (2020). Wiki use for knowledge integration and learning: a three tier conceptualization. Comput. Educ. 154:103920. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2020.103920

Madhav, N., Oppenheim, B., Gallivan, M., Mulembakani, P., Rubin, E., and Wolfe, N. (2017). Pandemics: Risks, Impacts, and Mitigation. Disease Control Priorities, 3rd Edn., Vol. 9 . Washington, DC: Improving Health and Reducing Poverty Published.

Mason, C. H., and Perreault, W. D. (1991). Collinearity, power, and interpretation of multiple regression analysis. J. Mark. Res. 28, 268–280. doi: 10.2307/3172863

Mazer, J. P., Murphy, R. E., and Simonds, C. J. (2007). I'll see you on “facebook”: the effects of computer-mediated teacher self-disclosure on student motivation, affective learning, and classroom climate. Commun. Educ. 56, 1–17. doi: 10.1080/03634520601009710

Mazman, S. G., and Usluel, Y. K. (2010). Modeling educational usage of Facebook. Comput. Educ. 55, 444–453. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2010.02.008

McMurtrie, B. (2020). The coronavirus has pushed courses online. Professors are trying hard to keep up. Chron. High. Educ . 66. Available online at: https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-coronavirus-has-pushed-courses-online-professors-are-trying-hard-to-keep-up/

Merle, P., and Freberg, K. (2016). All about that tweet: student perceptions of professors' social media use in the classroom. J. Res. Inter. Mark. 10, 124–136. doi: 10.1108/jrim-01-2015-0008

Molinillo, S., Aguilar-Illescas, R., Anaya-Sánchez, R., and Vallespín-Arán, M. (2018). Exploring the impacts of interactions, social presence and emotional engagement on active collaborative learning in a social web-based environment. Comput. Educ. 123, 41–52. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2018.04.012

Paul, R., Hiler, W., and Elder, L. (2005). The Miniature Guide to Practical Ways for Promote Active and Cooperative Learning . Tomales, CA: The Foundation for Critical Thinking. Rowman and Littlefield.

Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., Lee, J.-Y., and Podsakoff, N. P. (2003). Common method biases in behavioral research: a critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. J. Appl. Psychol. 88, 879–903. doi: 10.1037/0021-9010.88.5.879

Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., and Podsakoff, N. P. (2012). Sources of method bias in social science research and recommendations on how to control it. Ann. Rev. Psychol. 63, 539–569. doi: 10.1146/annurev-psych-120710-100452

Pulido, C. M., Mara, L.-C., Ionescu, V., and Sordé-Martí, T. (2020). Social impact of psychological research on well-being shared in social media. Front. Psychol. 11:135. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00135

Qi, C. (2019). Social media usage of students, role of tie strength, and perceived task performance. J. Educ. Comput. Res. 57, 385–416. doi: 10.1177/0735633117751604

Rahman, S., Ramakrishnan, T., and Ngamassi, L. (2019). Impact of social media use on student satisfaction in higher education. High. Educ. Q. 74, 304–319. doi: 10.1111/hequ.12228

Ramsha, J. (2020). “Social media outlets see surge in number of pakistani users.” Dawn . Available online at: https://www.dawn.com/news/1548993 (accessed May 5, 2020).

Rau, P.-L. P., Gao, Q., and Ding, Y. (2008). Relationship between the level of intimacy and lurking in online social network services. Comput. Hum. Behav. 24, 2757–2770. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2008.04.001

Rauniar, R., Rawski, G., Yang, J., and Johnson, B. (2014). Technology acceptance model (TAM) and social media usage: an empirical study on Facebook. J. Enterpr. Inform. Manag. 27, 6–30. doi: 10.1108/jeim-04-2012-0011

Reid, D., and Ostashewski, N. (2010). “Evolution of online teacher professional development in a social networking site: what's been working and what's not,” in EdMedia+ Innovate Learning , eds J. Herrington and C. Montgomerie (Waynesville, NC: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)), 1117–1122. Available online at: https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/34773/

Saadé, R., and Bahli, B. (2005). The impact of cognitive absorption on perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use in on-line learning: an extension of the technology acceptance model. Inform. Manag. 42, 317–327. doi: 10.1016/j.im.2003.12.013

Sarwar, B., Zulfiqar, S., Aziz, S., and Ejaz Chandia, K. (2019). Usage of social media tools for collaborative learning: the effect on learning success with the moderating role of cyberbullying. J. Educ. Comput. Res. 57, 246–279. doi: 10.1177/0735633117748415

Sobaih, A. E., Moustafa, M. A., Ghandforoush, P., and Khan, M. (2016). To use or not to use? Social media in higher education in developing countries. Comput. Hum. Behav. 58, 296–305. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2016.01.002

Sugimoto, C., Hank, C., Bowman, T., and Pomerantz, J. (2015). Friend or faculty: social networking sites, dual relationships, and context collapse in higher education. First Monday 20. doi: 10.5210/fm.v20i3.5387. Available online at: https://journals.uic.edu/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/5387

Sullivan, G. M., and Feinn, R. (2012). Using effect size—or why the P value is not enough. J. Graduate Med. Educ. 4, 279–282. doi: 10.4300/jgme-d-12-00156.1

Tam, M. (2000). Constructivism, instructional design, and technology: implications for transforming distance learning. J. Educ. Technol. Soc. 3, 50–60. Available online at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/jeductechsoci.3.2.50

Tess, P. A. (2013). The role of social media in higher education classes (real and virtual) – a literature review. Comput. Hum. Behav. 29, A60–A68. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2012.12.032

UNESCO (2020). COVID-19 Educational Disruption and Response . Available online at: https://en.unesco.org/themes/education-emergencies/coronavirus-school-closures (accessed May 5, 2021).

Valaei, N., Rezaei, S., and Ismail, W. K. (2017). Examining learning strategies, creativity, and innovation at SMEs using fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis and PLS path modeling. J. Bus. Res. 70, 224–233. doi: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2016.08.016

Van der Heijden, H. (2004). User acceptance of hedonic information systems. MIS Q. 28, 695–704. doi: 10.2307/25148660

Van der Heijden, H., Verhagen, T., and Creemers, M. (2003). Understanding online purchase intentions: contributions from technology and trust perspectives. Eur. J. Inform. Syst. 12, 41–48. doi: 10.1057/palgrave.ejis.3000445

van Riel, A. C. R., Henseler, J., Kemény, I., and Sasovova, Z. (2017). Estimating hierarchical constructs using consistent partial least squares. Industr. Manag. Data Syst. 117, 459–477. doi: 10.1108/imds-07-2016-0286

Venkatesh, V. (2000). Determinants of perceived ease of use: integrating control, intrinsic motivation, and emotion into the technology acceptance model. Inform. Syst. Res. 11, 342–365. doi: 10.1287/isre.11.4.342.11872

Venkatesh, V. (2020). Impacts of COVID-19: A research agenda to support people in their fight. Int. J. Inform. Manag. 55:102197. doi: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102197

Venkatesh, V., and Bala, H. (2008). Technology acceptance model 3 and a research agenda on interventions. Dec. Sci. 39, 273–315. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-5915.2008.00192.x

Venkatesh, V., and Davis, F. D. (2000). A theoretical extension of the technology acceptance model: four longitudinal field studies. Manag. Sci. 46, 186–204. doi: 10.1287/mnsc.46.2.186.11926

Venkatesh, V., Morris, M., Davis, G., and Davis, F. (2003). User acceptance of information technology: toward a unified view. MIS Q. 27, 425–478. doi: 10.2307/30036540

Vordos, N., Gkika, D. A., Maliaris, G., Tilkeridis, K. E., Antoniou, A., Bandekas, D. V., et al. (2020). How 3D printing and social media tackles the PPE shortage during Covid−19 pandemic. Saf. Sci. 130:104870. doi: 10.1016/j.ssci.2020.104870

Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes . London: Harvard University Press.

Wang, Q. (2010). Using online shared workspaces to support group collaborative learning. Comput. Educ. 55, 1270–1276. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2010.05.023

Williams, D. L., Crittenden, V. L., Keo, T., and McCarty, P. (2012). The use of social media: an exploratory study of usage among digital natives. J. Public Affairs 12, 127–136. doi: 10.1002/pa.1414

World Health Organization (2021). WHO Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard . Available online at: https://covid19.who.int/ (assessed May 5, 2021).

Wu, J.-H., Chen, Y.-C., and Lin, L.-M. (2007). Empirical evaluation of the revised end user computing acceptance model. Comput. Hum. Behav. 23, 162–174. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2004.04.003

Keywords: collaborative learning, COVID-19, electronic-learning, social networking, student community, TAM

Citation: Khan MN, Ashraf MA, Seinen D, Khan KU and Laar RA (2021) Social Media for Knowledge Acquisition and Dissemination: The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Collaborative Learning Driven Social Media Adoption. Front. Psychol. 12:648253. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.648253

Received: 31 December 2020; Accepted: 29 April 2021; Published: 31 May 2021.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2021 Khan, Ashraf, Seinen, Khan and Laar. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Muhammad Azeem Ashraf, azeem20037@gmail.com

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Capturing the benefits of remote learning

How education experts are applying lessons learned in the pandemic to promote positive outcomes for all students

Vol. 52 No. 6 Print version: page 46

• Schools and Classrooms
• Technology and Design

With schools open again after more than a year of teaching students outside the classroom, the pandemic sometimes feels like a distant memory. The return to classrooms this fall brings major relief for many families and educators. Factors such as a lack of reliable technology and family support, along with an absence of school resources, resulted in significant academic setbacks, not to mention stress for everyone involved.

But for all the downsides of distance learning, educators, psychologists, and parents have seen some benefits as well. For example, certain populations of students found new ways to be more engaged in learning, without the distractions and difficulties they faced in the classroom, and the general challenges of remote learning and the pandemic brought mental health to the forefront of the classroom experience.

Peter Faustino, PsyD, a school psychologist in Scarsdale, New York, said the pandemic also prompted educators and school psychologists to find creative new ways of ensuring students’ emotional and academic well-being. “So many students were impacted by the pandemic, so we couldn’t just assume they would find resources on their own,” said Faustino. “We had to work hard at figuring out new ways to connect with them.”

Here are some of the benefits of distance learning that school psychologists and educators have observed and the ways in which they’re implementing those lessons post-pandemic, with the goal of creating a more equitable, productive environment for all students.

Prioritizing mental health

Faustino said that during the pandemic, he had more mental health conversations with students, families, and teachers than ever. “Because COVID-19 affected everyone, we’re now having mental health discussions as school leaders on a daily and weekly basis,” he said.

This renewed focus on mental health has the potential to improve students’ well-being in profound ways—starting with helping them recover from the pandemic’s effects. In New York City, for example, schools are hiring more than 600 new clinicians, including psychologists , to screen students’ mental health and help them process pandemic-related trauma and adjust to the “new normal” of attending school in person.

Educators and families are also realizing the importance of protecting students’ mental health more generally—not only for their health and safety but for their learning. “We’ve been seeing a broader appreciation for the fact that mental health is a prerequisite for learning rather than an extracurricular pursuit,” said Eric Rossen, PhD, director of professional development and standards at the National Association of School Psychologists.

As a result, Rossen hopes educators will embed social and emotional learning components into daily instruction. For example, teachers could teach mindfulness techniques in the classroom and take in-the-moment opportunities to help kids resolve conflicts or manage stress.

Improved access to mental health resources in schools is another positive effect. Because of physical distancing guidelines, school leaders had to find ways to deliver mental health services remotely, including via online referrals and teletherapy with school psychologists and counselors.

Early in the pandemic, Faustino said he was hesitant about teletherapy’s effectiveness; now, he hopes to continue offering a virtual option. Online scheduling and remote appointments make it easier for students to access mental health resources, and some students even enjoy virtual appointments more, as they can attend therapy in their own spaces rather than showing up in the counselor’s office. For older students, Faustino said that level of comfort often leads to more productive, open conversations.

Autonomy as a key to motivation

Research suggests that when students have more choices about their materials and activities, they’re more motivated—which may translate to increased learning and academic success. In a 2016 paper, psychology researcher Allan Wigfield, PhD, and colleagues make the case that control and autonomy in reading activities can improve both motivation and comprehension ( Child Development Perspectives , Vol. 10, No. 3 ).

During the period of online teaching, some students had opportunities to learn at their own pace, which educators say improved their learning outcomes—especially in older students. In a 2020 survey of more than 600 parents, researchers found the second-most-valued benefit of distance learning was flexibility—not only in schedule but in method of learning.

In a recent study, researchers found that 18% of parents pointed to greater flexibility in a child’s schedule or way of learning as the biggest benefit or positive outcome related to remote learning ( School Psychology , Roy, A., et al., in press).

This individualized learning helps students find more free time for interests and also allows them to conduct their learning at a time they’re most likely to succeed. During the pandemic, Mark Gardner, an English teacher at Hayes Freedom High School in Camas, Washington, said he realized how important student-centered learning is and that whether learning happens should take precedence over how and when it occurs.

For example, one of his students thrived when he had the choice to do work later at night because he took care of his siblings during the day. Now, Gardner posts homework online on Sundays so students can work at their own pace during the week. “Going forward, we want to create as many access points as we can for kids to engage with learning,” he said.

Rosanna Breaux , PhD, an assistant professor of psychology and assistant director of the Child Study Center at Virginia Tech, agrees. “I’d like to see this flexibility continue in some way, where—similar to college—students can guide their own learning based on their interests or when they’re most productive,” she said.

During the pandemic, many educators were forced to rethink how to keep students engaged. Rossen said because many school districts shared virtual curricula during the period of remote learning, older students could take more challenging or interesting courses than they could in person. The same is true for younger students: Megan Hibbard, a teacher in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, said many of her fifth graders enjoyed distance learning more than in-person because they could work on projects that aligned with their interests.

“So much of motivation is discovering the unique things the student finds interesting,” said Hunter Gehlbach, PhD, a professor and vice dean at the Johns Hopkins School of Education. “The more you can facilitate students spending more time on the things they’re really interested in, the better.”

Going forward, Rossen hopes virtual curricula will allow students greater opportunities to pursue their interests, such as by taking AP classes, foreign languages, or vocational electives not available at their own schools.

Conversely, Hibbard’s goal is to increase opportunities for students to pursue their interests in the in-person setting. For example, she plans to increase what she calls “Genius Hours,” a time at the end of the school day when students can focus on high-interest projects they’ll eventually share with the class.

Better understanding of children's needs

One of the most important predictors of a child’s success in school is parental involvement in their education. For example, in a meta-analysis of studies, researchers linked parental engagement in their middle schoolers’ education with greater measures of success (Hill, N. E., & Tyson, D. F., Developmental Psychology , Vol. 45, No. 3, 2009).

During the pandemic, parents had new opportunities to learn about their kids and, as a result, help them learn. According to a study by Breaux and colleagues, many parents reported that the pandemic allowed them a better understanding of their child’s learning style, needs, or curriculum.

James C. Kaufman , PhD, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Connecticut and the father of an elementary schooler and a high schooler, said he’s had a front-row seat for his sons’ learning for the first time. “Watching my kids learn and engage with classmates has given me some insight in how to parent them,” he said.

Stephen Becker , PhD, a pediatric psychologist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, said some parents have observed their children’s behavior or learning needs for the first time, which could prompt them to consider assessment and Individualized Education Program (IEP) services. Across the board, Gehlbach said parents are realizing how they can better partner with schools to ensure their kids’ well-being and academic success.

For example, Samantha Marks , PsyD, a Florida-based clinical psychologist, said she realized how much help her middle school daughter, a gifted and talented student with a 504 plan (a plan for how the school will offer support for a student’s disability) for anxiety, needed with independence. “Bringing the learning home made it crystal clear what we needed to teach our daughter to be independent and improve executive functioning” she said. “My takeaway from this is that more parents need to be involved in their children’s education in a healthy, helpful way.”

Marks also gained a deeper understanding of her daughter’s mental health needs. Through her 504 plan, she received help managing her anxiety at school—at home, though, Marks wasn’t always available to help, which taught her the importance of helping her daughter manage her anxiety independently.

Along with parents gaining a deeper understanding of their kids’ needs, the pandemic also prompted greater parent participation in school. For example, Rossen said his kids’ school had virtual school board meetings; he hopes virtual options continue for events like back-to-school information sessions and parenting workshops. “These meetings are often in the evening, and if you’re a single parent or sole caregiver, you may not want to pay a babysitter in order to attend,” he said.

Brittany Greiert, PhD, a school psychologist in Aurora, Colorado, says culturally and linguistically diverse families at her schools benefited from streamlined opportunities to communicate with administrators and teachers. Her district used an app that translates parent communication into 150 languages. Parents can also remotely participate in meetings with school psychologists or teachers, which Greiert says she plans to continue post-pandemic.

Decreased bullying

During stay-at-home orders, kids with neurodevelopmental disorders experienced less bullying than pre-pandemic (McFayden, T. C., et al., Journal of Rural Mental Health , No. 45, Vol. 2, 2021). According to 2019 research, children with emotional, behavioral, and physical health needs experience increased rates of bullying victimization ( Lebrun-Harris, L. A., et al., ), and from the U.S. Department of Education suggests the majority of bullying takes place in person and in unsupervised areas (PDF) .

Scott Graves , PhD, an associate professor of educational studies at The Ohio State University and a member of APA’s Coalition for Psychology in Schools and Education (CPSE), said the supervision by parents and teachers in remote learning likely played a part in reducing bullying. As a result, he’s less worried his Black sons will be victims of microaggressions and racist behavior during online learning.

Some Asian American families also report that remote learning offered protection against racism students may have experienced in person. Shereen Naser, PhD, an associate professor of psychology at Cleveland State University and a member of CPSE, and colleagues found that students are more comfortable saying discriminatory things in school when their teachers are also doing so; Naser suspects this trickle-down effect is less likely to happen when students learn from home ( School Psychology International , 2019).

Reductions in bullying and microaggressions aren’t just beneficial for students’ long-term mental health. Breaux said less bullying at school results in less stress, which can improve students’ self-esteem and mood—both of which impact their ability to learn.

Patricia Perez, PhD, an associate professor of international psychology at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology and a member of CPSE, said it’s important for schools to be proactive in providing spaces for support and cultural expression for students from vulnerable backgrounds, whether in culture-specific clubs, all-school assemblies that address racism and other diversity-related topics, or safe spaces to process feelings with teachers.

According to Rossen, many schools are already considering how to continue supporting students at risk for bullying, including by restructuring the school environment.

One principal, Rossen said, recently switched to single-use bathrooms to avoid congregating in those spaces once in-person learning commences to maintain social distancing requirements. “The principal received feedback from students about how going to the bathroom is much less stressful for these students in part due to less bullying,” he said.

More opportunities for special needs students

In Becker and Breaux’s research, parents of students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), particularly those with a 504 plan and IEP, reported greater difficulties with remote learning. But some students with special learning needs—including those with IEPs and 504 plans—thrived in an at-home learning environment. Recent reporting in The New York Times suggests this is one reason many students want to continue online learning.

According to Cara Laitusis, PhD, a principal research scientist at Educational Testing Service ( ETS ) and a member of CPSE, reduced distractions may improve learning outcomes for some students with disabilities that impact attention in a group setting. “In assessments, small group or individual settings are frequently requested accommodations for some students with ADHD, anxiety, or autism. Being in a quiet place alone without peers for part of the instructional day may also allow for more focus,” she said. However, she also pointed out the benefits of inclusion in the classroom for developing social skills with peers.

Remote learning has improved academic outcomes for students with different learning needs, too. Marks said her seventh-grade daughter, a visual learner, appreciated the increase in video presentations and graphics. Similarly, Hibbard said many of her students who struggle to grasp lessons on the first try have benefited from the ability to watch videos over again until they understand. Post-pandemic, she plans to record bite-size lessons—for example, a 1-minute video of a long division problem—so her students can rewatch and process at their own rate.

Learners with anxiety also appreciate the option not to be in the classroom, because the social pressures of being surrounded by peers can make it hard to focus on academics. “Several of my students have learned more in the last year simply due to the absence of anxiety,” said Rosie Reid, an English teacher at Ygnacio Valley High School in Concord, California, and a 2019 California Teacher of the Year. “It’s just one less thing to negotiate in a learning environment.”

On online learning platforms, it’s easier for kids with social anxiety or shyness to participate. One of Gardner’s students with social anxiety participated far more in virtual settings and chats. Now, Gardner is brainstorming ways to encourage students to chat in person, such as by projecting a chat screen on the blackboard.

Technology has helped school psychologists better engage students, too. For example, Greiert said the virtual setting gave her a new understanding of her students’ personalities and needs. “Typing out their thoughts, they were able to demonstrate humor or complex thoughts they never demonstrated in person,” she said. “I really want to keep incorporating technology into sessions so kids can keep building on their strengths.”

Reid says that along with the high school students she teaches, she’s seen her 6-year-old daughter benefit from learning at her own pace in the familiarity of her home. Before the pandemic, she was behind academically, but by guiding her own learning—writing poems, reading books, playing outside with her siblings—she’s blossomed. “For me, as both a mother and as a teacher, this whole phenomenon has opened the door to what education can be,” Reid said.

Eleanor Di Marino-Linnen, PhD, a psychologist and superintendent of the Rose Tree Media School District in Media, Pennsylvania, says the pandemic afforded her district a chance to rethink old routines and implement new ones. “As challenging as it is, it’s definitely an exciting time to be in education when we have a chance to reenvision what schools have looked like for many years,” she said. “We want to capitalize on what we’ve learned.”

Further reading

Why are some kids thriving during remote learning? Fleming, N., Edutopia, 2020

Remote learning has been a disaster for many students. But some kids have thrived. Gilman, A., The Washington Post , Oct. 3, 2020

A preliminary examination of key strategies, challenges, and benefits of remote learning expressed by parents during the COVID-19 pandemic Roy, A., et al., School Psychology , in press

Remote learning during COVID-19: Examining school practices, service continuation, and difficulties for adolescents with and without attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder Becker S. P., et al., Journal of Adolescent Health , 2020

Recommended Reading

Contact apa, you may also like.

Everyone Vented on Social Media About Schools in the Pandemic

• Share article

Millions of parents, teachers, and students shared their frustrations about school shutdowns and other changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic on social media, but they neglected to reach across their peer groups and engage each other, a new Brookings Institution report found.

The report analyzed more than 14.5 million social media posts from July 15, 2019 to Oct. 31, 2021 to find out what conversations American teachers, parents, and students were having around education and how those conversations differed and shifted over time.

Using Talkwalker, a platform that gathers public media content, including news stories, Twitter posts, and Reddit forums and blogs, Brookings researchers Lauren Ziegler and Rebecca Winthrop compiled posts from millions of parents, teachers, and students containing terms associated with education.

The sample was skewed strongly toward teachers, with 58 percent of the conversations in the sample coming from forums and 39 percent from Twitter posts. The rest originated on blogs and interest-based websites.

“COVID and what happened to schooling is really driving more people to talk about education on social media,” Ziegler said, adding that the increased attention to education issues “quite possibly” played into political tensions that rose over the course of the pandemic.

Here are five ways the researchers say the conversation has shifted among teachers, parents, and students from pre-pandemic times until now.

COVID-19 widened conversations around education

The number of unique social media users and sites talking about education more than doubled during the first 20 months of the pandemic compared to the 20 months before it.

The biggest conversational spikes occurred in mid-March 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, and in July and August 2020, the months leading up to the new school year.

“Initially, people were really driven to social media to talk about education because they were reacting to these major changes,” Ziegler said.

In the early days of the pandemic, Ziegler said she saw an “outpouring of support for teachers” from parents on social media. Teachers also increased their posting frequency, but often did so to offer resources, ask for advice, or share student stories with other teachers.

Teachers, parents and students voiced different concerns and did not engage each other about them

“Teachers and students and parents—they’re not talking about the same things,” Ziegler said.

Teachers mostly offered support and resources to fellow teachers in their posts, while parents posted primarily about their child’s learning experiences and their opinions about changing school policies on remote learning, mask mandates, and their child’s curriculum.

Student conversations, on the other hand, focused on their immediate remote schooling experience and were mostly negative, especially in 2020. Many discussed missing out on in-person traditions like graduation and prom.

Importantly, only 7 percent of the sample self-identified as students, compared to 66 percent who identified as teachers and 24 percent who identified as parents. Students may have used other platforms that Talkwalker cannot display like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok to express their opinions. Twitter, in contrast, is dominated by teachers.

“We don’t have a very good picture of pre- and during COVID for students, but you can definitely see the changes among teachers and parents,” Ziegler said.

While teachers, parents, and students sometimes mentioned each other in their posts, the groups did not directly engage each other, according to the report.

The lack of communication between the groups surprised Ziegler.

“I do think that if you’re only talking about one thing with your in-group, it’s really hard to relate to others,” Ziegler said. “So it could be a reason why we’re seeing such divisiveness when we look at some of the conversations we saw … it might just be harder to talk to these other groups if you don’t necessarily have teachers in your circle or you’re a student or you’re a parent.”

Parental views diverged the most and were the most polarized

Parents’ reactions to changes in their children’s education became increasingly politically polarized throughout the pandemic. Pre-pandemic, parents mostly shared everyday stories about their child’s field trip or a joke their child told, but that changed with the onset of the pandemic. Conversations shifted focus to remote schooling, and then to how schools teach the role of race in United States history.

The later controversy centered around whether “critical race theory” is being taught in K-12 schools.

Critical race theory maintains that racism is embedded in the laws and practices of American institutions, including the education system and leads to racial inequalities. The term went viral in 2021, but was virtually absent from parents’ posts in 2019 and 2020.

Despite some parents’ public frustrations, on the whole, their child’s learning was less of a concern in 2021 than in 2020, a separate survey of K-12 parents by the Understanding America Study Education Project found.

Anger over critical race theory may not be as widespread as the news and social media posts suggest. Ziegler thinks social media may amplify ideological extremes. “We are hopeful that maybe these contentious things that we’re seeing are really a smaller group and not indicative of everyone,” she said.

Teachers are leaning on each other for resources more than for supplies

Teachers regularly turned to each other for help purchasing school supplies, both before and during COVID-19. But when schools went remote, they no longer needed it, and teachers switched to offering resources to support one another and their students.

“Perhaps a silver lining of COVID is that we saw a huge decline in teachers asking for supplies, and we think that they probably didn’t need to,” Ziegler said.

In 2021, when many schools returned to in-person learning, the number of supply requests from teachers increased but did not come close to reaching pre-pandemic levels.

Public support for teachers has declined since the beginning of the pandemic

Teachers experienced an outpouring of support from parents, school administrators, and fellow teachers on social media during the early days of the pandemic, but it died down as the pandemic wore on. These supportive posts declined from 2020 to 2021 and were largely limited to national Teacher Appreciation Week in May.

This waning support for teachers comes amid rising concerns about teachers leaving the profession. Between January 2020 and January 2022, there were about 600,000 fewer educators working in public education, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Fifty-five percent of those remaining are considering leaving the field earlier than they had planned, according to a 2022 survey from the National Education Association.

“It could be indicative that pandemic fatigue is also contributing to the fatigue of recognizing the wonderful things that teachers do,” Ziegler said.

Sign Up for The Savvy Principal

Edweek top school jobs.

Sign Up & Sign In

What can social media listening tell us about the desire for education change?

Subscribe to the center for universal education bulletin, insights from students, parents, and teachers in england, rebecca winthrop , rebecca winthrop director - center for universal education , senior fellow - global economy and development adam barton , and adam barton cambridge international scholar, faculty of education - university of cambridge, former senior research analyst - center for universal education lauren ziegler lauren ziegler former project director, leapfrogging in education - global economy and development , center for universal education.

September 15, 2021

• 37 min read

This analysis shares initial insights from a series of social media listening studies. This is the first in the series which will cover a range of jurisdictions around the globe.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted virtually every facet of life, including schooling for young people around the world. As students, teachers, and parents coped over the last year and a half with remote learning and the closing and reopening of schools, many took to social media to share their thoughts and perspectives. These discussions were often a window into the sentiments of arguably the three most important actors in any education system: the child, his or her educator, and the child’s primary caregiver. We have used innovative research methods to analyze these social media conversations both before COVID and once the pandemic hit the shores of England.

We were interested in what students, teachers, and parents were discussing but also if the conversations were aligned—in other words were these three groups talking about the same thing? We know from research on systems change that alignment among a range of actors in a system is a particularly important factor facilitating change. Recent research on education systems that have successfully reformed highlights how a lack of alignment among stakeholders, particularly as it relates to the values and beliefs around education, were barriers to change

As schools in England increasingly grapple with adjustments and improvisations due to the pandemic, a question remains if this disruption will lead to any lasting changes. We at the Center for Universal Education (CUE) at Brookings have argued that this disruption, while painful and overwhelming, could offer a “leapfrog” moment to transform so education systems can become more equitable and relevant than before COVID-19. A high degree of alignment among students, parents, and teachers would indicate readiness to change in the direction around shared sentiments, whereas a siloed or disparate set of conversations with little alignment would indicate a need to invest in deeper dialogue to make big education changes. In the absence of a coherent narrative on key elements, it can be difficult for education leaders to make changes without feeling like they have the public’s support.

As four key insights in this analysis will later show, teacher, parent, and student conversations on social media have been largely siloed within their individual groups and focused on different aspects of the education system. However, the pandemic—and the far-reaching issues generated by it, such as an exam-grading controversy and students’ mental health—represent important moments when the three groups united in joint conversations around education, ripening the possibility for change.

Why focus on England?

This particular analysis is limited to England, which we chose because of its representation in CUE’s Family Engagement in Education Network . Two England-based project collaborators are the Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council in Northern England that provides schooling to 47,000 students from reception to year 13, and Parent Kind, the leading membership organization for parent-teacher associations across the U.K. We will do a “social listening” deep dive for a range of other jurisdictions represented in our network in the months to follow.

Why social listening? 

Social listening is an innovative and relatively new research method for gathering and making sense of large amounts of social media data. We were particularly intrigued by the promise of social media data scraping for targeting the thoughts and sentiments of the millions of citizens whose voices simply cannot make it into even the most ambitious of surveys. Tracking large amounts of social media posts related to education can help illuminate public sentiment, as well as appetite for reform. We were specifically interested in alignment among different stakeholders: Are students, teachers, and parents saying the same things about education? Understanding types of conversations and sentiments around education conversations can help chart a new path for education as we emerge out of the pandemic.

How was the research done?

This project relied on Talkwalker, a social media data analytics platform. Talkwalker acts as a living archive of internet artifacts, pulling in every publicly available item from sources ranging from local news sites to social media platforms. For each item published, Talkwalker includes data on the text’s content, author, source, and engagement—including, for example, how many times a tweet was shared or an article’s view count. Talkwalker provides powerful analytical functions to complement its archival capabilities, and using its proprietary artificial intelligence software, we trained an algorithm to capture items related to our topic of interest. The resulting model pulled in online artifacts originating in England that in some way discussed education or schooling.

Our analysis was based on a random sample of 25 percent of all public, online conversations among average users related to education in England. Since we were interested in better understanding the insights of everyday people—rather than celebrities or politicians—we focused on “average users” and excluded “influencers” from our dataset. We segmented the data by actor to determine trends by user group, concentrating on students, teachers, and parents—though schools, businesses and expert professionals were also present in our dataset. We also filtered by distinct time periods between April 29, 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic) and June 1, 2021.

While social listening provides unique insight into people’s conversations and sentiments, it has various limitations. It can only capture conversations and glean insights from people who are online and participating in the conversation. Therefore, there are likely some groups whose voices are not heard using this method, including people who do not have access to the internet or smart phones or computers, who are illiterate, or who may have access to the internet and devices but are unable or unwilling to participate. Additionally, we only conducted our analysis in English, so our study excluded any conversations taking place in other languages. Our findings also reveal that younger and male voices are overly represented in the conversation. Many social media platforms restrict access to users below a certain age and parents are more likely to control young children’s access, leading to better representation among older teenagers in social media participation than young children. It should be noted that there are many online conversations that are not public, and therefore due to privacy laws, were not included in our analysis; these include online conversations in various platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

Who is talking?

Many people in England have talked about education during the last two years. Our analysis found robust education conversations among everyday people, with approximately 16 million results during the more than two-year period of analysis. We analyzed a subset of this conversation—4 million results—representing 25 percent of the full volume of conversations on education among average users (Figure 1). The volume of conversation on education increased markedly in March 2020 during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and remained higher than pre-pandemic levels throughout the year. However, this did not last into 2021, with a drop-off in conversations in January 2021. The volume of education conversation in May 2021 was similar to that in May 2019.

Figure 1. Changes in volume of education conversations between May 2019 and May 2021

Source: Talkwalker and authors’ analysis.

Young adults between the ages of 18-35 were the most active voices, making up over 76 percent of all conversations with 25-35-year-olds making up almost half the users in our study. There was very limited participation from anyone 45 years or older (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Age of participants in education conversation

There were more male than female voices in the education conversation over the past two years (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Gender of participants in education conversations

Source: Talkwalker.

The education conversation among average users took place across a range of media types—from social media platforms like Twitter to online forums for particular actors (such as parents or students) to blogs and news stories. The greatest share of education conversations took place on Twitter (85 percent), followed by forums, and then blogs (Figure 4). This breakdown does not necessarily correspond to the depth of content or discussion, however, as one tweet that is limited to 280 characters is counted the same as one blog post, which could be 2,000 words. Both are counted as one result in their respective category when calculating the share of media types.

Figure 4. The types of media where the education conversation took place

What is the nature of the conversation?

There are a wide range of motivations and objectives driving the different conversations around education. At any one time, some people want to solicit information from their networks, others want to vent their frustrations, some seek to share accomplishments, and others seek to convert people to their causes. We found that the conversations on education fell largely into four main types of discussions:

• Resourcing.   Conversations motivated by sharing information, resources, tools, advice, and tips.  
• Community building and connecting.   Conversations motivated by connecting to others and building networks and a shared sense of community largely through seeking and offering news, sharing frustrations, and voicing appreciation.
• Movements and advocacy. Conversations motivated by causes on particular topics, including on cultural moments such as Black Lives Matter or on specific interests such as outdoor education or educational practices for children with autism.
• Sales and persuasion. Conversations motivated by convincing people to take a specific action, such as buying a product or using a certain practice.

In terms of what people were discussing across these types of conversations, we analyzed the most popular hashtags before and during the COVID-19 pandemic to get a picture of the nature of the national education conversation. We conducted a sentiment analysis on the top topics—thus, those topics in dark green are very positive, light green is trending toward positive, yellow is neutral, and red is negative (Figure 5). The more frequently a hashtag is used, the bigger it appears in the word cloud below.

Unsurprisingly, the national education conversation was more positive before COVID-19. Looking at the top hashtags from our education query as generated by Talkwalker’s algorithm, there were 25 hashtags with very positive sentiments in 2019 but only 13 such hashtags in 2021, with a much larger number of conversations reflecting a neutral sentiment during the pandemic. There were very few explicitly negative conversations, with only one—#Brexit—standing out in 2019 and only three—#BorisJohnson, #ClosetheSchools, and #WhatsHappeninginMyanmar—strongly negative conversations in 2021.

The topics of conversation also changed over time. Perhaps the most obvious and expected changes were the rise in new topics in 2020 that did not exist in 2019, such as #COVID-19, #BlackLivesMatter, #Lockdown, #homelearning, and #SchoolsReopening. As these topics entered the conversation, other topics such as #fun, #business, and #community became less popular. As we will discuss below, one topic that gained significant participants was #edutwitter—driven largely by teachers reaching out to share information and resources and to support each other.

Figure 5. Topics of conversation related to education pre-COVID-19 and during it

What are people talking about?

There is a large appetite to connect about education issues, but conversations are siloed and unaligned across students, teachers, and parents. The exception is key moments related to COVID-19 that united conversations across these three groups.

When we analyzed the conversations of students, teachers, and parents, we found a large appetite for connecting about education issues among these average social media users. However, there is not a common narrative across these conversations. Ultimately, we learned that stakeholders are not saying the same thing about education, but the exception to this is COVID-19. The pandemic became a unifying moment for students, teachers, and parents who all expressed frustrations with the difficult situation and sought and gave advice to and from others about how to cope. In other words, except for particular COVID-related moments such as the approach to exams, we did not find strong alignment across students, teachers, and parents in relation to what they expressed via social media.

While all stakeholders turned to social media to ask for help and share resources, students were especially preoccupied by exams, teachers were particularly vocal about student well-being and mental health, and parents were most concerned about numerous discrete interests, especially special needs education (“SEND”). Students were the most critical of the existing education system, sharing their in-the-moment frustrations around exams but also questioning the wisdom, utility, and relevance of how exams are currently structured and used. Teachers also expressed frustration at different elements of the education system, but they were most focused on finding ways to help solve the problems they or their peers faced day to day. Likewise, some parents posted their critiques of how the school system operates, but most were focused on how to support the particular needs of their children and their corresponding views about particular education approaches, programs, or practices that were important to them.

Across these conversations, there were particular moments where students, teachers, and parents were aligned in their discussion. England’s approach to grading exams in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic was an example of this, specifically as it relates to equity and fairness. Students were very vocal on this topic, and many teachers and parents chimed into the conversation. Another example is the concern about student mental health and well-being, a major concern for teachers, and, with the difficulties of COVID-19, parents also joined in the discussion expressing concern for their children’s emotional welfare.

There are likely a number of factors for these findings. First, several considerations could make students more critical of the system writ large versus teachers and parents. Certainly students, as the central subjects of the school system and the actors whose lives are most impacted by their experience, are one factor. Students’ position in society vis-à-vis teachers and parents is also likely another factor. The professional responsibility of teachers and familial responsibility of parents are likely to play a role in their focus on trying to navigate the current system in which they operate versus looking to change the system altogether. Additionally, another factor could be the social media platform itself. We analyzed public data where students, teachers, and parents had to self-identify, such as in their post or in their social media bio, as one of these three categories to be captured in our analysis. Speaking out candidly could be harder for teachers and parents given the relationships they may wish to retain at their schools or community. Second, the severity of the pandemic and its impacts on the daily lives of students, teachers, and parents was the likely reason it broke through as a topic everyone was talking about. The usefulness of social media to connect and help each other solve specific problems may also be why, except for particular COVID-related topics, the conversations are siloed. The problems that are front of mind for teachers, such as their classroom practice, are not the same topics that are front of mind for parents or students on a daily basis.

Below we review the four main insights on what students, teachers, and parents have talked about over the last two years and where there were differences and similarities.

Students, teachers, and parents are actively connecting with each other about education but largely in siloed conversations

Across many different topics and both prior to and during the pandemic, students, teachers, and parents are using social media to connect with each other, share information, and seek support. The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to an increase in the volume of some of these conversations, especially among teachers. For example, the rise in #edutwitter, which saw a 104 percent increase in the first nine months after the pandemic began, is one indication of the growing appetite to connect with each other about education. One unintended but positive byproduct of coping with COVID-19 is that it has expanded the space for different stakeholders to participate in these resourcing and community-building conversations and practices. These types of conversations reflect a diversity of posts from students sharing jokes about exams, teachers offering useful resources, and parents asking for advice. Overall, conversations were largely within groups (students reaching out to students, teachers connecting with other teachers, and parents primarily interacting with other parents).

For example, many students took to social media to share exam tips or ask for help from other students on particular subjects or share study resources. A student on the popular U.K. forum, thestudentroom.co.uk, who asked for help solving a chemistry A-level problem is a typical example of this type of exchange:

“ Hey guys! I attempted this question and got it wrong. I checked the mark scheme and can’t make any sense of it for the life of me!! Could anyone please help me and try to explain what’s going on? I’ve also attached the mark scheme. Thanks” ( May 1, 2021 )

Teachers are frequently reaching out to each other to share stories, resources, and advice. They are by far the most active participants—compared to students and parents—in the resourcing and community-building conversations online. Most are participating in #edutwitter, but there are also a number of other smaller communities where teachers share resources such as #teacher5oclockclub, #teacher5aday, #SLTchat, #ukedchat, #NQT, and #CPD. One online teacher community is built around helping teachers expand their networks: #FFBWednesday stands for “follow, follow back” where teachers follow back any new followers to their Twitter account every Wednesday. Like #edutwitter, the #FFBWednesday community also saw a surge in participation after the onset of the pandemic.

Typical posts before and during the pandemic include anecdotes reinforcing positive teacher identity and accomplishments like the one this primary-grade teacher shared:

I love meeting other teachers 'in the wild'. Saw a man with a large family. Him to his children – 'Line up so I can check you're all here.' I walked past & said, 'Teacher?' Him – 'Reception'. Me – 'Year 6'. We then fist bumped. ? #Edutwitter #primaryrocks #teachers #halfterm — Emma Stanley (@MissStanleyYr6) May 28, 2019

Teachers also frequently before and during the pandemic reached out to share useful resources. For example, this math teacher sharing a resource for helping students with multiplication tables:

Times table cards- a way for your children to practise times tables without just writing them out! Useful for warm ups, targeted individual work, interventions, etc. All come with answers! #edutwitter #maths https://t.co/WJXzrMYfeo pic.twitter.com/KeQqT4Wosd — Sarah Farrell (@SarahFarrellKS2) September 22, 2019

In addition, teachers took to social media to help each other with a wide range of things, from new teachers asking for and receiving guidance, to finding connections on subjects or years, to supporting each other through the many difficulties they were encountering. This continued after the onset of COVID-19. For example, this teacher shared about helping a student with autism who has struggled amid COVID-19:

Today was my first day meeting my class (employed jan). A pupil with autism/anxiety has not managed a full day at school since lockdown 1. Today he came to class, I really tried my best to put him at ease and at lunch he asked me if I could go ring his mum to stay all day ?? — Miss Smith (@Hannahmarie1402) March 8, 2021

This teacher is looking to expand her network of Year 5 teachers as she has recently been placed in that year:

I’ve just found out I’m in Year 5 next year! Looking for those KS2 (or any really) connections #FFBWednesday #educhat #TeacherFriends — Georgia (@MissGSurtees) June 10, 2020

Or this new teacher who is looking for advice on how to get the attention of the class:

As a trainee teacher I’m interested to know what method you find most effective in getting the attention of the class: countdown, clap, hand in the air? Any contributions greatly appreciated #teamenglish #edutwitter #pgce — Miss Fletcher (@missrfletcher) July 31, 2020

Parents also took to social media to connect, share, and seek advice. Many had warm words of gratitude for the teachers and schools who helped them through a difficult time, such as this parent:

I've taken my daughter out of school because I'm in an at-risk category. I can't speak for everyone, of course, but her school was great. They understand the gravity of this. They're worried too #schoolclosure — Maria (@itsasheactually) March 16, 2020

Others posted their frustrations, fears, and anger, such as this parent:

"Your child will experience a mild illness". This is what I was told when school sent my child home following a case of covid in her class. My child didn't experience a thing, but I, her mother, ended up fighting for my life. Just admit schools aren't safe @educationgovuk . — Nutellandchill (@nutellandchill) November 24, 2020

While others reached out simply to get information, ask for advice, or share resources, including this parent:

“I am new to mumsnet and I need some advice. I was hoping you experienced parents with pre-teens/ teens could help. Our DS is currently in year 6 and has been offered secondary school places at Highgate Wood and Maria Fidelis FCJ…. We would like to know from your experience which school would best meet her needs. A good SEN department is imperative.” ( March 5, 2020 )

With students leading the way, collective outrage over England’s 2020 grading controversy created alignment across all stakeholders and potentially impacted the government’s response

The national exams at the end of secondary school and the exams to gain entrance into higher education are the focus of much of the conversation among students. We examined in depth students’ conversations about both of these exams, namely the GCSEs and the A-levels. While exams were a popular student topic of conversation on social media before COVID-19—especially using the #Alevels with the corresponding year (e.g. #Alevels2019)—it was a very hot topic during the exam grading controversy of 2020 (see Box 1). We found teachers and parents alike—alongside students—reacted strongly to the exam controversy.

We found an initial spike in reaction posts from average users, including students, during the May-June 2019 timeframe, which is when exams were being taken; this was followed by a large spike in August 2019, which reflects when results were received. A spike in March 2020 corresponds with the discussion around school closures and concerns or inquiries about exam results. The largest spike—from the usual several hundred posts a day to almost 8,000 posts—was in August 2020, which coincided with exam results and the controversy around exam grading amid COVID-19 (Figure 6).

Figure 6. Number of posts related to exams between April 2019 and May 2021

Many students expressed outrage and frustration at what they saw as an unfair approach to delivering the GCSEs and A-levels amid the pandemic:

the year above and below me got their predicted grades with only missing 2 months and only 1000 cases. we are at 50,000 cases a day. they really expect us to sit a-level exams??? #schoolsreopeninguk pic.twitter.com/sYQKt7C3ao — Katie ? (@katie0773) December 30, 2020

Students also directed criticism at the government’s handling of the situation, while at the same time defending their teachers. For example, this student criticized the short time period for pushing back exams and responded to an announcement from  Education Secretary Gavin Williamson that exams would be delayed three weeks:

@samhackney9: “If you’d have consulted with students and teachers you’d know that 3 weeks is nothing. Content needs to be cut, coursework needs to be used and teachers need to have a role in this. It should not be solely exam based #alevels2021” (October 12, 2020)

Similarly, another student in a sarcastic post defended teachers while lashing out at the government:

Ah yes, let’s blame the teachers who spend their lives creating lesson plans, marking essays, supporting students and teaching the future generations. Let’s not blame the exam boards or the government. — Macy…❤︎ (@MacySheil) August 13, 2020

Even recent graduates got involved in the discussion, such as this Ph.D. student:

The more I think the A Level results fiasco the angrier I get. This government has consistently let down and actively hurt the most vulnerable in our society. — Holly Nielsen (@nielsen_holly) August 14, 2020

Students also decried the inequality inherent in the predicted grading approach. For example, these students commented on the income inequalities and racial bias within exam grading:

@madamammad: “Also absolute disgrace the way GCSE and A-Level grades will be downgraded if you go to a school in a bad area, yet private schools will be more likely to achieve their predicted grades. Pay your way through” (August 11, 2020)

Using predicted grades for exams can be slightly problematic . Especially for black students with biased and/or unsupportive teachers who tend to unpredictable students. Just personally teachers in my SHIT school would predict me C’s where I got A’s and A*s? — Bobby?? (@FreeBxbby) March 18, 2020

Many students who had completed secondary exams within the last few years went online to share their experience and reflect on the shortcomings of the A-level exams in general—even outside of the pandemic grading controversy. We commonly saw university and postgraduate students noting their success despite poor exam grades. For example, these Ph.D. students recounted their experiences and how exam grades did not define them:

I have a D in A-level biology and an E in chemistry. I picked myself up, did a foundation science degree and graduated top of the class in my medical biochemistry degree. I’ll be starting my PhD in cancer immunology in October. Grades don’t define you if you work hard! https://t.co/IhwxWTsIsX — Emma Jennings (@EmmaKJennings) August 20, 2019

I was predicted BCB at A-level. I got AAB. I technically needed AAA to meet my Oxford conditions. St. Anne's let me come anyway. They understood I was more than a letter on a piece of paper. Do you know what doesn't have that kind of understanding: an algorithm. — Jess Morley (@jessRmorley) August 11, 2020

While exams were not the major focus of discussion among teachers or parents like they were for students, the COVID-19 grading controversy brought them into the discussion. Some teachers expressed sympathy for students and deep frustration at the role they were asked to play in the process, for example:

I can’t wait until we can look back and laugh at the year the government got teachers to award all the GCSE and A Level grades, and the only guidance we got was stuff like “An A* is kind of like an A, but just…*better*” pic.twitter.com/cl534qU3XV — Rosie (@brumrosie) May 12, 2021

I think a compromise would have been test 1 paper e.g. for GCSE and one or 2 papers- if 3 paoers do 2- for A Level but variables currently in place are bonkers…and the stress on teens let alone teachers for past weeks has been appalling — Kathy M (@kvjm1) June 1, 2021

Parents weighed in on the controversy largely as it related to their own children’s experience. For example, this parent shares her anguish at the impact the A-level grading controversy has had on her daughter:

So my brilliant kid, who spent 5 years in and out of hospital and is disabled, had her teachers’ grades marked down and has lost her place at university. She got straight As at GCSE, mostly teaching herself in hospital. She called the uni. They said they’re full. I give up. — Amanda Lees (@amandalees) August 13, 2020

This parent took to social media to express outrage at how the GCSE grading controversy affected one of his daughters’ classmates, Miles:

My kids go to Notre Dame High School. Miles is in my daughter’s year. Talented athlete. Bright. Black. Predicted A, A or B and a C. Got C, D, U. Absolute scandal. pic.twitter.com/nggOBO86bO — Andrew Stronach (@aistronach) August 14, 2020

In summary, the role of exams in the English education system is one of—if not the—major preoccupations of students on social media, particularly those in secondary school. Exams intimately affect students’ lives and they, along with recent graduates, are frequently critical of the role exams play in their education. Given the major impact exams have on students combined with their vocal dissatisfaction of unjust grading policies, students appear to be the most ready for change of the three groups examined in the study. While exams were not the major topic for teachers and parents participating in online conversations, the grading controversy brought them into the conversation with messages that reinforced and often supported each other. This aligned response may have played a role in the government’s reversal of its predictive grading policy.

Students’ mental health and well-being have been top of mind both prior to and during COVID-19

Mental health and well-being are major topics of discussion related to education on social media. This issue has been prominent in the top 10 education-related hashtags both prior to and during COVID-19. Teachers and mental health experts are the main participants in this conversation. Most posts are focused on children—either raising awareness of the need to focus on children’s well-being or offering resources for parents or teachers to improve children’s well-being. However, much less focus has been on teachers’ own well-being.

Over the last two years, mental health and well-being has become an ongoing topic of conversation with several hundred posts a day (Figure 7). Surprisingly, given the concern around student’s mental health amid COVID-19, there was only a mild uptick in the conversation after the pandemic’s outbreak. We also see a drop-off in discussion around mental health at the end of 2020, following the overall decrease in the discussion of education generally.

Figure 7. Number of posts related to mental health and well-being

Teachers in particular are concerned about their students’ stress and anxiety. Students’ ability to cope with the pressure of exams is one clear focus, particularly before the pandemic. After the onset of COVID-19, teachers are seeking guidance to help their students face the uncertainty of the pandemic. For example, before the pandemic, teachers offered students workshops to help prepare them to take their exams:

Year 10 GCSE PE students – don't forget I'm running an exam technique workshop for you and your parents to attend this Thursday, 5-6pm. If you have lost your letter and want to attend, see me to let me know. @LuttHighPE @LuttHigh — Mr Mather (@MrMatherPE) June 3, 2019

After almost two decades teaching GCSE students with SpLD I think that it’s more about reducing any other stressors at that time, the exam stress is almost unavoidable, properly training staff to fulfil their roles in providing AA & having the pupils practice with this too. — Abigail Gray FCCT ? (@AbigailSENworks) May 13, 2019

Another post authored before COVID-19 by an exam results helpline offers mental health tips for students receiving their exam results:

Picking up your A level results this week? We know it can be a hard time, so here's our top tips for staying well! #ExamResults #alevelresultsday #Alevels #mentalhealth pic.twitter.com/DlWpMYLT89 — Exam Results Helpline (@exam_helpline) August 12, 2019

During the early days of the pandemic, a teacher offered mental health tips for students during COVID-19 and encouraged sharing among fellow teachers:

To help students stay mentally healthy during this period of uncertainty, I have put together this list of 10 proven tips. Please feel free to share. #COVID2019uk #SelfIsolation #StaySafeStayHome #education #Wellbeing #mentalhealth #SLTchat #edchat #ukedchat pic.twitter.com/RQdhNbyTAP — Will Haines (@MrWillHaines) March 19, 2020

Throughout the pandemic, teachers have been working on addressing the mental health needs of their students:

Introduced well-being Wednesday to my morning form time and can honesty say I am buzzing for it tomorrow! The students really enjoyed it last week and had some fantastic comments! Utilising the @Headspace content on YouTube! #Wellbeing #MentalHealth #Education — RJ Mewes (@RJ_Mewes) January 19, 2021

The mental well-being of all students, including our most vulnerable, is absolutely paramount now we are back in schools. The rise in mental illness within our UK young people is staggering over lockdown. Again really good to see this acknowledged but more can be done ? — Emily Barber (@MsEmilyBarber) May 13, 2021

Interestingly, teacher well-being and mental health, although a much smaller focus of discussion, featured more prominently before the pandemic than during it. For example, in August 2019 a psychologist and community activist noted:

Unless we start valuing our teachers in a real way they will continue to leave the profession in droves. #School #leaders need to wake up to #teacher #wellbeing , what it means, why it is important & how to do it. @surreyeps @MartynReah @CharteredColl @edpsydan @growinggtschool https://t.co/SGa6E5xmEX — Dr Sue Roffey (@SueRoffey) August 9, 2019

Teachers and education personnel also continued to focus on a wide range of well-being needs they felt were important beyond just coping with the pandemic. For example, this school nurse sharing insight about a new resource designed to support students in the transition from primary to secondary school:

STOP PRESS 1 of 2 ?? #Northamptonshire #Primaryschools We have created a resource for year 6 children which can be accessed by schools or parent/carers Designed to support #emotional #Wellbeing and build resilience at transition to secondary school https://t.co/JYYNErR1dr — SchoolNurses NHFT ? (@NHFTSchoolNurse) July 9, 2020

Parents did join the conversation around student mental health and well-being, especially as they related to learning amid COVID-19, although not nearly as frequently as teachers and mental health experts. Parents largely focused on the experiences of their own children.

For example, a parent writing on Mumsnet.com, a popular online forum for parents, reached out to her community for support when her son’s increasing levels of anxiety prevented him from passing his school-leaving qualifications:

Lu9months:“my son is 16 and very bright but anxious. he was predicted excellent gcses. however his anxiety has become so severe that hes no longer able to get into school for the gcse assessments. he doesnt think he can do A levels now. im panicking about his future but all that really matters is his wellbeing. id love to hear stories of school/education problems all working out fine in the end, to help me focus on the here and now and stop worrying so much about what the future holds . Thanks.” ( April 23, 2021 )

Another parent on Twitter is concerned about how stressed her daughter is with the difficulties of wearing face masks in the heat:

I have just picked my daughter up from school,she is very stressed ,the school are making them wear masks in communal areas and she is barely able to breathe in this heat.She has also not been allowed to get a drink.We need to stand up to this Government as this is child abuse. — ? Lorraine ? ❤ ??☀️???️???????? (@lorrain00414525) September 15, 2020

In summary, children’s mental health and well-being has been an ongoing topic of conversation on social media for teachers before and during the pandemic—but much less so than for teachers’ own well-being. Many teachers are concerned with how to help students handle the stress in their lives, especially as it relates to schooling. Parents care about this too and amid COVID-19 have joined the online conversation alongside teachers, but it has been a less dramatic uniting of conversations than the exam controversy.

Parents have disparate interests and lack a unifying motivation to push for broader education change

Parents participating in the education conversation on social media are heavily focused on their personal experience and the particular needs of their children. We saw across the two years that parents have wide-ranging and disparate interests, including different interest groups for the specific learning needs—from autism to dyslexia—of their children. Many parents also voiced concern or pride about their child’s progress in school.

For example, parents of children with autism shared their experiences with the school system:

When a child cries every morning and every night because they have anxieties or fears around school & the parent(s) communicate this with school – listen and support – but never respond with ‘well the child is fine when they are here’ #SencoChat #Autism #MentalHealth #EduTwitter — SEN Lisa ? (@Lisa_SEND) September 29, 2020

I just want to add something about free school meals, because my carers allowance is added as earnings, we do not get free school meals for our 2 young boys , think about that , penilised because I'm caring for my disabled son. — Autism care and share (@autcareandshare) June 16, 2020

We saw many posts of parents celebrating their children’s accomplishments, such as this one:

Huge congratulations to my daughter Rebekah on passing the 12+ entrance exam and interview for Oundle School. It's her ambition to be an engineer & I'm so grateful to Oundle for giving her this opportunity ? pic.twitter.com/ByjuZDCiBG — Dr Liz Sennitt Clough (@LizSennitt) February 24, 2021

Not surprisingly, with the onset of the pandemic, many parents took to social media to share their experiences and perspectives on coping with school closure and lockdown. Over and above their concerns with exam grading and students’ mental health, parents expressed frustration at coping with home learning and school closures and shared advice for how to handle the situation. For example below several Mumsnet parents were cited anonymously in a news story at the end of 2020:

“Blended/online learning does NOT work if you have multiple kids of different ages. It does not work if parents are working full time.” “The guilt I felt over having my child in front of a screen for 10 hours a day was just unendurable.”

Parents, like teachers, also offered up tips and suggestions for coping with education amid the pandemic, as in this parent’s post cited in the BBC on March 21, 2020:

“The key is finding out what works for you as a family, but have a delineation between home life and school. Don’t spend all day in pyjamas. Come together for a mindfulness session rather than an assembly and do topic-based work, too. My daughter and I will do the Egyptians next week.” (March 21, 2020)

Parents also shared their support of their children’s schools thanking them for their flexibility and communication:

Just read the letter from the head teacher of my son’s primary school explaining why they have taken the decision to move to online learning. Magnificently written and she and the teachers have my full support #MakeSchoolsSafe — Dr Yinka Olusoga (@YinkaOlusoga) January 3, 2021

Not all parents were forgiving, however, as many vented their frustrations upon what they viewed as incompetent political leadership. Parents had varying and diverse critiques, such as these two parents who criticize politicians from both the Conservative and Labour Parties:

If I’d voted in the way @Matt_VickersMP had this evening, I’m not sure I’d be able to sleep tonight. And I’m not exaggerating here. If a government chooses not to provide free school meals during half term for our most vulnerable children, what kind of government do we have? — Matt Smith (@utb_smith) October 21, 2020

Liz Kendall pushing for teachers getting vaccinated over half term in that relentless Labour mantra. I've never once heard them mention teaching assistants, or childminders or police officers, or bus drivers or shop assistants. What's special about teachers? — Justine Carroll ?? (@JustineClaire65) February 1, 2021

In summary, parents’ focus is—not surprisingly—on the particular needs of their children and how to help them in their educational journey. The daily tasks ahead of parents are what preoccupy them, and they reach out for connection, advice, support, and information around a variety of topics. The pandemic was understandably a topic of concern for many parents over and above the issues with exams and mental health, many highlighting how hard it was to cope but equally many thanking their child’s teachers and schools for coping well. However, overall parents’ sentiment on their child’s education is quite mixed with many pockets of narrowly focused conversations, demonstrating that there was no one common parent voice or perspective on social media. Without common interests and motivations among parents, it may be difficult to engage them in conversations about broader education system change.

There is strong appetite for connection and talking about education across everyday people from students to teachers to parents. However, except for connecting and commiserating about education amid COVID-19, these key actors in England’s education system are largely talking about different things in their online discussions. While students, teachers, and parents use social media to connect and share resources, each group tends to talk to each other versus across groups. Students frequently share resources and tips on exams, teachers share classroom resources and build their networks using hashtags like #edutwitter, and parents seek advice from other parents about their child’s schooling. The pandemic provided a unique moment where students, teachers, and parents shared a similar narrative as illustrated by the 2020 exam controversy. It is likely that this alignment and overwhelming criticisms were factors driving leaders to reverse course on the exam grading policy.

When key actors in a system are aligned in their desires—as evidenced by the sentiments expressed in their conversations—it is much more likely for systems to change in the direction stakeholders are collectively pushing. For education advocates and policymakers wishing to “build back better” and use the disruption of the pandemic to improve England’s education system, it will be important to engage students, teachers, and parents in the process. Because these actors have such disparate areas of attention, bringing them into a shared conversation is necessary—as it is unlikely to happen on its own—and social media and other online platforms are just a few of many venues to facilitate this. Perhaps the cohesive force of shared moments amid COVID-19 could be an entry point to exploring the possibility of developing a more aligned education narrative among students, teachers, and parents. The possibility of harnessing this moment to help leapfrog the English education system forward is one that would be well served by forging a shared vision and narrative of education.

We are grateful to Porter Crumpton, Meghan Foley, Danielle McMurtry, and Katherine Portnoy for their assistance in developing this report.

The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit organization devoted to independent research and policy solutions. Its mission is to conduct high-quality, independent research and, based on that research, to provide innovative, practical recommendations for policymakers and the public. The conclusions and recommendations of any Brookings publication are solely those of its author(s), and do not reflect the views of the Institution, its management and other scholars, nor the views of its donors, their officers, employees, or Boards of Governors .

Brookings gratefully acknowledges the support provided by BHP Foundation, Big Change Charitable Trust, and Joann McPike.

Brookings recognizes that the value it provides is in its commitment to quality, independence, and impact. Activities supported by its donors reflect this commitment.

Global Economy and Development

Center for Universal Education

Family, School, and Community Engagement in Education

Magdalena Rodríguez Romero

September 10, 2024

Tom Swiderski, Sarah Crittenden Fuller, Kevin C. Bastian

September 9, 2024

Julien Lafortune, Barbara Biasi, David Schönholzer

September 6, 2024

How Social Media is Reshaping Today’s Education System

by Lori Wade

There’s no denying that, ever since social networks and social media made way into our lives, everything is different. Beginning with the way we socialize, interact, plan for parties or even how often we go out. We won’t go into a debate regarding the ethical aspects of the way Social Media is influencing our lives. Instead, this article proposes to focus on the numerous ways in which social media is changing the way the education system works. So, stay tuned to find out what effects does social networking have on the way our children are educated both at school and outside of it.

Empowering Effects Starting from elementary school up until university graduation, social media has the role to empower parents, students and teachers to use new ways of sharing information and build a community. Statistics show that 96% of the students that have internet access are using at least one social network . What’s even more extraordinary is that, even though some of the students use the social networks for entertaining and other purposes, there are a lot of them that actually use it to promote a lot of positive and useful activities. From finding a summer internship, promoting a success story about how to win the student-loan battle or collaborate on international projects, everything is made possible.

Implementation in Schools? When it comes to social media, schools tend to adopt different positions. It’s a general consensus that they’re useful when it comes to sharing information or organizing the school tasks. And at the same time, the social networking is blamed for the lack of attention in students during classes.

But an increasing trend of adopting social media in school is starting to show. And since students already devote a lot of time for social media and connecting with others outside school hours, why not do it during school as well?

It’s a matter of practicability, really, because it makes perfect sense to use the online universe to communicate with your students since they’re already there most of the time. There’s no need for another case study about the usage of social media in schools. You simply need to walk through the hallways of any school or colleague to see kids of all ages totally immersed in their smartphones. Browsing their news feed, sharing photos on Instagram of sending Snapchat messages has become a part of their daily routine.

How Can Teachers Penetrate the Online World? Moodle and Blackboard are just two examples of learning management system that involves online learning for more than 10 years now. Slowly but steady, such systems will lead to the actual implementation of social media within classrooms. And the best tool available for teachers is social media itself. Only by being open-minded and using the technology themselves will they be able to really reach out to students.

“ The best teachers I’ve ever had have used technology to enhance the learning process, including Facebook pages and events for upcoming projects” – Katie Benmar, Freshman

  As the above statement emphasizes, students also react very positively when a teacher is willing to use their methods and adapt them as part of the educational process. And it makes perfect sense since a homework has a certain strictness about it, but an online chat discussing a certain book gives students the ability to open up and share their opinions.

Daring Teachers Of course, the examples of teachers already implementing social media in classes are far numerous that we can know of, however, there are a few that did such a great job that their students almost made them viral. For example, a biology teacher from Bergen County proposed a challenge to his students. They had to debate over the subject of meiosis on Twitter by using a specific hashtag. This is a great opportunity for students to have fun and learn at the same time. As you need to know your meiosis in order to compress it into 140 characters.

“ We live in a digital ecosystem, and it is vital that educational institutions adapt ”

Carla Dawson – Digital Marketing Professor at the Catholic University of Cordoba

Professor Dawson really has a valid point there as history showed us all that, no matter how strong the resistance, technological progress and new trends will eventually become a standard. Of course, this applies to developed countries that already have a well-structured traditional educational system. It’s a totally different situation when it comes to developing countries that are still struggling to find their way.

A Stronger Community Through Social Media The benefits of social media in the education process doesn’t have to stop at the teacher-student relationship. There are a lot of other benefits that can be extracted from the use of social networking at higher levels as well. For example, principals or administrators can find a new way to integrate social media. Like sharing school news via social networks, holding online meeting with the parents or even starting fundraising for different projects.

And social media can quickly become the only channel of communication since we’re living fast-paced lives, parents are usually busy with work and cannot attend school meetings. But this doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be in touch with events or be able to check on their kids every once in awhile. Just like in every other field, communication is vital and if it can be done easily with the help of social media, why not go for it?

It may not be criteria just yet, but soon enough questions like ‘Does this school have a Facebook page?’ could become just as important as the things that parents are asking right now. Like, how well equipped the library is or what are the optional classes their child can be part of.

Conclusions The bottom line is that social media is a big part of our day to day life and there’s no point of keeping it away from the education process. School, college and university staff should be encouraged to make use of technology for student and parent communication. This could easily turn into an argumentative essay topic for college . But the benefits are obvious, starting with healthier parent-teacher relationships and all the way to permanently changing the way our children will learn.

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings
• My Bibliography
• Collections
• Citation manager

Save citation to file

Email citation, add to collections.

• Create a new collection
• Add to an existing collection

Add to My Bibliography

Your saved search, create a file for external citation management software, your rss feed.

• Search in PubMed
• Search in NLM Catalog
• Add to Search

Credibility and Involvement of Social Media in Education-Recommendations for Mitigating the Negative Effects of the Pandemic among High School Students

Affiliations.

• 1 Department of Journalism, Faculty of Arts and Letters, The Catholic University in Ruzomberok, 034 01 Ruzomberok, Slovakia.
• 2 Department of Russian Language, Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), 117198 Moscow, Russia.
• 3 Department of Social Work and Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences and Health Care, Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, 949 74 Nitra, Slovakia.
• 4 Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Informatics, Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, 949 74 Nitra, Slovakia.
• 5 Department of Sociology, Faculty of Political Science and Sociology, University of Granada, 18001 Granada, Spain.
• PMID: 35270460
• PMCID: PMC8910481
• DOI: 10.3390/ijerph19052767

In the context of considerations on the potential attenuation of the negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic with the use of credible social media in online education during a pandemic, the subject of our own research was the fulfillment of two goals. The main research goals were to identify, categorize, and evaluate the possibilities of using social media in online education during the pandemic from the perspective of selected teachers and students from secondary schools in Slovakia. The research methods of the first phase (qualitative) of the research involved brainstorming among nine secondary school teachers. The second research phase (quantitative) used a questionnaire, which was completed by 102 high school students from all over Slovakia. The collection of both quantitative and qualitative data was used in this research. The research results revealed the most representative opinions of teachers on the current and real possibilities of engaging credible social media in online education and the views of high school students on their desired use and involvement of social media in online education. The intersection of the two findings presents a picture of the possibilities of using credible social media in online education, which can help maintain students' interest in online education during a pandemic. Based on these findings, it can be stated that the opinions identified in the research group of teachers correspond to a large extent with the desired use of social media in education from the perspective of students. In addition, however, students would welcome more opportunities to use and engage social media in today's online education. The result of this research is an analysis of social media patterns applied to online education, which are of greater interest to students and could act as elements for reducing the negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, i.e., six forms of online education and 24 educational activities that could contribute, inter alia, to mitigating the different negative effects of the pandemic among youth generation. The findings also benefit from the presentation of many specific options and recommendations for the use of social media in online education during a pandemic.

Keywords: credibility; negative effects of the pandemic; online education; social media; young generation.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

The intersection of research findings—educational…

The intersection of research findings—educational activities (research variables).

Similar articles

• Assessing the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, shift to online learning, and social media use on the mental health of college students in the Philippines: A mixed-method study protocol. Lim LTS, Regencia ZJG, Dela Cruz JRC, Ho FDV, Rodolfo MS, Ly-Uson J, Baja ES. Lim LTS, et al. PLoS One. 2022 May 3;17(5):e0267555. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0267555. eCollection 2022. PLoS One. 2022. PMID: 35503779 Free PMC article.
• Barriers and facilitators to online medical and nursing education during the COVID-19 pandemic: perspectives from international students from low- and middle-income countries and their teaching staff. Li W, Gillies R, He M, Wu C, Liu S, Gong Z, Sun H. Li W, et al. Hum Resour Health. 2021 May 12;19(1):64. doi: 10.1186/s12960-021-00609-9. Hum Resour Health. 2021. PMID: 33980228 Free PMC article.
• Students' perception of online learning amidst the Covid-19 pandemic: A study of junior, senior high school and college students in a remote area. Harefa S, Sihombing GLA. Harefa S, et al. F1000Res. 2021 Aug 27;10:867. doi: 10.12688/f1000research.52152.2. eCollection 2021. F1000Res. 2021. PMID: 35222989 Free PMC article.
• The Use of Social Media to Deliver Surgical Education in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Yang S, Jin C, Wang J, Xu X. Yang S, et al. J Invest Surg. 2022 Jun;35(6):1350-1356. doi: 10.1080/08941939.2022.2035859. Epub 2022 Feb 7. J Invest Surg. 2022. PMID: 35130457 Review.
• Moving towards online rheumatology education in the era of COVID-19. Ahmed S, Zimba O, Gasparyan AY. Ahmed S, et al. Clin Rheumatol. 2020 Nov;39(11):3215-3222. doi: 10.1007/s10067-020-05405-9. Epub 2020 Sep 17. Clin Rheumatol. 2020. PMID: 32939569 Free PMC article. Review.
• Adolescents and Trust in Online Social Interactions: A Qualitative Exploratory Study. Colì E, Paciello M, Lamponi E, Calella R, Falcone R. Colì E, et al. Children (Basel). 2023 Aug 18;10(8):1408. doi: 10.3390/children10081408. Children (Basel). 2023. PMID: 37628407 Free PMC article.
• The Antecedents of the Technology Acceptance Model in Microentrepreneurs' Intention to Use Social Networking Sites. Bonfanti RC, Tommasi F, Ceschi A, Sartori R, Ruggieri S. Bonfanti RC, et al. Eur J Investig Health Psychol Educ. 2023 Jul 17;13(7):1306-1317. doi: 10.3390/ejihpe13070096. Eur J Investig Health Psychol Educ. 2023. PMID: 37504487 Free PMC article.
• Psychophysiological Stress Status of Soldiers Prior to an Operative Deployment. Curiel-Regueros A, Fernández-Lucas J, Clemente-Suárez VJ. Curiel-Regueros A, et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Oct 20;19(20):13637. doi: 10.3390/ijerph192013637. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022. PMID: 36294217 Free PMC article.
• Sociodemographic and Digital Education Factors Are Associated to General Health, Coping Strategies, and Academic Outcomes of Undergraduate Students during the Post-Pandemic Period. Tinella L, Tinterri A, Dipace A, Ladogana M, Loiodice I, Bosco A. Tinella L, et al. Eur J Investig Health Psychol Educ. 2022 Sep 6;12(9):1334-1348. doi: 10.3390/ejihpe12090093. Eur J Investig Health Psychol Educ. 2022. PMID: 36135231 Free PMC article.
• World Health Organization. Regional Office for South-East Asia . Mental Health Status of Adolescents in South-East Asia: Evidence for Action. World Health Organization. Regional Office for South-East Asia; New Delhi, India: 2017. [(accessed on 19 November 2021)]. Available online: https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/254982 .
• World Health Organization & United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Helping Adolescents Thrive Toolkit: Strategies to Promote and Protect Adolescent Mental Health and Reduce Self-Harm and Other Risk Behaviours. World Health Organization; Geneva, Switzerland: 2021. [(accessed on 20 November 2021)]. Available online: https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/341327 .
• World Health Organization and Regional Office for Africa . Report of Adolescent Health Services Barriers Assessment in Ethiopia. World Health Organization and Regional Office for Africa; Brazzaville, Congo: 2021. [(accessed on 18 November 2021)]. Available online: https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/341651 .
• Dedryver C.C., Knai C. ‘It’s Easily the Lowest I’ve Ever, Ever Got to’: A Qualitative Study of Young Adults’ Social Isolation during the COVID-19 Lockdowns in the UK. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health. 2021;18:11777. doi: 10.3390/ijerph182211777. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
• Lichand G., Dória C.A., Neto O.L., Cossi J. The Impacts of Remote Learning in Secondary Education: Evidence from Brazil during the Pandemic. Inter-American Development Bank; São Paulo, Brazil: 2021.

Publication types

• Search in MeSH

Related information

Grants and funding.

• 029UKF-4/2020/Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic

LinkOut - more resources

Full text sources.

• Europe PubMed Central
• PubMed Central
• MedlinePlus Health Information

• Citation Manager

NCBI Literature Resources

MeSH PMC Bookshelf Disclaimer

The PubMed wordmark and PubMed logo are registered trademarks of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Unauthorized use of these marks is strictly prohibited.

Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Read our research on:

Full Topic List

Regions & Countries

• Publications
• Our Methods
• Short Reads
• Tools & Resources

Read Our Research On:

How parents’ views of their kids’ screen time, social media use changed during COVID-19

When Pew Research Center fielded a survey of U.S. parents at the beginning of March 2020, we knew the conversation around children and technology was at the forefront of many parents’ minds. Yet no one knew just how relevant that conversation would become in the months ahead.

The first year of the coronavirus pandemic brought a variety of challenges for parents, from helping their kids manage technology to increased screen time. Those with young children wrestled with a lack of child care and worried about their kids’ social skills – concerns that are still relevant today as schools navigate changing circumstances, parents manage changes in where and how they work , and families await vaccines for children under 5.

In April 2021, the Center followed up with many of the same parents we surveyed in March 2020 to check in on their children’s use of technology and social media during the pandemic. This second survey focused on parents who had a kid age 11 or younger in 2020, and it was fielded at a time when some schools were temporarily reverting to virtual learning and vaccines were not yet approved for children under 12. Below, we take a closer look at what these parents told us about their young child, including how the experiences they reported in 2021 compared with their responses from 2020.

Pew Research Center has long studied changes in parenting and family dynamics, as well as the adoption of digital technologies. This analysis of parents’ experiences with and attitudes about their children’s tech use is based on data from 1,681 parents who had at least one child age 11 or younger as of March 2020 and participated in two surveys conducted on the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP) between spring 2020 and 2021 – coinciding with the first year of the coronavirus outbreak. The first survey was conducted March 2-15, 2020, and the second was conducted April 12-18, 2021.

The questions that are the focus of this analysis asked parents to think specifically about one of their children who was age 11 or younger in March 2020. If the parent had more than one child age 11 or younger at the time of the first survey, they were instructed to think about either their oldest or youngest child in this age group.

The following terminology is used in this analysis:

Parents of a young child: Refers to parents who had at least one child age 11 or younger when first interviewed in March 2020.

Parents of a child age 0 to 4: Refers to parents whose randomly assigned child was under age 5 (0 to 4) in March 2020.

Parents of a child age 5 to 11: Refers to parents whose randomly assigned child was age 5 to 11 in March 2020.

Everyone who is part of this analysis is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way, nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. Data from the ATP is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

The data for this analysis is also adjusted to represent the population of parents with one or more children ages 17 or younger living in their household as of March 2020, and focuses on the subset who had at least one child age 11 or younger at the time, regardless of whether that child lived in their household (referred to as a “young child” in this analysis).

Here are the questions, responses and methodology used for this analysis.

More use of digital devices and some social media sites

Whether a result of the pandemic or simply of other events or changes in a child’s life, the year following our first survey in March 2020 saw a rising share of parents who said their young child had used digital devices and social media.

In April 2021, about eight-in-ten parents of a child who was age 11 or younger at the time of the first interview (81%) said their kid ever used or interacted with a tablet computer – even if just to watch videos or listen to music – up from 68% in March 2020. About seven-in-ten (71%) said the same thing about their kid’s use of a smartphone, up from 63% the year before. And 51% of parents with a young child said their child used a game console or portable game device in 2021, up slightly from 2020.

Among the four social media sites the survey covered, the largest share of parents reported that the young child they were asked about used TikTok: 21% said this in April 2021, up from 13% in 2020. There were small changes in the share saying their child used Instagram or Facebook, while Snapchat use stayed virtually the same. And the share who said their young child used a social media site other than TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram roughly doubled between 2020 and 2021, from 8% to 17%.

Social media use differed dramatically depending on the age of the child being followed over time; for example, relatively few parents who had a child under 5 when the pandemic began said this child used social media in either 2020 or 2021.

But for some social media sites, there were changes for kids on both ends of this age range. Among parents who had a child age 5 to 11 at the outset of the pandemic, the share who said this child used TikTok rose 11 percentage points (21% in 2020 to 32% in 2021). For parents with a child who was younger than 5 at the time of the first interview, there was a 4-point uptick from 1% to 5%.

There were also double-digit increases in the share of parents answering about a child who was under 5 in March 2020 who said this child used a tablet (51% in 2020 to 69% in 2021) or a game console or portable game device (16% to 29%) over this period. Still, parents of a child this age were far less likely than those whose child was age 5 to 11 at the outset of the pandemic to report use of these digital devices in either year.

Other variations in kids’ use of devices and social media were also apparent. Even as many kids started using tech in 2021, others were not using these things in 2021 when they had in 2020. Among parents with a young child who said their kid had used a smartphone in 2020, for instance, 14% said their child was not using one in 2021. Similarly, 19% of parents who said their young child had used a game console or portable game device in 2020 said that child was not doing so in 2021.

Growing parental concerns about screen time

Amid these changes, parents increasingly expressed worry about the amount of time their child was spending on devices.

When asked about screen time in April 2021, a quarter of all parents of a young child said that their child spent too much time on a smartphone; about the same share (23%) said their child spent too much time playing video games; and about one-in-ten (8%) said the same about time on social media sites.

For parents whose child used a gaming console or portable game device in both 2020 and 2021, the share who said that child spent too much time playing video games rose 20 points over the first year of the pandemic, from 31% to 51%.

There was also a 14-point jump in the share of parents who said their smartphone-using young child spent too much time on it, from 28% to 42% among those whose child used one in both 2020 and 2021.

And while majorities of parents whose child used these devices in 2020 initially said their child’s time on them was about right, some parents reported different views on screen time a year later when reinterviewed.

Among parents who thought their child’s time playing video games was appropriate in 2020, 44% said the same in 2021 – but a third said that their child was now spending too much time doing this. Similarly, among those who said their child’s time on smartphones was about right in 2020, about a quarter (26%) said in 2021 that their child was now spending too much time this way; 55% said it was still about right.

Some changes in parents’ management of screen time

In both March 2020 and April 2021, majorities of parents whose child was 5 to 11 at the start of the pandemic said they ever checked the websites their child visits or the mobile apps they use; limited the times of day or length of time when this child can use screens; or took away the child’s smartphone or internet privileges as punishment. But the patterns of change over time also show some movement in parents’ approaches.

Some 16% of parents with a child this age said they did not limit screen time for this child in 2021, despite having said they did so in 2020. Conversely, 8% of these parents reported limiting their child’s screen time in 2021, after having not done this in 2020. There was a similar pattern when it comes to taking away smartphone or internet privileges: 14% of parents who had a 5- to 11-year-old child at the start of the pandemic didn’t do this in 2021 even though they had in 2020, compared with 6% who moved in the opposite direction. The Center’s other work also reflects these changing approaches to screen time – some parents loosened their rules during the pandemic, while others became stricter.

Some parents whose child was 5 to 11 in March 2020, for example, became more attentive to what their child was doing online over time: 15% of these parents said they checked their kid’s website or app usage in 2021 – and that they had not done this in 2020.

Changes in parenting approaches also extended to the times of day children could use screens. For example, about half of parents of a 5- to 11-year-old child in 2020 (48%) said in 2021 that they would allow their child to use mobile devices just before bedtime. Some had loosened their stance from a year prior: 16% reported being OK with this in 2021 after saying the opposite in 2020. On the other hand, 8% tightened their restrictions – they were no longer OK with their child using mobile devices just before bed. Some 43% of parents consistently were not OK with it, while 32% consistently were.

The unique approach of this study – surveying parents about a specific child and looking at how individual parents’ responses changed over time – provides a window into children’s pandemic experiences with technology. Still, parents may not always know what devices their children use or exactly how much time they spend on them. And beyond these findings, it is important to note that screen time can take many forms and that there are healthy debates about whether and how screen time affects children.

Note: Here are the questions, responses and methodology used for this analysis.

• Children & Tech
• Coronavirus (COVID-19)
• COVID-19 & Technology
• Social Media

Colleen McClain is a senior researcher focusing on internet and technology research at Pew Research Center .

A quarter of U.S. teachers say AI tools do more harm than good in K-12 education

59% of u.s. parents with lower incomes say their child may face digital obstacles in schoolwork, parenting children in the age of screens, a week in the life of popular youtube channels, the skills americans say kids need to succeed in life, most popular.

901 E St. NW, Suite 300 Washington, DC 20004 USA (+1) 202-419-4300 | Main (+1) 202-857-8562 | Fax (+1) 202-419-4372 |  Media Inquiries

Research Topics

• Email Newsletters

ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER  Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan, nonadvocacy fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It does not take policy positions. The Center conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, computational social science research and other data-driven research. Pew Research Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts , its primary funder.

© 2024 Pew Research Center

• Fact sheets
• Facts in pictures
• Publications
• Questions and answers
• Tools and toolkits
• Endometriosis
• Excessive heat
• Mental disorders
• Polycystic ovary syndrome
• All countries
• Eastern Mediterranean
• South-East Asia
• Western Pacific
• Data by country
• Country presence 
• Country strengthening 
• Country cooperation strategies 
• News releases
• Feature stories
• Press conferences
• Commentaries
• Photo library
• Afghanistan
• Cholera 
• Coronavirus disease (COVID-19)
• Greater Horn of Africa
• Israel and occupied Palestinian territory
• Disease Outbreak News
• Situation reports
• Weekly Epidemiological Record
• Surveillance
• Health emergency appeal
• International Health Regulations
• Independent Oversight and Advisory Committee
• Classifications
• Data collections
• Global Health Observatory
• Global Health Estimates
• Mortality Database
• Sustainable Development Goals
• Health Inequality Monitor
• Global Progress
• World Health Statistics
• Partnerships
• Committees and advisory groups
• Collaborating centres
• Technical teams
• Organizational structure
• Initiatives
• General Programme of Work
• WHO Academy
• Investment in WHO
• WHO Foundation
• External audit
• Financial statements
• Internal audit and investigations 
• Programme Budget
• Results reports
• Governing bodies
• World Health Assembly
• Executive Board
• Member States Portal
• Feature stories /

Social media & COVID-19: A global study of digital crisis interaction among Gen Z and Millennials

Who, wunderman thompson, the university of melbourne and pollfish share the outcomes of a global study investigating how gen z and millennials get information on the covid pandemic.

The full report available now

The unfolding of the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated how the spread of misinformation, amplified on social media and other digital platforms, is proving to be as much a threat to global public health as the virus itself. Technology advancements and social media create opportunities to keep people safe, informed and connected. However, the same tools also enable and amplify the current infodemic that continues to undermine the global response and jeopardizes measures to control the pandemic.

Although young people are less at risk of severe disease from COVID-19, they are a key group in the context of this pandemic and share in the collective responsibility to help us stop transmission. They are also the most active online, interacting with an average number of 5 digital platforms (such as, Twitter, TikTok, WeChat and Instagram) daily.

To better understand how young adults are engaging with technology during this global communication crisis, an international study was conducted, covering approximately 23,500 respondents, aged 18-40 years, in 24 countries across five continents. This project was a collaboration between the World Health Organization (WHO), Wunderman Thompson, the University of Melbourne and Pollfish. With data collected from late October 2020 to early January 2021, the outcomes provide key insights on where Gen Z and Millennials seek COVID-19 information, who they trust as credible sources, their awareness and actions around false news, and what their concerns are. Some key insights uncovered include:

Science content is seen as shareworthy

When asked what COVID-19 information (if any) they would likely post on social media, 43.9% of respondents, both male and female, reported they would likely share “scientific” content on their social media. This finding appears to buck the general trend on social media where funny, entertaining and emotional content spread fastest.

Awareness of false news is high but so is apathy

More than half (59.1%) of Gen Z and Millennials surveyed are “very aware” of “fake news” surrounding COVID-19 and can often spot it. However, the challenge is in recruiting them to actively counter it, rather than letting it slide, with many (35.1%) just ignoring.

Gen Z and Millennials have multiple worries beyond getting sick

While it is often suggested that young adults are ‘too relaxed' and do not care about the crisis, this notion is not reflected in the data, with over 90% of respondents were very concerned or somewhat concerned about the risk of infection. Beyond getting sick themselves, the top concerns of respondents (55.5%) was the risk of friends and family members contracting COVID-19, closely followed by the economy crashing (53.8%).

WHO wants young people to be informed about COVID-19 information, navigate their digital world safely, and make choices to not only protect their health but also the health of their families and communities. These insights can help health organizations, governments, media, businesses, educational institutions and others sharpen their health communication strategies. Ensuring policy and recommendations are relevant to young people in a climate of misinformation, skepticism and fear. 

WHO hosted a webinar on the 31st March with guests from Wunderman Thompson, University of Melbourne and Pollfish to discuss methodology, key insights and implications. To watch the video,  click here .

Sarah Hess Technical Officer, Health Emergencies Programme World Health Organization [email protected]

Ellie Brocklehurst Head of Marketing & PR, APAC Wunderman Thompson [email protected]

Thomas Brauch Chief Data Officer, APAC Wunderman Thompson [email protected]

Professor Ingrid Volkmer Digital Communication and Globalization Faculty of Arts University of Melbourne [email protected]

EPI-WIN: WHO Information Network for Epidemics

Epi-win webinars, youth engagement, key insights document, watch the video recording.

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Int J Environ Res Public Health

Social Media Use in E-Learning amid COVID 19 Pandemic: Indian Students’ Perspective

Abu elnasr e. sobaih.

1 Management Department, College of Business Administration, King Faisal University, Al-Ahsaa 31982, Saudi Arabia

2 Faculty of Tourism and Hotel Management, Helwan University, Cairo 12612, Egypt

Ishfaq Ahmad Palla

3 Library and Information Science Department, School of Media and Communication, Pondicherry University, Pondicherry 605014, India; moc.liamg@36allapqafhsi (I.A.P.); moc.liamg@eeuqabami (A.B.)

Abdul Baquee

Associated data.

Data is available upon request from researchers who meet the eligibility criteria. Kindly contact the first author privately through the e-mail.

As a result of the COVID-19 epidemic, most educational institutions shifted to online education. Students and faculty members in many public institutions, particularly those in developing countries, are hampered by the absence of formal online learning management systems. Responding to COVID-19, many institutions in developing countries adopted social media sites to maintain e-learning and sustain education process. The distinction between online and real-world communities is becoming increasingly narrow, especially among the younger generations who have grown up with social media at their fingertips. This research explores perspectives of higher education students in India regarding the use of social media for e-learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic. For this purpose, an online questionnaire was directed to a sample of higher education students in India via a personal network. The results showed that students were more satisfied with their use of social media because of their perceptions of its ease of use and usefulness. The majority of the students are active on social media for 1–2 h daily ( p < 0.01). YouTube was the platform of choice among all the respondents (n = 154; 36%). The results confirmed that students feel that social media websites have a significant positive impact on their overall academic performance ( p < 0.01). Novel methods of teaching and learning are constantly being sought out by educators. The present moment is an opportunity to examine and analyze the theoretical benefits of social media technologies and consider their relative advantages for education through the use of technology’s ability to enhance student learning.

1. Introduction

The recent COVID-19 outbreak is posing a significant challenge to educational institutions. The COVID-19 outbreak has thrown the global economy into disarray. Higher education institutions have switched from face-to-face teaching to online teaching. As a result of the pandemic, the higher education system has moved online in most countries, reflecting a need for more training for educators in digital technology, especially in countries and institutions that are adopting e-learning for the first time. Xie et al. [ 1 ] points out that this unexpected epidemic forced institutions globally to shift from traditional and conventional classrooms to online classrooms. There is also an argument that this adoption of online learning will continue to persist partially post-pandemic with conventional learning [ 1 ]. Nonetheless, many public institutions, particularly those in developing countries, such as India, lack formal online learning management systems. Like governments in many countries, the government of India has mandated that higher education students be taught online or via virtual classrooms rather than face-to-face. Those accustomed to teaching in real-time classrooms will need to learn how to make use of asynchronous learning. Asynchronous learning allows educators to prepare lesson plans with greater freedom, while also allowing students to review these lessons several times at their convenience [ 2 ]. This type of learning is most effective when delivered digitally through a proper leaning management system. For students, educators do not necessarily need to deliver material at a specific time; they can access it online and engage with it at their own convenience. Educators can monitor student participation and set up online appointments for students who have specific questions or needs. Asynchronous digital classrooms allow educators and students to have more time to think and collaborate [ 3 ]. This is thanks to technological developments in portable devices, with multimedia capabilities that facilitate e-learning for students. This generation of college and university students relies heavily on social media to stay in touch with friends, parents and educators [ 4 , 5 ]. It is not uncommon for students to use their smartphones, tablet computers, laptops and many other electronic devices every single day.

A review of research on the use of social media for e-learning, particularly amid the COVID-19 epidemic (see, for example, [ 6 , 7 , 8 ]), showed a limited understanding on how digital technologies, such as virtual or online learning situations and social media, can help students achieve their educational goals. In spite of the fact that social media can be used as an educational tool, little is known about “how it affects students’ motivation in e-classroom as well as their academic performance”. The present study sought to answer the above research questions. More specifically, this research study aims to assess students’ choices and motivational factors behind the use of social media; to examine the impact on academic success/grades; to assess attitudes and beliefs towards social media educational contexts during the COVID-19 pandemic.

2. E-Learning amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

An e-learning program is a traditional curriculum supplemented by digital resources. E-learning can take place inside or outside a traditional classroom due to the widespread use of computers and the internet [ 9 ]. There is a growing interest among academics and policymakers alike in e-learning, which is reshaping the educational landscape. Online learning activities such as posting to discussion forums and looking up information can provide students with many practical online skills in a more incidental and informal manner. Learners could benefit from these skills, which include critical analysis of resources, effective online communication, and the ability to decipher and filter data [ 10 ]. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, e-learning has replaced traditional teaching methods. The COVID-19 pandemic posed a threat to humanity, as it forced the shutdown of a wide range of global activities, including educational ones in many countries, including India. Before the current pandemic, e-learning was not widely accepted as a legitimate form of education or learning in many developing countries, such as India. This is especially true for many public universities in developing countries, which have no access to formal learning management systems. In order to stop the spread of the virus, higher educational institutions have been forced to switch to e-learning using the educational platforms available. Since global restrictions on the spread of COVID-19 were implemented, higher educational institutions have begun providing the majority of their services via the internet, including lectures and various assessments, via multiple platforms, for over 60% of students around the world [ 11 ]. Students’ willingness to use e-learning systems in developed countries is less of an issue than it is in developing countries, because significant progress has already been made in the adoption and use of e-learning systems by students. It is noted that the digital divide between developed and developing countries remains a major obstacle to the adoption of e-learning systems [ 12 , 13 ]. Due to the COVID-19 lockdown, many universities have had to implement online teaching and learning. However, most universities and colleges have found the transition from classroom to online learning difficult, despite some notable successes. The transition was more difficult in many developing countries, especially with the absence of formal learning management systems and limited digital resources [ 7 , 8 ].

3. The Use of Social Media for E-Learning

Social media platforms are among the simplest and most effective means of disseminating information [ 14 ]. Over the past decade, social media has become the primary method of mass digital communication across different organizations. The ability to connect with individuals who share similar values, interests, or aspirations is becoming increasingly commonplace because of the internet’s ability to facilitate networking. Since students are responsible for their own education in online environments, self-regulation of learning is important for dealing with e-learning [ 15 ]. Nevertheless, in the last few years, the world has seen a rise in social media websites, which are “becoming increasingly pervasive in higher education” [ 16 ] and have established a new phenomenon on the internet. Students’ personal lives have grown increasingly intertwined with their academic pursuits because of remarkable technical breakthroughs and the rapid expansion of social media websites [ 17 ]. With the advent of new educational technologies, such as social media, educators can better engage students both inside and outside of the classroom, ultimately affecting their academic performance [ 18 ]. However, social media can be a boon for one reason and bane for another, and the educational benefits of incorporating social media into learning situations are debatable. A number of research works [ 19 , 20 , 21 ] in the field have highlighted that the use of social media websites can have a beneficial or negative impact on students’ academic performance. Self-motivation is fostered by the informal and autonomous nature of social media [ 19 ]. In light of the rapid proliferation of social media platforms in educational systems, scholars and educators have been compelled to examine how these platforms have impacted their education. Many university students and faculty members use social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to share ideas and resources for classroom instruction [ 20 ]. The popularity and frequency with which students use social media shows that, when used effectively, these networks may encourage out-of-class participation, which may ultimately boost academic success [ 20 ]. In light of these findings, it appears that students’ sense of community in the classroom is intertwined with other aspects of the classroom. Empirical evidence in the field of online education also supports this line of thinking [ 21 ].

The negative facets of social media websites have also been elaborately discussed. Using social media in educational settings has come under fire from researchers for its potential impacts on academic performance [ 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 ]. Roux and Parry [ 28 ] emphasized that time spent on social media can be troublesome and has a detrimental impact on academic achievement, because students spend very little time socializing face to face or in person with other people as they spend more time on social media, and this reduces their communication abilities. Some studies [ 29 , 30 ] concentrated on the impact of social media on Pakistani students’ education and on their lifestyles. The study indicated that teenagers’ and children’s usage of social media could damage their lives and have a detrimental impact on their education [ 30 ]. Students’ college grades suffered as a result of their excessive use of Facebook. Students’ use of Facebook while carrying out schoolwork was found to have a negative impact on their grade average. Researchers found that extracurricular social media use by students, particularly weaker ones, was detrimental to academic performance [ 25 , 31 ]. It is difficult for many educators to implement social media in education because of privacy concerns [ 4 ]. Using social media as a teaching tool is more difficult for educators because they must uphold a duty to protect students’ privacy [ 32 , 33 ]. Mental health is harmed among pupils who are addicted to social media [ 34 ]; they are becoming increasingly depressed and engaging in self-harming behavior because of excessive use of both their smartphones and social media [ 35 ].

4.1. Population and Sample

The research population of this study included students in public higher education institutions in India. According to Krejcie and Morgan [ 36 ], the sample size for a population upwards of 1 billion should be 384 or more. Our targeted sample gave a total of 500 responses. This number of questionnaires is inconsistent with previous studies on social media [ 7 , 8 ]. Students were accessed through personal networks, e.g., through the teachers of the students. A total of 431 questionnaires were valid for analysis, with a response rate of 86%. We conducted a nationwide survey and distributed questionnaires to students in different institutions across the country in order to achieve our study objectives. Participants consisted of undergraduate and postgraduate students from various Indian public universities.

4.2. Data Collection

The best practices for online surveys, suggested by Evans and Mathur [ 37 ], were adopted for ensuring proper data collection. The questionnaire forms were sent via email, WhatsApp and other social media platforms to students in different higher education institutions in India. The adopted best practices included giving a brief message for students about the objectives of the study and their participation for research purposes. There were some simple instructions on how they should fill in the questionnaire form. We adopted an easy design of questionnaire, relying on option selection rather than writing. We also used pretested research items (more information in Section 4.3 ). We accessed students through our personal networks in different higher education institutions. We covered as wide a geographical area as possible to obtain a good representation of the population. The research team members followed up with the teachers and their students to answer any questions and ensure quick and appropriate responses, justifying our excellent response rate. The data of this study were collected during the first semester of the academic year 2021–2022, primarily during December 2021.

4.3. The Research Instrument

The questionnaire was divided into three main sections. Participants’ gender, education details and amount of time spent on social media were included in Section A of the questionnaire. Section B included social media platforms of choice, purpose of using social media and motivation associated with social media. Section C included social media’s impact on their overall academic achievement and their attitudes toward and beliefs about social media use in educational contexts. The full items of the questionnaire form are presented in Appendix A . Various rating scales were developed to directly measure a participant’s emotions. The Likert scale is the most commonly employed rating scale. Likert scales can be used in order to determine how people feel about an object, an idea or a phenomenon. Attitudes toward and beliefs about social media use in educational contexts were measured using a five-point Likert scale. We used previously validated survey items to measure the constructs and contextualized them to fit our research methodology. Items examined students’ attitudes and motivations towards the use of social media for learning purposes and students’ academic performance [ 38 , 39 ].

4.4. Data Analysis

The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used for analyzing the collected data. Numbers and percentages were used for descriptive results, especially for the profiles of the respondents. A p -value (<0.01) was deemed significant for the chi-square test, which was employed to look for a link between variables.

5. Key Findings

Out of the total respondents (n = 431), 313 were male (73%) and the remaining 118 respondents were female (27%). The majority of respondents were postgraduate (65%) compared with 35% undergraduate students. Respondents in different disciplines or sciences are presented in this study ( Table 1 ). As far as time spent on social media on a daily basis is concerned, it was found that 50% (n = 215) of respondents spent 1–2 h on social media daily, whereas 30% (n = 130) respondents spent 3–4 h on social media in a day. Additionally, only 10% of the respondents spent less than 1 h daily on social media and another 10% spent more than 5 h on social media daily ( Table 1 ).

The profile of respondents and time spent on social media daily.

Table 2 presents the social media platforms of choice. It is revealed that the largest share of the male respondents (n = 107; 34%) chose YouTube as their preferred social media platform, followed by Facebook (n = 89; 28%), Twitter (n = 51; 16%) and ResearchGate (n = 34; 10%). Similarly, among the female respondents, YouTube has the highest percentage of users. However, more female respondents preferred ResearchGate over Twitter (see Table 2 ).

Social media platforms of choice.

Table 3 highlights the factors which motivated the respondents to use social media sites. Nearly half of the total male respondents (n = 146; 47%) used social media for their personal purposes, i.e., communication with their friends and families, but of the female respondents, a larger number of students (n = 44; 37%) used social media for entertainment. There were no major differences between male and female usage of social media for information-seeking purposes: 63 male respondents (20%) compared to 23 female students (19.5%) . The other purpose for using social media among both male and female respondents was altruism (see Table 3 ).

Motivations for using social media.

Table 4 shows an interesting finding that 77% male students (n = 240) answered that social media helped them to improve their marks or grade during the COVID-19 pandemic, and 60% female students gave this answer. This reflects the value of social media usage for educational purposes.

Impact on students’ grades.

Table 5 represents the impact of social media on overall academic performance. Here, our study found that 63% male respondents (n = 197) agreed that social media helped them in improving their overall academic performance, and 25% (n = 79) male students said that social media has a moderate impact on overall academic performance. In terms of female students, less than 50% students (n = 53) went with the option that social media has a highly positive impact on their overall academic performance. Of the female students, 33% (n = 39) said social media has a highly negative impact on their overall academic performance, while 11% students from the same category claimed a negative impact of social media on their overall academic performance.

Impact on overall academic performance.

Overall, the use of social media sites for education shows positive attitudes and beliefs among the respondents. The majority of them (above 80%) agreed or strongly agreed that they enjoy using social media as it provides better learning opportunities, improves students’ outcomes and makes learning interactive. Meanwhile, less than 15% responded that the use of social media causes distraction from their online study during the pandemic ( Table 6 ).

Attitudes toward and beliefs about social media use in education.

6. Discussion

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are becoming increasingly important in the teaching and learning process due to their rapid spread throughout society and their contribution to the education process [ 40 ]. As the need for educational resources grows, new and exciting ways to address those needs have emerged, thanks in part to the advancements made possible by modern technology. Educators and institutions are constantly experimenting with social media tools in the hope of involving and engaging students, and enhancing the learning community among their students. Social media has the potential to transform the traditional lecture classroom, opening new avenues of communication and learning that lecture classes alone are unable to provide [ 41 ]. Students’ learning can be aided by fostering an online learning community [ 42 , 43 ]. Higher education institutions are always looking for ways to increase student learning through the use of ICT tools [ 42 , 44 ]. As discussed earlier in the literature review, in higher education, the usage of social media can benefit students in a variety of ways, including deeper comprehension and learning, improved recall, increased involvement and engagement, more structure and attention, and improved teamwork and organization [ 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 ]. It is widely accepted that the use of Web 2.0 resources, such as YouTube, Facebook and ResearchGate, etc., enhances teaching and learning processes and is “considered as a necessity for the development of lifelong learners” [ 45 , 46 , 47 ]. This notion is supplemented by the increase in the number of students who use various social media platforms to communicate for scholarly purposes.

Our results suggest that use of social media has led to improvements in the grades of both male and female respondents (males: n = 240, 77%; females: n = 71, 60%). Participants were also asked about the impact of using social media. Male (n = 197; 63%) and female (n = 53; 45%) respondents highlighted that the use of social media had a highly positive impact on their overall performance ( p < 0.01). These findings are in line with some studies in the literature, e.g., Ref. [ 6 ], showing that the use of social media for e-learning supports grades and academic performance, especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The results are inconsistent with other studies, e.g., Ref. [ 19 ], which claim that social media usage does not support students’ grades.

In terms of the time spent on different social media platforms, half of respondents (n = 215; 50%) used social media for 1–2 h daily. We found that students rely heavily on YouTube (n = 154; 36%). It could be because watching educational content on YouTube makes learning more enjoyable and interactive and boosts the motivation of students to learn. Various studies have found a positive effect of YouTube on students [ 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 ]. Aside from the obvious convenience of being able to access course materials via social media and mobile devices, there are some other advantages to this method of learning. Social media and mobile devices are widely regarded by students as inexpensive and convenient sources of relevant information [ 52 ]. Other social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, are linked to higher levels of student involvement and information sharing [ 53 ]. In addition to supporting student education, Web 2.0 tools can also help individuals overcome communication and writing difficulties. Social media can be used beyond education.

Our results highlighted that the majority of the students use social media sites for personal use (n = 184; 43%), followed by entertainment (n = 134; 31%). Web 2.0 tools can be useful, but excessive use can lead to a lack of focus on learning and a decrease in academic performance, as highlighted by [ 13 , 54 , 55 ]. Many educational institutions are discovering the benefits of social media’s rapid rise in India, especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Social media can have a positive impact on students’ academic performances, and it is important for both educators and higher education policymakers to recognize this. In order to ensure a long-term improvement in academic performance, all stakeholders should recognize the value of social media as innovative and effective learning tools and as new methods of teaching and learning in virtual environments, which are constantly being sought out by educators. The value of these social media websites becomes increasingly important with the absence of formal learning management systems in many developing countries. They can be adopted as an educational tool and as a substitute to learning management systems to supplement conventional learning in the classroom.

7. Conclusions

COVID-19 raised the value of online learning for higher education institutions. Online learning in higher education is likely to undergo further changes post COVID-19, with the rapid acceleration of digital technology in learning and teaching. This study is one of many current attempts examining the value of online learning amid COVID-19 in developing countries, with a particular focus on the use of social media for e-learning in India. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become clear that virtual learning is essential for the present and the future. A post-pandemic educational paradigm shift will require more than just infrastructure improvements. It is possible that this paradigm represents a shift away from traditional teaching methods such as lectures and group activities toward more student-centered methods, such as discussions and hands-on activities. The present is an opportune moment to examine and analyze the theoretical benefits of social media and consider their relative advantages for education through technology’s ability to improve student learning. Using social media is seen as critical for modern competency by both students and educators alike. The use of social media in educational contexts can promote learning, increase participation and engagement, disseminate content well and improve pedagogy. Additionally, social media websites could be a way for students to build social networks with other students of the same level to support each other globally. It could partially be adopted within the conventional classroom to enhance learning outcomes.

8. Limitation of the Study and Further Research

This study was concerned with Indian students’ perspectives of social media usage for e-learning amid COVID-19, their motivations for social media usage, and the impact of social media usage on their grades. The study was limited to a small sample of higher education students (most of them were postgraduate). The study used an online survey for data collection. Further research could be undertaken with a wider research sample and within different countries. Other tools of data collection could be adopted, such as focus groups with students to gain a deeper perspective about their perceptions of social media usage in future education, post COVID-19.

Dear Student,

We are conducting a study on the use of social media during COVID 19 for online learning purposes. We look for your valuable response based on the questions given below. This questionnaire is framed to collect data from the Post-Graduate and Undergraduate Students from different Indian colleges and universities.

Your response will be kept confidential and used only for this study purpose. Therefore, our kind requests you to please spare few minutes to fill up the questionnaire. Your cooperation in this regard will be very appreciable.

Best regards

The researchers

Note: please tick the most appropriate answer form your perspective.

                      ***THANK YOU*** .

Funding Statement

This work was supported by the Deanship of Scientific Research, Vice Presidency for Graduate Studies and Scientific Research, King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia [Project No. GRANT423].

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, I.A.P., A.B. and A.E.E.S.; methodology, I.A.P., A.B. and A.E.E.S.; software, I.A.P. and A.B.; validation, I.A.P., A.B. and A.E.E.S.; formal analysis, I.A.P. and A.B.; investigation, I.A.P. and A.B.; resources, I.A.P., A.B. and A.E.E.S.; data curation, I.A.P. and A.B.; writing—original draft preparation I.A.P., A.B. and A.E.E.S.; writing—review and editing, I.A.P., A.B. and A.E.E.S.; visualization, I.A.P. and A.B.; supervision, A.E.E.S.; project administration, I.A.P., A.B. and A.E.E.S.; funding acquisition, A.E.E.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the deanship of scientific research ethical committee, King Faisal University (project number: GRANT423, date of approval: 10 December 2021).

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

Conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Advertisement

A study on social media and higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic

• Published: 20 March 2023
• Volume 23 , pages 1249–1271, ( 2024 )

Cite this article

• Sarthak Sengupta   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8179-2457 1 &
• Anurika Vaish 1  

8004 Accesses

8 Citations

Explore all metrics

Nowadays social media usage has increased drastically among the stakeholders of higher educational institutions. The COVID-19 pandemic has suddenly increased the surge of social media users due to the forced implementation of online pedagogy and travel restrictions. The research study presented in this paper attempted to analyze social media usage in higher education. The data were collected from primary and secondary sources with the help of leading research databases, survey questionnaires, the Delphi method, and brainstorming sessions. Statistical tools and analytic techniques incorporated in the study included bibliometric analysis, word cloud, co-occurrence network, thematic map, thematic evolution, co-word analysis, country-wise analysis along with collaboration network, statistical survey, mind mapping, and analytic hierarchy process. The study justified the aspects of social media usage in the higher educational environment. It was found that the research fraternity around the globe focused more on understanding the aspects of social media and higher education during the trying times of the Coronavirus crisis. The maximum impact of social media usage on higher education was found to be from teaching–learning and discussions, and public relations and networking. It was also found that social networking platforms like WhatsApp, YouTube, Facebook (Meta), LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter were very common among the stakeholders of higher education. This study is of huge importance because it can help in paving the way to strategize remedial measures for increasing positivity and minimizing the negativity of social media usage in institutions of higher education across the world.

Similar content being viewed by others

The Opportunities and Challenges of Social Media in Higher Education: A Literature Review

Social Media in Support of Higher Education Teaching and Learning: A Systematic Literature Review

The Benefits and Challenges of Social Media in Higher Education

Explore related subjects.

• Artificial Intelligence

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

1 Introduction

Nowadays in the Internet era, various social media platforms are playing an important part in the swift information passage and planning among all sections of society. Social media presence has been witnessed in higher education with the help of educational technology. Social media usage has increased among all stakeholders of academic fraternities during the COVID-19 pandemic, but some universities faced digital accessibility issues with regard to online training, accessing documents, emergencies, procurement, awareness, captioning, etc. [ 1 ]. The importance of social media is gradually increasing, but social media platforms are also found to be performing an essential role in instilling such sentiments, mood shifts, etc. The problem is becoming serious because of the increase in the misuse of social media users rather than its positive use which is creating an abnormal atmosphere in almost all walks of life. A study discussed literature regarding Web site usability among social media and educational areas. It also reviewed relevant studies which pondered upon analyzing the usability of social networking platforms with the help of various automated tools for evaluation purposes. It was found that social media usability and its Web sites regarding higher education institutions are essential themes to explore [ 2 ]. A subsequent review of the literature provided in the next section also justified the need to resolve the research gaps and extracted problems by attaining the formulated objectives in this research study. Therefore, it has been observed that there is a need to understand social media usage in higher education.

The current research study moved forward by collecting a significant amount of data from primary and secondary sources during various stages of the Coronavirus crisis. The data collection process and extraction from various research databases, articles, respondents, subject matter experts, social networking platforms, etc. have been explained in the “Methodology” section of the study. The data collected from various authentic sources and stakeholders of higher educational institutions were found to be reliable. This novel study has been conducted ethically and the work is completely original. The research has been segregated into various sections which cover the introductory part, the review of relevant literature, the methodology of the study, the analysis and findings, the future scope, and the limitations of the research study. This research can pave the way for the formulation of remedial strategies that can increase positivity and minimize the negativity of social media usage in the educational environment. Thus, this study attempts to understand social media, its usage, and its impact on higher education. The preliminary objective was to find the main social media usages among stakeholders of higher education institutions. However, while exploring research studies across the world it was observed that it is essential to dig deeper insights into this domain with a special focus on India. Secondary data were collected to analyze its impact on the research fraternity across the world. The study also attempted to find the ranking among the social media usages. The research study’s applicability is widespread and dynamic. The implications presented in the forthcoming sections can help in understanding various aspects of social media in higher education. This study would pave the way for a better understanding of the social media usage responsible for creating an impact on higher education. It will also provide a platform to design remedial measures and dynamic strategies to minimize the negative impact on neutrality and maximize the positive impact of social media on higher educational institutions. Relevant reviews of the literature have been referred to, in the next section, to understand the niche perspectives of social media in higher education globally. The following sections of this research study present the literature review, methodology, analysis, findings, limitations, future scope of research, conclusion, and recommendations.

2 Literature review

Relevant research studies extracted from the review of literature have illustrated the use of social media in higher education along with supporting pieces of evidence from across the world. The excerpts provided in the subsections below were collected from motivational publications in leading scholarly research databases like Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, Springer Nature, Google Scholar, etc.

2.1 What is social media?

A study defined social media as a tool that provides online interactive platforms along with the newest application which is Web-enabled applications. Through these, the users are engaged in content creation with the help of social media to communicate and interact with other users and the public in general [ 3 ]. Social media is used in the educational process, especially for connecting with students, teachers, and colleagues, to access a news feed on their walls [ 4 ]. Social media or social networking platforms is the medium that enables the interactive Web-based Internet by fetching users to participate, share, comment, and create content to communicate with others and ensure public presence on social media. The educational content shared on social media can be any form of text, audio or video, etc. Learning is a process that is based on the principles of innovation, play, and shared study rather than a personalized mode of instruction [ 5 ]. This idea can be implemented in a classroom arrangement to enhance the value of the learning process. From the word “social media,” people generally understand that it means all the famous social networking sites like WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, but it is not limited to these. According to a research study [ 6 ], social media platforms include a wide variety of arrangements like social networking sites, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, etc., which empower the users to share or communicate information through a variety of content formats like audio/videos, pictures, graphs, text, PDF, and audios through the cyberspace. A study justified that social media had been invoked largely as digital and network-based applications [ 7 ]. It eased content exchange and communication among all sorts of users or organizations. Moreover, social media is a term that is applied to new media forms which ensure collaborative involvement. Media development is categorized into two different ages, namely the broadcast age and the interactive age. From the broadcast age, the media meant the centralized media where only one entity like radio, a newspaper company, television, production of movies, studios, etc. dispersed messages to people. Moreover, feedback from the media outlets was mostly indirect, impersonal, or delayed. Social networking Web sites are Web-based services that let a person create his/her profile within a limited system. It also shows a list of people with whom they are sharing a common connection and a list of connections formed by other users in that bounded system. Moreover, it assists users in viewing and traversing their connection list. The type, nature, or nomenclature of such connections may vary from various platform to site [ 8 ].

2.2 Social networking platforms

Facebook (renamed “Meta”) is a famous social media platform. Mark Zuckerberg (the founder of Facebook) defines it as a platform or a social app where people connect and communicate more efficiently with their family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, relatives, etc. Nowadays, Facebook is being used to connect educators with students so that they can communicate and send schedules, news, and education-related stuff. The idea of using social media as a tool for learning is now even carried forward, also to the business world. Social media is being popularly used in our society which reflects human expression and recognition. A study found that interacting socially for educational purposes has generated a surge in the availability of modern techniques in social media usage [ 9 ]. With the help of these techniques of social networking, there is good scope for learning among the students because it offers several communication channels among their peer groups which can help in gaining information and knowledge enhancement. Social media has an enormous role in the process of educational development. Educators are using Facebook for learning and imparting knowledge, and without disturbing the workflow going on in the classroom or campus, the students and teachers can ask questions and respond to the lesson, post photographs, and related educational material with hyperlinks. In that way, everyone remains on the same page with only a few disruptions [ 10 ]. A research study analyzed the usage of Facebook in Spanish universities and it was found that public universities used it for professional communication [ 11 ]. Facebook is an extraordinary learning tool, and teachers can easily use it for class projects, improving communication, and engaging the students in such a way that might not be possible in a face-to-face classroom arrangement. Teachers also use Twitter professionally [ 12 ] to ensure that the students are well engaged in the learning and knowledge-imparting process in a classroom is ensured by the way of strengthening the modes of communication between the students and student and educator so that the information keeps flowing through the class. Nowadays, students spend their time working on new technologies, which helps them to become familiar with electronic devices, computers, laptops, and other gadgets. In the education and business field, the focus has increased on technological advancement. This helps the students to build and work on their skills, which will benefit them throughout their lives [ 13 ]. For a university, it is cheaper using Facebook as a means of learning and knowledge delivery compared to Moodle. The teachers and professors appreciated the uniqueness and quality of the engagement with the students on Facebook. They even appreciated the visual resources that paved the way for a different type of learning [ 14 ]. A research study provided knowledgeable insights to develop the digital competency skills of teachers for educational purposes [ 15 ]. Many students rely on social media and the Web for providing answers. This reflects that the focus on learning and retaining information has been reduced. Also, for the students who support multitasking with social media, i.e., surfing social networking platforms while studying, a reduction in academic performance has been observed because of such distractions. The ability of the students to concentrate on their academic duties is thus reduced because they access YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc., which acts as a distraction and hinders their academic performance [ 13 ]. The students who spend more time on social networking sites, remain online and spend less time socializing with people face-to-face can communicate less effectively in person. In the student feedback, there is a need for more structuring, especially in the syllabus with clarity in learning objectives, guidelines for assignments, weekly discussion topics, projects, etc. [ 14 ] The teachers find it difficult to load students’ posts, blogs, and Web pages [ 16 ]. The advantage of social media platforms like Facebook is to give a familiar atmosphere to the students and teachers. The design of Facebook promotes social interchange between the users, increasing the association between the students working on the activities. Additionally, the teachers also have this opportunity to educate the students regarding how to use social networking platforms like Facebook and other social media platforms responsibly so that it benefits them [ 17 ].

2.3 Usage and applications of social media in higher education

Social media has brought a revolution recently in extending its subsequent applications and rapid generalization. This revolution is comparable to the rise in e-mail-based communication because it also has the power to alteration in social relations among users in the network. Therefore, social media has become a resourceful mode of interaction within different spaces. Higher educational institutions around the world are facing challenges to widening access to instructional content [ 18 ]. In the present scenario, social networking services allow people with common interests to get in touch through networks. Also, on social media platforms chat groups can be made along with messaging or a private chat feature is also available. Platforms like Facebook came into existence to support various congregations of students on college campuses, while some professional platforms like LinkedIn establish professional contacts, job types, recruitments, and trade through networking [ 19 ]. A research study provided a systematic review of research done on social media in higher education along with discussions on professional development. Nowadays it has been witnessed that social media-based online communities of practices and professional learning networks are emerging as important avenues for faculty engagement [ 20 ].

It has been observed that people with different levels of education use different types of social media to perform their work [ 21 ]. Social media is also used professionally as a communication platform. It is used to build connections between professional individuals through networks for exchanging information [ 3 ]. Initially, people used social media mostly for routine activities and entertainment purposes, but gradually social media started gaining importance among individuals [ 22 ]. With the help of different applications, uses, and tools of social media, people and organizations directly communicate and interact with each other [ 23 , 24 ]. Social media has witnessed a huge presence for learning and teaching purposes. Students are using social media for interactive communication in form of groups or private discussions [ 25 ]. A research study analyzed some aspects which affected the intent of social media usage for learning purposes. The factors explored along with confirmation were self, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), communication, efforts, performance, and collectivism [ 26 ].

Furthermore, social networking platforms have become a popular media for the dissemination of information and instrumental facilitators for performing social interactions. Social media users in higher education institutions are increasing day by day. Numerous research studies have attempted to elaborate and ponder upon the assistance of the educational process with the help of new technologies like social networking platforms, cloud computing, the Internet, and other online communities [ 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 ]. Social media characteristics and future avenues for development among students in the universities of Pakistan have also been discussed in a relevant research study [ 31 ]. For example, modern technologies have been advocated to support learning by students [ 32 ], teaching assistance [ 33 ], helping in collaboration among researchers from various parts of the world [ 34 , 35 ], etc. Social media is playing a major role in recruitment and in improving the institutional staff’s skills through professional training and development for overall growth [ 36 ]. A research study found that staff members of higher educational institutions used social media [ 37 ]. Factors to engage consumers of higher education, i.e., students, can be judged by customer engagement analysis [ 38 ]. Increased focus on students’ social media usage has been witnessed gradually [ 39 ]. A research study was done on initiatives for e-learning in Indian higher education institutions during the Coronavirus crisis [ 40 ] and it was found that social media-based e-learning is gaining huge popularity [ 41 ]. Social media is playing a major role in learning and teaching pedagogy [ 42 ]. It was also found that in high schools in Ghana, social media integration had a positive impact on teaching and learning [ 43 ]. Impression management is an important tool for self-promotion [ 44 ]. Social media is a popular marketing strategy for admissions to educational institutions [ 45 ]. Facebook has played a major role in the advertising and promotion of outreach events as well [ 46 ]. Social media has been an essential factor in educational assessments, online delivery, and collaborative networking [ 47 ]. Social media platforms like Twitter, ResearchGate, Academia, LinkedIn, etc. provide various benefits like proper execution of educational activities, career progression, collaborative projects, and management [ 48 , 49 ]. Twitter is a major source of social media data [ 50 ]. A systematic mapping study observed how mobile learning applications including social networking can play a vital role in educational technology [ 51 ]. Assistive technology has been instrumental in learning, teaching, and administration [ 52 ]. ICT infrastructure has played a major role in educational improvement among learners with learning disabilities [ 53 ]. The amalgamation of social media platforms with Information and Communication Technology-based infrastructure can help in higher education development around the world. Social media platforms can help in the facilitation of an interactive experience along with cooperative and participative learning [ 54 ]. Social media has played a major role in higher education along with an essential driver to continue usage along with better Internet access [ 55 ]. A research study also performed structural equation modeling and confirmatory factor analysis to analyze social media usage among Japanese students [ 56 ].

The negative impact and misuse of social media in higher education need to be addressed. The prominence of online social networking and the massive speed at which undesirable information is distributed has made a negative effect. It also has a negative impact on the users’ disposition toward appropriate spellings and the correct structure of sentences. This reduces the users’ capacity to viably compose without depending on a computer's spell check highlight. It increases the possibility of hackers performing fraudulent activities like spamming, hacking, and virus attacks. It increases the risk of user’s data and identity exploitation and theft. It drastically affects organizational behavior when negative appraisals, feedback, and comments start emerging between different levels of employees. Productivity, learning capacity, and memory retention ability are also getting hampered due to increased usage of social media. Students who do multitasking, i.e., use social media Web sites while studying, exhibit decreased academic performance. Face-to-face communication and socialization have decreased due to the increased usage of social media. The students prefer to talk with their classmates on social media rather than physically meeting them. This also results in the deterioration of communication skills. Many students are using social media for planning strikes and agitations in educational institutes. They are also using it for creating negative awareness among students. Students can post negative comments or messages regarding their teachers. The increased availability of private information in the social media profiles of various students and employees has increased the risk of the information being exploited by potential hackers and criminals. Constant surfing and scrolling of Facebook and Twitter profiles result in addiction and depression. Some people get stressed and over-depressed by seeing their enemies. The probability of getting jealous also grows due to such posts, mainly photographs or videos. Social media has been a key medium in aggravating conflicts, agitations, and political participation [ 57 ]. Social media-based discussion forums also witnessed quarrels and conflicts among students and colleagues [ 58 ].

2.4 Various forms and types of social media

Some of the common forms of social media provided by a research study [ 59 ] are as follows:

Social networking sites, e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and others are quite common nowadays. Even those who do not have any social media profiles can get access to information circulated on such platforms. A key feature of such social networking sites is the list of users that connect among themselves.

E-mail—this was found to be one of the most common forms of social media. E-mail (Electronic mail) involves users logging into an account for sending and receiving messages or emails.

Texters—similarly, a texter is a two-way communication channel that allows users to send messages quickly to another person or a group of people.

Blogs—the word blog was derived from “weblog.” A blog is a Web-based platform where people share information or ideas with a large group of readers via the Internet.

Message boards—it was found that most sports channels, television programs, or other popular entertainment channels frequently circulate information on message boards. Message boards allow users to post messages that talk about a clearly defined subject.

Connection sites—it is a type of connection site that comes under the classification of various forms in social media. Various users are found to approach such online dating sites by creating a profile.

Games and entertainment—nowadays social media platforms provide gaming facilities like online games and entertainment. They often carry a social dimension.

Apps—apps are mobile applications. These apps are not directly coming under forms of social media, but most of the time users can connect through apps through another form of social networking platform. More often apps have built-in social media facilities.

The secondary data collected from the review of literature also helped in extracting social media usage in higher educational institutions. The review of the literature helped in finding the research gaps and problems. There is a huge need to explore new avenues of social media and higher education because of the Coronavirus crisis. One of the main research questions of the study was to find the major social media usages among the stakeholders in higher educational institutions. Various problems are being faced due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Analyzing the consequences of social media usage during such trying times of the Coronavirus crisis is the need of the hour. A panoramic view of all the research studies done in this domain was also needed. Formulation of educational strategies and remedial measures to bring out the advantages and minimize the disadvantages was also a crucial challenge. The research gaps and problems of the study were addressed accordingly. The next section of the study discusses the research methodology.

3 Methodology

The research study attempted to analyze the impact of social media on higher educational institutions. The stakeholders of higher education institutions considered in the study were teachers, faculties, students, administrative officers, staff, and other employees working for the institution. External entities like guardians or parents of students, government agencies, vendors or third parties, industries, and other sponsored bodies were also taken into account. The study collected data from both primary and secondary sources around the world with a special emphasis on India while collecting primary data. Primary data were extracted with the assistance of expert surveys, brainstorming sessions, the Delphi method, and a survey questionnaire that was voluntarily filled or answered by respondents who were stakeholders of higher education institutions. The primary data needed for the study were collected through online mode to maintain social distancing norms and travel restrictions. The type of sampling implemented during the primary survey-based data collection process was judgmental sampling. This helped in extracting accurate data from the respondents because they already had prior knowledge regarding the survey. Secondary data were extracted from renowned databases research articles and other relevant sources across the world. The study was performed with the help of an extensive literature review that facilitated the extraction of various impacts of social media usage on higher education from the relevant research articles and motivational studies in the domain. Primary data were collected from April 2020 to December 2021, whereas secondary data were collected from January 2002 to August 2022. Therefore, the data collected to find social media usage were extracted from secondary sources, whereas primary data were also collected to pursue further analysis.

The research questions of this study are as follows:

What is the current status of research studies on social media and higher education?

What are the major social media usages in higher education institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic?

What is the prioritized ranking of social media usage according to the perception of the stakeholders in higher education institutions?

How to reduce the negativity of social media usage and enhance the positivity in the higher education environment?

The bibliometric analysis of social media and higher education institutions was done to investigate research studies across the world. The keywords taken into account in the study were derived after a rigorous review of the literature at the global level and formulated after continuous validation among the experts in this domain. A mind map was developed with the help of brainstorming sessions conducted among a few experts all over the world. The flowchart was designed to get a panoramic view of the various social media usages by the stakeholders of higher education. It also provided a platform for the formation of the preliminary framework for the study. The Delphi method and expert surveys were done for further validation because many factors and uses of social media in the educational environment were found from a secondary source-based review of the literature. So, to justify and extract the main social media usages the Delphi method-based expert surveys along with brainstorming-based discussion sessions were conducted among the higher educational stakeholders, professionals, and expert academicians. After this, a questionnaire-based primary survey was done using Google Forms. It was circulated to get the views of all the internal and external stakeholders of higher education institutions for having an idea regarding all the social media usage during the COVID-19 pandemic. Necessary permissions and consent were ensured while conducting the data collection process. The primary survey-based questionnaire was floated among all the stakeholders of higher education institutions in India while the Delphi method was conducted among experts across the world. The data collected from the responses helped in verifying the inputs for further analysis.

The tools and software used in the research study were RStudio, Google Forms, Diagrams.net, and AHP-OS. This study used multiple tools and techniques to achieve various objectives to cover the gaps and derive suitable findings or answers to the research questions accordingly. RStudio is an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for the R programming language useful for statistical computations and bibliometric analysis [ 63 , 66 ]. IBM-SPSS is a statistical tool useful for advanced analytics, Diagrams.net is an online tool used for drawing flowcharts or graphs and Google Forms is a software used for the administration of surveys [ 63 ]. The AHP-OS tool was instrumental in performing the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) [ 60 ]. It was done after the extraction of the respondents’ feedback based on ranking various factors of social media usage in the higher education environment. The AHP helped in performing the quantitative analysis. It was done with the help of the multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) technique which was essential for the calculation of the ranking-based priorities [ 61 ]. AHP is a relevant technique being used extensively nowadays [ 62 ]. Its implementation of AHP helped in assigning weights to various social media usage-based factors accordingly. This also facilitated the generation of a suitable method for ranking social media usage and the factors could be evaluated because of the weighted priorities. Moreover, another relevant study performed analytic hierarchy process with the assistance of the AHP-OS tool along with bibliometric analysis with the help of RStudio’s Bibliometrix package which was also found to help in providing crucial insights to move forward [ 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 ].

The primary survey-based data collected from stakeholders of higher educational institutions also helped in understanding social media usage with deeper insights. It provided a qualitative analysis of the relationship between various social media usages based on factors in the higher educational atmosphere. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) helped in justifying the prioritization of the various factors of social media usage. The results obtained from the analytic tools were subsequently validated and verified accordingly. The subject matter experts and data extracted from the review of the literature provide a substantial contribution to the formulation of the research objectives.

The research objectives of the study have been developed on the basis of the research questions and gaps found while pursuing the study. These are as follows:

Exploring the research studies being pursued around the globe on social media and higher education;

Finding various social media usages in higher educational institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic;

Ranking social media usage according to the higher education perspective;

Suggesting remedial measures and educational strategies for enhancing the positivity of social media impact on higher education.

The structure of the research plan is depicted in Fig.  1 . The figure provides a panoramic view of the research study in the form of a modular flowchart. It was generated by the help Diagrams.net tool.

Structure regarding research plan (generated by Diagrams.net tool)

The factors or aspects of social media usage which were taken into the study were as follows:

Teaching, learning, and discussions—social media can be used for teaching, learning, and discussion purposes;

Grievance and conflicts—social media can be used in sharing or resolving grievances and negotiating conflicts in educational institutions;

Outreach activities—social media can be used in circulating information, planning, and organizing academic events or other activities;

Publicity and branding—social media can be used for marketing and publicity to ensure branding. This helps in increasing the institutional reach in making it famous

Admissions—social media can be used for procuring and circulating information regarding admissions and managing them accordingly

Execution management—social media can be used to manage and execute academic activities

Public relations and networking—social media can be used for maintaining public relations and ensuring social networking among various stakeholders

E-procurement—social media can be used for purchasing or procurement of products and services

Project management—social media can be used for getting information, planning, and managing projects

Impression management—social media can be used to manage the impression and influence the perception of others

Placements and recruitment—social media can be used for procuring or circulating information regarding placements and recruitments (off or on campus). It can be instrumental in conducting recruitment and also help potential candidates with the joining processes.

4 Analysis and findings

The study performed various types of analysis to extract crucial findings required to justify the research being conducted. This section comprises various sub-parts, namely bibliometric analysis, mind mapping, statistical survey, and analytic hierarchy process (AHP).

4.1 Bibliometric analysis

The bibliometric analysis was done with the help of secondary data collected from renowned research databases across the world. All the relevant research publications and motivational studies extracted for this study were explored thoroughly. The Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science (WoS) and Elsevier’s Scopus are considered to be major databases for research articles and bibliometric analysis has been done on the extracted data by relevant studies [ 63 , 64 , 65 ]. The bibliometric analysis was performed by the software RStudio which has a package named Bibliometrix [ 66 ]. The co-occurrence network of keywords, word cloud, thematic map, thematic evolution, co-word analysis, and country-based collaboration network was done. The Internet-based services, namely Zoom, Google Meet, and Gmail, and social networking platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook (Meta), Linkedin, and Twitter ensured proper data collection and validation of the set of keywords along with the pilot testing for justification of relevant results. The rigorous review of the literature also helped in finalizing the keywords. Firstly, the keyword-based search comprised social media and higher education to extract research articles across the world. The keywords used in the study were also validated by subject matter experts and social media analysts. Hence the search process was done with “social media” as the first keyword along with “higher education” as the second keyword and the AND Boolean gate or operator was used. So, the intersection set of both keywords was taken with the help of AND Boolean gate. The criteria regarding the “all fields” search option were selected to take all fields of the research publications present in the leading databases. After this process, a total number of 1108 research publications were extracted from the WoS database and 35,115 research articles were found from the Scopus database. Further analysis was done with RStudio software on the data retrieved from the WoS core collection because it was relevant and a huge amount of data gathered from the Scopus database was not feasible for analysis due to the limitations of the RStudio software. Figure  2 provides an analysis done year-wise of the research studies published from 1 January 2002 to 19 August 2022, i.e., the date until which the research study was completed. The years are denoted by the horizontal axis while the vertical axis is divided into two parts, where the left part denotes the number of publications and the vertical axis denotes citations on the right side of the figure. The color-coding for indexing purposes is provided in Fig.  2 . It can be observed that the vertical Y-axis denoted the number of publications from the left, whereas it denotes the number of citations at the right part of the figure. The horizontal X-axis denotes the years in ascending order from 2010 to 2022. It should also be noted that on the left part of the figure, 1 unit of the Y-axis is equal to 20 publications, whereas on the right side of the figure, 1 unit of the Y-axis is equal to 500 citations. Moreover, 1 unit of the X-axis represents each year. While observing the figure, it was found that the number of research publications and citations has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic as observed in the figure. Figure  2 is created by using the WoS platform.

(Source: Web of Science)

Chart regarding research publications based on the years V/S No. of publications and citations from January 2002 to August 2022

Further analysis was done with the help of the WoS database by using the same set of keywords, i.e., social media and higher education. A total number of 1108 research articles were extracted from conference proceedings, journals, reviews, research articles, etc. and were explored thoroughly. The retrieved data were in the form of BibTex which was appropriate as an input file for the Bibliometrix package of RStudio and its Biblioshiny interface. The top 10 words based on a relevance that was being used frequently in the WoS research studies across the world were social media, higher education, Facebook, perceptions, impact, students, technology, online, model, and Twitter. Figure  3 depicts the word cloud. The number of words was set to 100 and the field chosen was keywords plus. According to the frequency of the occurrence of the keywords, the word occurrence measure was set. The shape selected was a circle with a font size of 1 and ellipticity of 0.65 for better observation of the figure. Figure  4 depicts the co-occurrence network based on the keywords extracted. The co-occurrence network was designed by selecting the type of field setting as keywords plus and the network layout was set to automatic. The normalization was set to the type named association, and the clustering algorithm was set to Louvain. The network parameters were set accordingly for generated a suitable figure. The number of nodes was set to 50 and it was done without removing any isolated nodes. The repulsion force was set to 0.1 while the minimum number of edges was 2. The graphical parameters were inputted accordingly for making the figure graphically clear and precise. The opacity was set to 0.7, whereas the number of labels was set to 50. The node shape was selected as a dot, whereas the edge size was set to 4 and the label size was set to 5 for viewing the figures in a better way. These sizes are based on a proportional scale formulated by the software with the maximum size being 20. Figures  3 and 4 provide a bird’s-eye view of the important keywords on which most of the research studies are being done in the area of social media and higher education. This helped in moving ahead with the research study.

Word cloud (generated by RStudio software)

Co-occurrence network based on keywords (generated by RStudio software)

While creating the thematic map and evolution, the field was selected as keyword plus and the number of words was kept in the range between 50 and 500 to ensure the maximum range for the best output. The number of labels for each cluster was kept at 2 and the minimum cluster frequency per thousand documents was kept at 5. The label size was set to 0.05 for viewing the thematic map in a better way. As already mentioned, the unit of size is based on a relative scale defined by the tool itself with the maximum size being 1. The thematic map is provided in Fig.  5 . The axis is formulated based on density and centrality. The thematic map has been divided into four quadrants, namely the emerging or declining themes, motor themes, basic themes, and niche themes. The horizontal and vertical axes provided in the figure as dotted lines divide the thematic map into four quadrants. The basic themes comprised higher education, Facebook, impact, and model. The social media and online were found to be in between the two quadrants, namely basic and motor themes. The relevant clusters observed in the quadrant regarding niche themes were transition, diversity, students, and media. Again, it was observed that the cluster health and college students were located in between the niche and motor themes. An interesting observation about the motor themes was that all clusters in this quadrant were sharing their space with other quadrant-based themes. The emerging or declining themes comprised performance and framework. The thematic evolution is depicted in Fig.  6 . The option regarding weight index was selected as an inclusion index weighted by word occurrences. All other were kept similar to the same inputted data for generating the thematic map. This analysis has been done based on the co-words network and clustering [ 67 ]. The thematic evolution helped in detecting conceptual sub-domains [ 68 ]. Therefore, the figures were instrumental in providing the mapping-based visualization of the relevant research fields along with the sub-themes or sub-domains. The number of cutting points was set to 1 and the cutting year was selected as 2019 to explore the shift of themes before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Figure  6 shows that from the year 2010 to 2019 the theme-based keywords comprised mobility, user acceptance, communication, students, integration, higher education, performance, model, information, social media, and culture, whereas from the year 2020 to 2022 it was observed that the theme-based keywords were higher education, social media, framework, system, impact, reviews, diversity, university students, health, culture, and fit. Here it can be observed that the words mentioned before the Coronavirus crisis are more toward acceptance of social media among students for communication and integrating performance models in higher education, but the themes mentioned in the timeline during the COVID-19 pandemic have shifted toward keywords like health, culture, fit, etc. This reflects the need to enhance wellness standards during such challenging times.

Thematic map (generated by RStudio software)

Thematic evolution (generated by RStudio software)

Based on the bibliographic data extracted, the co-words were also analyzed further by mapping the conceptual structure of the framework based on word co-occurrence. Figure  7 illustrates the results of the co-word analysis. This analysis was conducted by selecting the multidimensional scaling technique. It is basically a dimensionality reduction technique. The clustering observed in Fig.  7 helped in understanding the research documents having common concepts along with the conceptual structure for the same. The results in Fig.  7 are plotted in a 2-D map where the label size was set to 10. Here 1 unit of the horizontal X-axis and vertical Y-axis is equal to 0.1 in the map provided in Fig.  7 . The algorithms used for performing this analysis are Porter’s stemming and other natural language processing algorithms [ 63 , 66 ]. It can be observed in the figure that words like prevalence, association, university students, and school have clustered together. Some of the relevant words like health, technology model, user acceptance, information technology, self-efficacy, motivation, academic performance, networking, university, college students, etc. have teamed up together.

Co-word analysis-based map regarding conceptual structure using multidimensional scaling technique (generated by RStudio software)

Figure  8 depicts the graphical representation of the countries across the world pursuing the maximum number of research studies in the area of social media and higher education. It should be noted that in the figure provided, 1 unit of the vertical Y-axis is equal to 20 research publications, whereas 1 unit of the horizontal X-axis represents a country or region. It can be observed in the figure that the top countries working in this research area were found to be the USA , China, England, Australia, Malaysia, Spain, Poland, Canada, Taiwan, and Brazil. Here it can also be observed that a very smaller number of research studies have been done by Indian researchers. The collaboration network based on countries across the world is depicted in Fig.  9 . The label size was set to 4, whereas the edge size was set to 5. The isolated nodes were not removed to explore the countries pursuing research on their own rather than collaborating with other countries. It provided a bird’s-eye view of the countries pursuing research in the domain along with the connected network among other countries for pursuing collaborative research in the global arena. It was observed that most of the countries collaborated to perform research on social media and higher education. Figure  9 shows that many countries like South Africa, Serbia, Israel, Jordan, Denmark, Tanzania, Sri Lanka, etc. are isolated nodes because these countries are pursuing research on social media and higher education without collaborating with other countries.

(Source: WoS)

Bar chart representing the countries pursuing research on social media and higher education

Collaboration network based on countries across the world (generated by RStudio software)

Figures 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , and 9 are generated with the help of the Biblioshiny interface, RStudio, and its package named Bibliometrix, whereas Figs. 2 and 8 are generated in the WoS platform itself. After the rigorous analysis of the information extracted from the WoS platform and the manual exploration of other research databases, it was observed that there has been a steady increase in the number of research publications from the year 2020, i.e., during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, it was found that the research community across the world started analyzing social media and higher education with higher priority because of the growing need during such trying times of the Coronavirus crisis. But a notable research gap found while performing this analysis is that less research studies had been conducted in India on this domain in comparison to other developed or developing countries across the globe. Therefore, this study also helped in digging deeper insights to explore novel findings on social media in higher education institutions in India. So, the preliminary study explored relevant research studies across the world while pursuing the review of the literature and bibliometric analysis, but eventually attempted to focus on India while conducting the statistical analysis of the data collected by the primary survey-based questionnaires.

4.2 Mind mapping

A preliminary framework-based flowchart was developed with the help of brainstorming sessions and mind mapping techniques. The online tool named Diagrams.net (earlier named Draw.io) has been used because it is a widely used platform to create interactive flowcharts and diagrams. Mind mapping is a commonly used technique to visualize problems and solve educational issues [ 69 , 70 ]. It helped in checking the impact of social media on various stakeholders of higher education. The participation of the experts, academicians, students, research scholars, staff, administrative officers, faculties, teachers, and external entities was completely voluntary. The primary data needed for the study were collected with the help of Google Forms, Zoom, Google Meet, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Linkedin to maintain social distancing norms and travel restrictions. The mind mapping flowchart depicted in Fig.  10 was drawn with the help of an expert panel-based brainstorming session and the questionnaire-based primary survey. The mind map offers a panoramic view of the various social media usages by different types of stakeholders in the educational environment.

Mind map of social media usages by various stakeholders of higher educational institutions (generated by Diagrams.net tool)

It was found that various stakeholders had different needs for social media and used it extensively. The students used social media for admission, grievance and conflicts, placements and recruitment, outreach activity, teaching–learning and discussions, public relations and networking, and impression management. The teachers or faculties used social media for grievance and conflicts, project management, outreach activity, teaching–learning and discussions, public relations and networking, and impression management. The administrative officers, staff, and other employees used social media for admission, publicity and branding, e-procurement, project management, grievance and conflict management, placements and recruitment, outreach activity, public relations and networking, and execution management. External entities like students’ parents or guardians, third-party vendors, collaborative industries, government agencies, and other sponsored bodies used social media for project management, grievance and conflicts, admissions, e-procurement, and public relations and networking.

4.3 Statistical survey

Data were collected from all types of stakeholders with the help of a Google Forms-based questionnaire during the COVID-19 pandemic. The stakeholders considered in the study are students, teachers, administrative officers, staff, and other employees of higher education institutions in India. Moreover, external entities like guardians or parents of students, vendors or third parties, government agencies, industries, experts, and sponsored bodies were also considered in the study. A total number of 584 responses were collected while conducting the primary survey. The results were analyzed in IBM-SPSS software along with the help of Microsoft Excel. The data collected were found to be reliable and ethical. The Cronbach Alpha value for all constructs was within the acceptable range, i.e., more than 0.7. The respondents were informed about the survey, and data were collected according to their consent after taking the required permissions.

Some of the relevant questions asked while conducting the primary survey were as follows:

Which social media platforms do you use?

Which stakeholders' cluster do you belong to?

Kindly specify your social media usage for day-to-day educational purposes.

Which purposes are found to be most popular within higher education institutions and exhibit maximum social media impact?

Please rank social media usage on the basis of judging its impact on higher education institutions;

Does social media usage have a substantial impact on higher educational institutions?

Do you feel that the impact of positive social media usage in higher educational institutions can be increased or maximized?

Do you feel that the impact of negative social media usage in higher educational institutions can be reduced or eliminated?

From the following options (all social media usage), select the impact of social media usage in terms of positivity, negativity, and neutrality in the educational environment;

Remedial measures that can help in resolving the negative impact of social media usage and inculcate positivity?

The age group of the respondents is provided in Table 1 . Most respondents were from 18 to 25 years of age, 26 to 35 years, and 36 to 45 years of age sequentially. So, the majority of the stakeholders in higher educational institutions were aged between 18 and 45 years because it comprised mostly of students and teachers. Very few respondents were below 18 years and above 60 comprising some external entities or others. The data regarding the distribution of respondents on the basis of stakeholders in higher education are provided in Table 2 . Most of the respondents were students, research scholars, teachers, and faculties because they constitute to be the major stakeholders in higher education institutions. It was found that there were 369 male respondents, i.e., 63.2% of the responses, whereas there were 215 female respondents which comprised 36.8% of the respondents. Figure  11 shows the pie chart for showing the percentage of respondents’ distribution in using major social networking platforms in higher education institutions. It was observed that the respondents preferred using social networking platforms, namely WhatsApp, YouTube, Facebook or Meta, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and ResearchGate. The sequence of the social networking platforms mentioned in the previous sentence is in order from highest to lowest usage among the stakeholders in higher education institutions in India. The question asked in the primary survey-based questionnaire to extract responses regarding usage of social networking platforms used the checkboxes option in Google Forms so that the respondents could select more than one option and mention other social media platforms as well. Therefore, Fig.  11 shows that 96.10% of the respondents preferred using WhatsApp, 81.20% of the respondents used YouTube, 72.10% of the respondents used Facebook or Meta, 66.80% used LinkedIn, 65.40% used Instagram, 33.90% used Twitter, whereas 31% used ResearchGate also. But very few respondents also used Telegram, Snapchat, Reddit, etc.

Pie chart regarding the distribution of respondents using various social networking platforms in higher education institutions

It was found that the majority of the respondents, i.e., 72% of the stakeholders agreed that social media usage had a substantial impact on higher educational institutions. Moreover, it was observed that 74.5% of the respondents felt that the impact of positive social media usage in higher educational institutions can be increased or maximized, whereas 58.2% of the stakeholders felt that the impact of negative social media usage in higher educational institutions can be reduced or eliminated. Most of the stakeholders agreed to the fact that social media platforms are used for various purposes in higher education like teaching–learning and discussions, public relations and networking, outreach activities, grievance and conflicts, placements and recruitment, project management, impression management, admissions, publicity and branding, execution management, and e-procurement. The majority of respondents found teaching–learning and discussions, and public relations and networking to be most popular within higher education. They also agreed to the fact that these two social media usages were used for day-to-day educational purposes and exhibited maximum social media impact on higher educational institutions. The study also found that most of the stakeholders responded that all social media usage had a positive impact on higher education institutions except grievance and conflicts. It was also found that the majority of the respondents agreed that awareness drives, counseling sessions, sentiment analysis, mood recognition, social media management, continuous monitoring, and surveillance can be some of the remedial measures that can help in resolving the negative impact of social media usages and inculcate positivity in the higher education environment.

4.4 Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)

This subsection investigates the ranks and weights with the help of AHP. The analysis focused on finding the ranks of social media usage with the help of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). So, in this analytic process, the priority and ranks of various social media usages were found with the help of a tool named the AHP-OS calculator [ 60 ]. The AHP-OS is a widely used online tool to perform analytic hierarchy process efficiently [ 63 ]. The factors were extracted with the help of secondary data, whereas they were analyzed on the basis of the primary data collected. Various social networking platforms and Google Forms proved to be instrumental while collecting the relevant responses. The Delphi method and questionnaire-based survey responses were the primary sources of data. The relevant research articles explored while performing the review of the literature and leading research databases were the secondary sources of the data. The priority method of the AHP process was implemented to analyze the aspects of the criteria. The research work done in this study is limited to calculating the priority of social media usage with the help of the weighted ranking-based AHP method. A ranking framework-based question was incorporated into the survey questionnaire to extract relevant feedback on social media usage among the stakeholders in higher education institutions in India. The primary data extracted from the primary survey-based questionnaire and responses from the majority of the respondents were inputted accordingly. There were 11 social media usages, namely teaching–learning and discussions, grievances and conflicts, outreach activities, publicity and branding, admissions, placements and recruitment, execution management, public relations and networking, e-procurement, project management, and impression management, which were used as the criteria for calculating the AHP priority. The study pondered on finding the weighted ranks of the social media usages and not on computing the alternatives. So, there were a total of 55 pair-wise comparisons in which the input for the AHP priorities was provided based on the responses collected from the questionnaire. The resulting weights were based on the principal eigenvector of the decision matrix given in Table 3 . The numbers 1–11 given in the decision matrix in Table 3 and the abbreviations provided in Fig.  12 are the social media usages whose indexing of numbers and full forms of abbreviations are provided in Table 4 .

Consolidated result of AHP in form of a graph (generated by the AHP-OS tool. Refer to Table 4 for understanding the meaning of the abbreviations provided in this figure)

Table 4 presents easy understanding of the indexing of the numbers provided on the matrix in Table 3 and abbreviations in Fig.  12 . Table 5 provides the resulting weights for the criteria on the basis of the pair-wise comparisons inputted in the AHP-OS tool eventually. Table 5 also provides the ranks of various social media usage along with their priorities respectively. As already mentioned, the number of comparisons was found to be 55 because of 11 social media usages. The consistency ratio (CR) was found to be 0.018 or 1.8%. The principal eigenvalue was found to be 11.278. It was also observed that the eigenvector solution had 5 iterations with delta = 5.4e-9. So, the graph with consolidated results of the AHP process is depicted in Fig.  12 . It can be observed that the vertical Y-axis denoted the priority on a percentage scale, whereas the horizontal X-axis denoted the abbreviations regarding the various social media usages in higher education institutions. It should be noted that 1 unit of the Y-axis is equal to 3% of the priority percentage, whereas 1 unit of the X-axis represents each social media usage in short form or abbreviation. Table 4 can also be referred to for understanding the full form of abbreviations provided in the horizontal X-axis. So, Fig.  12 shows a graphical representation of Table 5 along with relevant information for better understanding.

Therefore, after performing the statistical survey and AHP, it was found that the maximum priority and ranking among social media usages in higher education was found to be from these social media usages, namely

First rank or highest priority—teaching–learning and discussions;

Second rank or second-highest priority—public relations and networking;

Third rank or third-highest priority—outreach activities;

Fourth rank or fourth-highest priority—grievance and conflicts;

Fifth rank or fifth-highest priority—placements and recruitment;

Sixth rank or sixth-highest priority—project management;

Seventh rank or seventh-highest priority—impression management;

Eighth rank or eighth-highest priority—admissions;

Ninth rank or ninth-highest priority—publicity and branding;

Tenth rank or tenth-highest priority—execution management;

Eleventh rank or lowest priority—e-procurement.

It can be observed that social media and higher education are essential areas to ponder upon. Various social media usages are being exploited by the stakeholders of higher education institutions, but with different priorities. The study was conducted during the trying times of the Coronavirus crisis. The following section discusses the limitations that were faced while conducting the research along with some directions for further research.

5 Limitations and future scope of research

The review of the literature exhibits the potential of social media usage for various learning and development purposes, but the usage of technology is still very much limited. A research study found that there are fewer in-depth studies on higher education learning and teaching have been done [ 71 ]. There is a need for a more empirical study to be done for investigating the actual “added” benefits of social networking sites as compared to the use of traditional learning management systems (LMS). It was also witnessed that many of the research studies were focused on data that were self-reported in studying the technological effect, and this is a major limitation of the current literature review. Moreover, it has been observed that most of the relevant studies in the domain were discussing the advantages or positivity, but fewer studies were found on negativity. But sometimes criticism can help in finding problems to eradicate them and improve accordingly. It is important to address and investigate the actual usage and learning outcome in more depth. About all this, the computer science instructors may know the technology in a better way compared to the faculty of other fields. The SNS adoption is lagging among faculties from other fields. Some queries may arise regarding the specific reason, topics that are hard to describe in texts, and the faculty members’ security concerns. Therefore, a thorough inquiry is needed to address these limitations and solve the relevant issues.

There are some limitations to this study. More secondary data from all research databases around the world can be extracted for further analysis. The study collected primary data through online mediums virtually from many parts of the country during the COVID-19 pandemic for ensuring travel restrictions and social distancing norms. More responses can be collected around the world after the Coronavirus crisis and travel restrictions are over. This can help in developing the study in a better way to get enhanced results. Moreover, the software RStudio and its package Bibliometrix had their constraints so the study was done accordingly. Bibliometric analysis was found to be sufficient for carrying out the study, but the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) was not used extensively because it was not mandatory to implement PRISMA while performing bibliometric analysis [ 72 ]. There is plenty of future scope for research in this area. The researchers can enforce a creative social media technological strategy to tackle and enhance the educational environment in colleges. The better the peaceful behavioral culture in educational institutes the better would be the students’ growth and their teachers’ development. If a country can improve the physical and mental ability of the stakeholders, then in the future it would result in overall growth and development of the country. Because students are the future of any society or country. Therefore, social media should be strategically channelized so that there is a maximum increase in positivity in higher education institutional culture and environment. While assessing the impact, the challenge that came out was that only a few social media applications have been kept in mind, whereas some new social networking applications could not be accounted for. This research study can help in creating the platform for the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal regarding quality education [ 73 , 74 ]. The conclusive findings and relevant recommendations of the study are provided in the following section.

6 Conclusion and recommendations

Social media has been considered as a tool for entertainment purposes, but the changing landscape has made social networking platforms useful for higher education institutions. Their priorities have now been transformed into one of the key elements, i.e., efficiency. When it comes to efficiency factors, they offer some advanced tools and techniques which help every part of society to get involved in different types of formal or personal activities. Information and communication technologies (ICT) can help higher education in various ways [ 65 ] and can be instrumental in the amalgamation of social networking platforms. ICT infrastructure-based social media usage can assist all the stakeholders of higher education institutions around the world. The present research paper discusses the various impacts of social media on higher educational institutes in India. It is very important to overcome this problem of negative social media usage. Maximizing improvement upon the positive results will help in diminishing the negative aspects of social media. Moderating and monitoring access to social media is one excellent strategy that can be implemented. The effects of negativity can be reduced by checking and decreasing the amount of time spent on social network sites. Ample time should be provided for face-to-face social interaction and counseling drives if needed. All this will help people to reduce the negativity of social media usage among the stakeholders which will, in turn, benefit society. Moreover, higher education institutions should continuously monitor the usage and posts of various stakeholders. They can set some rules and protocols for social media usage. The moderators and administrative stakeholders can stop or avoid posts that can give rise to strikes, conflicts, and agitations. The educational stakeholders should be made aware of the protocols so that the circulation of harmful posts can be prevented. This will help in enhancing the learning culture and ambiance of the institutes. Learning analytics can help in understanding the patterns of the students [ 75 ]. The implications of the study can be magnified if social media usage is monitored and managed properly among all educational institutions across the world. Social media management along with continuous improvement in the social networking mechanisms of higher education institutions is the need of the hour. The educational strategies and plans for managing social networking platforms already mentioned in the study can be formulated, implemented, and evaluated accordingly. This study can be helpful for the enhancement of the positive impact of social media while minimizing the negative consequences in the higher education environment.

The brainstorming sessions helped in performing mind mapping to shortlist the notable social media usages in higher education. The Delphi method was conducted by discussing social media usage among subject matter experts and major stakeholders in higher education institutions. The primary survey-based questionnaire helped in performing a statistical survey to extract novel insights and crucial findings. The research study found that social media had a massive impact on most of the stakeholders of higher educational institutions. Social media usage was maximum among the students, but moderate usage of social media has been observed in teachers, administrators, staff, other employees, and external entities who used social networking platforms as and when needed. With the help of a literature review, brainstorming sessions, the Delphi method, and a questionnaire survey, conclusive evidence was found on the major social media usages in the educational environment. Furthermore, bibliometric analysis and AHP were found to be suitable approaches to move forward. So, after rigorous analysis, the novel result regarding the maximum impact of social media usage on higher education was found to be from teaching–learning and discussions, and public relations and networking. Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) found the priority-based ranks of various social media usages in higher education institutions and helped in justifying the novelty of the research study.

The conclusive findings of this research study have been noted along the lines of the research gaps, questions, and objectives already mentioned in the previous sections of the study. Therefore, the findings are as follows:

It was observed that the research fraternity across the world pursued more studies on social media and higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic;

The major social media usages in higher education institutions during the Coronavirus crisis are teaching–learning and discussions, grievances and conflicts, outreach activities, publicity and branding, admissions, placements and recruitment, execution management, public relations and networking, e-procurement, project management, and impression management;

The prioritized ranking sequence of social media usage according to the perception of the stakeholders in higher education institutions is as follows: teaching–learning and discussions, public relations and networking, outreach activities, grievance and conflicts, placements and recruitment, project management, impression management, admissions, publicity and branding, execution management, and e-procurement (the order of the social media usages’ ranking is mentioned sequentially, i.e., first to last comprises top to low priority among the same);

Some strategic measures like e-awareness drives, counseling sessions, sentiment analysis, mood recognition, social media management, continuous monitoring, real-time surveillance, social media awareness, continuous survey-based feedback evaluation, avoidance of cyberbullying, and social media moderation can help in achieving the objective of maximizing positive social media usage and minimizing negative social media usage toward neutrality for overall growth and development of higher education institutions.

This study concludes that social media have a substantial impact on higher education institutions. The consequences of social networking platforms were witnessed during the COVID-19 pandemic because it was instrumental in the transformation from physical classroom coaching to online pedagogy. Efficient e-learning platforms with effective social networking pedagogy can be helpful in enhancing the productivity of learners and teachers. Social networking platforms are widely used among most developed and developing countries along with a few underdeveloped countries across the world. Before the pandemic, some universities attempted to implement virtual campuses [ 76 ]. The Coronavirus crisis has played an invisible hand to transform classroom coaching methods toward online pedagogy by forcefully making the stakeholders explore new avenues for e-learning development [ 77 ]. But the higher education institutions had to be closed forcefully and shift to online pedagogy due to the drastic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic [ 78 , 79 ]. Even most government services are being provided through online mode due to the current situation [ 80 ]. It has been observed in a research study that the incidents surrounding the social, educational, environmental, cultural, political, and economic aspects do have a substantial impact on the stakeholders of higher education institutions, which can create an immediate effect on the sentiments and moods of the people or entities relevant to the situation. These consequences can also be observed in the educational environment [ 81 ]. This research study also found that the majority of the higher education stakeholders responded that most of the social media usages had a positive impact on higher education institutions except for grievances and conflicts. Positive information is a piece of information that generates positivity among the sentiments, whereas negative information generates negativity among the moods of the individuals. But neutral information generates no reaction or neutral effect on social media users. Moreover, it has already been observed that the dissemination of negative information on social media is faster than positive or neutral information [ 82 ]. It has also been observed that countries with a huge number of individuals enrolling in higher education institutes have sustainable avenues for social, environmental, and economic development [ 83 ]. Various modular frameworks can be instrumental in the integration of higher education and ICT [ 84 ]. Social media usage will increase drastically to achieve the new normal during such trying times of the Coronavirus crisis. Social media will play a key role in addressing accessibility and acceptability issues among the stakeholders of higher education institutes. E-awareness among the users of social networking platforms can help in improving usability also. Quality education can be achieved by rigorous improvement of educational strategies and increasing accessibility to all sections of society. Students can be motivated by the usage of technologies for advanced visualization [ 85 ] and social media analytics. Accessibility issues can be resolved technically by creating effective digital content for all types of ages because such risks of digital exclusion have been witnessed among adolescents and other sections of society also [ 86 ]. The present study may pave the way to implement effective measures to achieve sustainable development with the help of social media in higher education universally by maintaining harmony in the learner-centric environment along with stakeholders' enhancement.

Data availability

The authors have agreed to provide the data as supplementary files.

Lazar, J.: Managing digital accessibility at universities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Univ. Access Inf. Soc. (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-021-00792-5

Article   Google Scholar  

Macakoğlu, ŞS., Peker, S., Medeni, İT.: Accessibility, usability, and security evaluation of universities’ prospective student web pages: a comparative study of Europe, North America, and Oceania. Univ, Access Inf. Soc. (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-022-00869-9

Kaplan, A., Haenlein, M.: Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media. Bus. Horiz. 53 (1), 59–68 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2009.09.003

Patel, N.: Social media management. Los Angeles, California, USA. https://neilpatel.com/ (2016). Accessed 17 November 2021

Thomas, L., Warren, E., deVries, E.: Play-based learning and intentional teaching in early childhood contexts. Australas. J. Early Child. 36 (4), 69–75 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1177/183693911103600410

Vuori, V., Okkonen, J.: Knowledge sharing motivational factors of using an intra-organizational social media platform. J. Knowl. Manag. (2012). https://doi.org/10.1108/13673271211246167

Jin, B.: How lonely people use and perceive Facebook. Comput. Hum. Behav. 29 (6), 2463–2470 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.05.034

Boyd, D., Ellison, N.: Social network sites: definition, history, and scholarship. J. Comput.-Med. Commun. 13 (1), 210–230 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00393.x

Duncan, I., Miller, A., Jiang, S.: A taxonomy of virtual worlds usage in education. Br. J. Edu. Technol. 43 , 949–964 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2011.01263.x

Matteson, A.: Do you tumble? Tumblr could change the way you blog. School Library Monthly/Volume XXVII, Number 5/February, pp. 54–56. https://www.proquest.com/trade-journals/do-you-tumble-tumblr-could-change-way-blog/docview/848640783/se-2 (2011). Accessed 17 November 2021

Rodríguez-Vázquez, C., Teijeiro-Álvarez, M., Blázquez-Lozano, F.: Evaluation of the Fanpages of Spanish universities: public versus private institutions. Univ. Access Inf. Soc. 17 , 735–743 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-017-0530-3

Greenhalgh, S.P., Rosenberg, J.M., Russell, A.: The influence of policy and context on teachers’ social media use. Br. J. Edu. Technol. 00 , 1–18 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13096

Dunn, K., Rakes, G.: Teaching teachers: an investigation of beliefs in teacher education students. Learn. Environ. Res. 14 , 39–58 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10984-011-9083-1

Hocoy, D.: Facebook as learning management system: the good, the bad, and the unexpected. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2013/12/facebook-as-learning-management-system-the-good-the-bad-and-the-unexpected (2013). Accessed 20 August 2020.

Guillén-Gámez, F.D., Mayorga-Fernández, M.J., Bravo-Agapito, J., et al.: Analysis of teachers’ pedagogical digital competence: identification of factors predicting their acquisition. Technol. Knowl. Learn. 26 , 481–498 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10758-019-09432-7

Mali, A., Hasan, S.: Students’ acceptance using Facebook as a learning tool: a case study. Int. J. Asian Soc. Sci. (2013). https://archive.aessweb.com/index.php/5007/article/view/2558

VanDoorn, G., Eklund, A.: Face to Facebook: social media and the learning and teaching potential of symmetrical, sychronous communication. J. Univ. Teach. Learn. Pract. (2013). https://doi.org/10.14453/jutlp.v10i1.6

Rambe, P., Moeti, M.: Disrupting and democratising higher education provision or entrenching academic elitism: towards a model of MOOCs adoption at African universities. Educ. Technol. Res. Dev. 65 , 631–651 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-016-9500-3

Montrieux, H., Vanderlinde, R., Schellens, T., Marez, L.: Teaching and learning with mobile technology: a qualitative explorative study about the introduction of tablet devices in secondary education. PLoS ONE 10 (12), e0144008 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0144008

Luo, T., Freeman, C., Stefaniak, J.: “Like, comment, and share”—professional development through social media in higher education: a systematic review. Educ. Technol. Res. Dev. 68 , 1659–1683 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-020-09790-5

Zhang, Q., Peck, K.L., Hristova, A., et al.: Exploring the communication preferences of MOOC learners and the value of preference-based groups: is grouping enough? Educ. Technol. Res. Dev. 64 , 809–837 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-016-9439-4

Bourlakis, M., Papagiannidis, S., Fox, H.: E-consumer behaviour: past, present and future trajectories of an evolving retail revolution. Int. J. E-Bus. Res. 4 (3), 64–76 (2008). https://doi.org/10.4018/jebr.2008070104

Culnan, M., McHugh, P., Zubillaga, J.: How large U.S. companies can use Twitter and other social media to gain business value. MIS Q. Exec., 9 (4). (2010). https://aisel.aisnet.org/misqe/vol9/iss4/6/

Subramaniam, N., Nandhakumar, J., Baptista, J.: Exploring social network interactions in enterprise systems: the role of virtual co-presence. Inf. Syst. J. 23 (6), 475–499 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1111/isj.12019

Prestridge, S., Jacobsen, M., Mulla, S., et al.: New alignments for the digital age: insights into connected learning. Educ. Technol. Res. Dev. 69 , 2171–2186 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-021-09968-5

Balakrishnan, V.: Key determinants for intention to use social media for learning in higher education institutions. Univ. Access Inf. Soc. 16 , 289–301 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-016-0457-0

Brown, S.: Seeing Web 2.0 in context: a study of academic perceptions. Internet High. Educ. 15 (1), 50–57 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2011.04.003

Dermentzi, E., Papagiannidis, S., Toro, C., Yannopoulou, N.: Academic engagement: differences between intention to adopt social networking sites and other online technologies. Comput. Hum. Behav. 61 , 321–332 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.03.019

Hung, H.-T., Yuen, S.: Educational use of social networking technology in higher education. Teach. High. Educ. 15 (6), 703–714 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2010.507307

Lim, N., Grönlund, Å., Andersson, A.: Cloud computing: the beliefs and perceptions of Swedish school principals. Comput. Educ. 84 , 90–100 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2015.01.009

Abbas, J., Aman, J., Nurnnabi, M., Bano, S.: The impact of social media on learning behavior for sustainable education: evidence of students from selected universities in Pakistan. Sustain. MDPI (2019). https://doi.org/10.3390/su11061683

Dyson, B., Vickers, K., Turtle, J., Cowan, S., Tassone, A.: Evaluating the use of Facebook to increase student engagement and understanding in lecture-based classes. High. Educ. 69 (2), 303–313 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-014-9776-3

Manca, S., Ranieri, M.: Implications of social network sites for teaching and learning: where we are and where we want to go. Educ. Inf. Technol. 22 (2), 605–622 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-015-9429-x

Al-Daihani, S., Al-Qallaf, J., AlSaheeb, S.: Use of social media by social science academics for scholarly communication. Glob. Knowl. Mem. Commun. 67 (6/7), 412–424 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1108/GKMC-11-2017-0091

Gu, F., Widén-Wulff, G.: Scholarly communication and possible changes in the context of social media: a Finnish case study. Electron. Libr. 29 (6), 762–776 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1108/02640471111187999

Donelan, H.: Social media for professional development and networking opportunities in academia. J. Furth. High. Educ. 40 (5), 706–729 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877X.2015.1014321

Aldahdouh, T., Nokelainen, P., Korhonen, V.: Technology and social media usage in higher education: the influence of individual innovativeness. SAGE Open (2020). https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244019899441

Ali, Y.S., Hussin, A.R.C., Dahlan, H.M.: Electronic word of mouth engagement in social commerce platforms: an empirical study. Inf. Dev. 36 (3), 438–456 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1177/026666691986

Fenwick, T.: Social media, professionalism and higher education: a sociomaterial consideration. Stud. High. Educ. (2014). https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2014.942275

Singh, M., Adebayo, S.O., Saini, M., et al.: Indian government E-learning initiatives in response to COVID-19 crisis: a case study on online learning in Indian higher education system. Educ. Inf. Technol. (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-021-10585-1

Cinelli, M., Quattrociocchi, W., Galeazzi, A., Valensise, C., Brugnoli, E., Schmidt, A., et al.: The Covid-19 social media infodemic. Sci. Rep. 10 (1), 1–10 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-73510-5

Hamadi, M., El-Den, J., Sriratanaviriyakul, C., Azam, S.: A social media adoption framework as pedagogical instruments in higher education classrooms. E-Learning Digit. Media 18 (1), 55–85 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1177/2042753020950869

Barfi, K.A., Bervell, B., Arkorful, V.: Integration of social media for smart pedagogy: initial perceptions of senior high school students in Ghana. Educ. Inf. Technol. 26 , 3033–3055 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-020-10405-y

Hookway, N.: ‘Entering the blogosphere’: some strategies for using blogs in social research. Qual. Res. 8 , 91–113 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794107085298

Lansigan, R.R., Moraga, S.D., Batalla, M.Y.C., et al.: School choice considerations and the role of social media as perceived by computing students: evidence from one university in Manila. Educ. Inf. Technol. 21 , 1249–1268 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-015-9379-3

Menzies, R., Petrie, K., Zarb, M.: A case study of Facebook use: outlining a multi-layer strategy for higher education. Educ. Inf. Technol. 22 , 39–53 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-015-9436-y

Turnbull, D., Chugh, R., Luck, J.: Transitioning to E-learning during the COVID-19 pandemic: how have higher education institutions responded to the challenge? Educ. Inf. Technol. 26 , 6401–6419 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-021-10633-w

Chugh, R., Grose, R., Macht, S.: Social media usage by higher education academics: a scoping review of the literature. Educ. Inf. Technol. 26 , 983–999 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-020-10288-z

Manca, S., Ranieri, M.: Networked scholarship and motivations for social media use in scholarly communication. Int. Rev. Res. Open Distrib. Learn. (2017). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i2.2859

Yadav, J., Misra, M., Rana, N., Singh, K.: Exploring the synergy between nano-influencers and sports community: behavior mapping through machine learning. Inf. Technol. People (2021). https://doi.org/10.1108/ITP-03-2021-0219

Goundar, M.S., Kumar, B.A.: The use of mobile learning applications in higher education institutes. Educ. Inf. Technol. (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-021-10611-2

Silman, F., Yaratan, H., Karanfiller, T.: Use of assistive technology for teaching-learning and administrative processes for the visually impaired people. Eurasia J. Math. Sci. Technol. Educ. 13 (8), 4805–4813 (2017). https://doi.org/10.12973/eurasia.2017.00945a

Adam, T., Tatnall, A.: Using ICT to improve the education of students with learning disabilities. In: IFIP World Computer Congress, TC 3, pp. 63–70. Springer, Boston. (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-09729-9_8

Rahman, T., Kim, Y.S., Noh, M., et al.: A study on the determinants of social media based learning in higher education. Educ. Technol. Res. Dev. 69 , 1325–1351 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-021-09987-2

Dumpit, D.Z., Fernandez, C.J.: Analysis of the use of social media in higher education institutions (HEIs) using the technology acceptance model. Int. J. Educ. Technol. High. Educ. (2017). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-017-0045-2

Abrahim, S., Mir, B.A., Suhara, H., et al.: Structural equation modeling and confirmatory factor analysis of social media use and education. Int. J. Educ. Technol. High. Educ. 16 , 32 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-019-0157-y

Pieper, A.K., Pieper, M.: Political participation via social media: a case study of deliberative quality in the public online budgeting process of Frankfurt/Main, Germany 2013. Univ. Access Inf. Soc. 14 , 487–503 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-014-0353-4

Zdravkova, K., Ivanović, M., Putnik, Z.: Experience of integrating web 2.0 technologies. Education Tech Research Dev 60, 361–381. (2012) https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-011-9228-z

Manning, J.: Definition and classes of social media. In: Harvey, K. (eds.), Encyclopedia of Social Media and politics, pp. 1158–1162. Sage, Thousand Oaks. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/290514612_Definition_and_Classes_of_Social_Media (2014). Accessed 11 November 2021

Goepel, K.D.: Implementation of an online software tool for the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP-OS). Int. J. Anal. Hierarchy Process 10 (3), 469–487 (2018). https://doi.org/10.13033/ijahp.v10i3.590

Leal, J.: AHP-express: a simplified version of the analytical hierarchy process method. MethodsX 7 , 100748 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mex.2019.11.021

Cronholm, S., Neubauer, M., Stary, C.: Guiding situated method transfer in design and evaluation. Univ. Access Inf. Soc. 14 , 151–168 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-013-0336-x

Sengupta, S., Vaish, A.: A study on social networking platforms in higher education institutions. Acad. Market. Stud. J. 26 (3) (2022). https://www.abacademies.org/articles/a-study-on-social-networking-platforms-in-higher-education-institutions-14786.html

Abramo, G., D’Angelo, C.A.: An assessment of the first “scientific habilitation” for university appointments in Italy. Econ. Polit. 32 , 329–357 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40888-015-0016-9

Conde, M.Á., Fonseca, D.: Information society skills: Is knowledge accessible for all? Part I. Univ. Access Inf. Soc. 17 , 223–227 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-017-0547-7

Aria, M., Cuccurullo, C.: Bibliometrix: an R-tool for comprehensive science mapping analysis. J. Informetr. 11 (4), 959–975 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2017.08.007

Cobo, M., López-Herrera, A.G., Herrera-Viedma, E., Herrera, F.: An approach for detecting, quantifying, and visualizing the evolution of a research field: a practical application to the Fuzzy Sets Theory field. J. Informetr. 5 (1), 146–166 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2010.10.002

Chen, X., Lun, Y., Yan, J., et al.: Discovering thematic change and evolution of utilizing social media for healthcare research. BMC Med. Inform. Decis. Mak. 19 , 50 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12911-019-0757-4

Orehovački, T., Granić, A., Kermek, D.: Evaluating the perceived and estimated quality in use of Web 2.0 applications. J. Syst. Softw. 86 (12), 3039–3059 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2013.05.071

Orehovački, T., Etinger, D., Babić, S.: Modelling an interplay of adoption determinants with respect to social Web applications used in massive online open courses. Univ. Access Inf. Soc. 18 , 469–487 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-019-00673-y

Cao, Y., Ajjan, H., Hong, P.: Using social media applications for educational outcomes in college teaching: a structural equation analysis. Br. J. Educ. Technol. 44 (4), 581–593 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.12066

Sandnes, F.E.: Is there an imbalance in the supply and demand for universal accessibility knowledge? Twenty years of UAIS papers viewed through the lens of WCAG. Univ. Access Inf. Soc. 21 , 333–349 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-021-00834-y

OECD: Education at a glance 2016: OECD indicators, pp. 507 (2016). https://www.oecd.org/education/skills-beyond-school/education-at-a-glance-2016-indicators.htm

de Campos, S.R.M., Henriques, R., Yanaze, M.H.: Higher education in Brazil: an exploratory study based on supply and demand conditions. Univ. Access Inf. Soc. 17 , 711–733 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-017-0537-9

de Oliveira, C.F., Sobral, S.R., Ferreira, M.J., Moreira, F.: how does learning analytics contribute to prevent students’ dropout in higher education: a systematic literature review. Big Data Cogn. Comput. 5 , 64 (2021). https://doi.org/10.3390/bdcc5040064

García-Holgado, A., Vázquez-Ingelmo, A., García-Peñalvo, F.J., Conde, M.J.R.: Improvement of learning outcomes in software engineering: active methodologies supported through the virtual campus. IEEE Rev. Iberoam. Tecnol. Aprendiz. (2021). https://doi.org/10.1109/RITA.2021.3089926

Sobral, S.R., Jesus-Silva, N., Cardoso, A., Moreira, F.: EU27 higher education institutions and COVID-19, year 2020. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 18 (11), 5963 (2021). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18115963

Dutta, A.: Impact of digital social media on indian higher education: alternative approaches of online learning during COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Int. J. Sci. Res. Publ. (2020). https://doi.org/10.29322/IJSRP.10.05.2020.p10169

Pokhrel, S., Chhetri, R.: A literature review on impact of COVID-19 pandemic on teaching and learning. High. Educ. Future 8 (1), 133–141 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1177/2347631120983481

Paul, S.: Accessibility analysis using WCAG 2.1: evidence from Indian e-government websites. Univ. Access Inf. Soc. (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-021-00861-9

Sengupta, S., Vaish, A.: Social networking mood recognition algorithm for conflict detection and management of Indian educational institutions. Soc. Netw. Anal. Min. 10 , 89 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13278-020-00701

Sengupta, S., Vaish, A.: Social networking mood recognition algorithm for conflict detection and management of educational institutions. Aust. Off. J. Patents. (2021). http://pericles.ipaustralia.gov.au/ols/auspat/applicationDetails.do?applicationNo=2021106074

Žalėnienė, I., Pereira, P.: Higher education for sustainability: a global perspective. Geogr. Sustain. 2 (2), 99–106 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geosus.2021.05.001

Ramirez, G.M., Collazos, C.A., Moreira, F.: All-learning: the state of the art of the models and the methodologies educational with ICT. Telemat. Inform. 35 (4), 944–953 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2017.10.004

Sanchez-Sepulveda, M.V., Fonseca, D., García-Holgado, A., García-Peñalvo, F.J., Franquesa, J., Redondo, E., Moreira, F.: Evaluation of an interactive educational system in urban knowledge acquisition and representation based on students’ profiles. Expert Syst. 37 (5), 12570 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1111/exsy.12570

Kaarakainen, M.T., Saikkonen, L.: Remark on digital accessibility: educational disparities define digital inclusion from adolescence onwards. Univ. Access Inf. Soc. (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-022-00908-5

Download references

Acknowledgements

The research study was supported by the Ministry of Education. The cooperation provided by various higher educational institutions is also appreciated.

Not applicable—no funding was received for conducting this research study.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Information Technology – Allahabad, Prayagraj, India

Sarthak Sengupta & Anurika Vaish

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

Both authors equally contributed to the research study.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sarthak Sengupta .

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest.

No potential conflict of interest was reported.

Additional information

Publisher's note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary file1 (XLSX 16 KB)

Rights and permissions.

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Sengupta, S., Vaish, A. A study on social media and higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Univ Access Inf Soc 23 , 1249–1271 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-023-00988-x

Download citation

Accepted : 02 March 2023

Published : 20 March 2023

Issue Date : August 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-023-00988-x

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Social media
• Higher education
• Bibliometric analysis
• Analytic hierarchy process
• COVID-19 pandemic
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• Review Article
• Open access
• Published: 10 September 2024

From crisis to opportunity: advancements in emergency language services

• Xingrong Guo   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8672-2108 1 ,
• Di Xiao 1 &
• Yiming Guo 2  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  11 , Article number:  1170 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

128 Accesses

Metrics details

• Language and linguistics

Emergency language services play a critical role in emergency management and language services, facilitating effective information transmission, timely life-saving efforts, accurate public opinion guidance, and the maintenance of social stability during public emergencies. This study aims to comprehensively assess the current state of emergency language research, exploring recent advancements and future trends in emergency language services. Using bibliometric and content analysis, 3814 academic papers on emergency language services were systematically reviewed. Recent publications reveal a burgeoning interest in this field, particularly in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Research areas reflect a multidisciplinary approach to addressing the complex challenges of emergency language services. Keyword co-occurrence analysis unveils the pivotal research trajectories across various temporal phases. In the initial stage, emphasis was placed on unraveling communication and language hurdles within the emergency department. Transitioning into a phase of stable development, attention primarily gravitated toward natural language processing technology and the complexities of language barriers. Subsequently, during a period of rapid advancement, the spotlight shifted towards the pragmatic application of emergency language services amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This encompassed diverse domains such as distance education, telemedicine services, and exploratory investigations into social media dynamics. This evolution highlights an increasing interest in leveraging emerging technologies to enhance emergency response times and service quality. Future research should prioritize addressing key issues within the research framework and fostering interdisciplinary development.

Similar content being viewed by others

Evolution of natural disaster terminologies, with a case study of the covid-19 pandemic

Constructing a disease database and using natural language processing to capture and standardize free text clinical information

Natural language processing for mental health interventions: a systematic review and research framework

Introduction.

Every year, nations and regions globally are faced with many natural disasters and public health emergencies, which have a profound impact on human health (Berchtold et al., 2020 ; Goode et al., 2021 ). According to statistics, around 2 billion people globally were affected by natural disasters between 2008 and 2018 (Almukhlifi et al., 2021 ), and in 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic further captured global attention. In the process of emergency response and rescue, language barriers are one of the significant factors that affect rescue operations. In such situations, emergency language services become crucial for post-disaster relief efforts (Shao et al., 2018 ; Wang, 2021 ). Emergency language services refer to the provision of rapid language products, language technologies, or participation in language rescue operations for the prevention, monitoring, rapid response, and recovery of major natural disasters or public crisis events. These services include emergency translation of foreign languages, minority languages, dialects, and sign language for individuals with disabilities, the development of disaster language software, the dissemination of disaster information, and the management of disaster language resources for relief services. Additionally, they encompass the development of emergency language standards, emergency language training, language therapy, and rehabilitation, as well as language counseling and crisis intervention (Wang et al., 2020 ). In the context of disasters and other crises, emergency language services enable individuals to comprehend and communicate information about emergency preparedness and response systems, thereby enhancing personal safety and collectively mitigating risks faced by affected individuals (Markakis et al., 2017 ). Therefore, emergency language services are crucial in emergency situations.

At present, in terms of emergency language services, a comprehensive and clear representation of the scientific review literature is lacking. Traditional reviews in this area have mostly focused on enhancing the capabilities of emergency language services, such as the development of emergency language service systems and the training of personnel for emergency preparedness services. However, these studies have not sufficiently considered the complexity of communication during emergency response and rescue processes, and reliance solely on traditional on-site human translation proves inadequate to meet the efficiency requirements of emergency language services. Specifically, there is a scarcity of review studies that employ quantitative analysis methods to examine the complexities of emergency language services.

To address this gap, this paper employs bibliometric analysis and content analysis methods to analyze the collected effective literature related to the study of emergency language services. The analysis methods help to identify the development trends, research hotspots, and future directions of the field (Cheng, Zhang ( 2023 )). This approach advances the research on emergency language services, providing guidance for its further development and for scholars conducting research in this field.

Specifically, the study mainly addresses the following key research questions.

RQ 1. What is the current state of emergency language services research, and what progress has been made in recent years?

RQ 2. What is the distribution of core authors, journals, and institutions involved in emergency language services research?

RQ 3. What are the hotspots of emergency language services research, and what are the prospects for the field in the future?

This paper makes a comprehensive analysis of the current research situation in the field of emergency language services, that is, a comprehensive review of the literature on emergency language services in recent decades, including bibliometric analysis and quantitative visualization research. Particularly, these research results provide guidance for constructing a framework combining the latest literature and highly cited content of emergency language services, and it promotes rapid and long-term development of emergency language services research.

The remaining sections of this paper are organized as follows. Section “Methods” explains the research design, including data sources, the screening process, and the main analysis methods (bibliometric analysis and content analysis). Section “Results” presents the results of trend analysis, impact analysis, and content analysis. Firstly, it analyzes the annual publication trends of the 3814 selected literature and identifies the key influential journals of publication. Then, it introduces the analysis of author influence, country and institution analysis, disciplinary analysis, keyword co-occurrence analysis, and keyword clustering analysis using bibliometric analysis and content analysis methods. The results of the bibliometric and content analysis are further discussed in Section “Discussion”. Finally, Section “Conclusions” presents the conclusions and outlines the limitations of this paper. The overall research design framework of this study is illustrated in Fig. 1 . The process consists of three main steps: the first involves data collection and screening; the second applies bibliometric and content analysis; and the final step includes discussion and conclusions.

The framework consists of three main research steps: data collection, bibliometric analysis, and discussion and conclusion. *n=number.

Data source

In this paper, the literature used for the analysis of emergency language services research was retrieved from the core dataset of the Web of Science (WoS). WoS is one of the world’s leading science citation index databases and is widely recognized and used in academia (Wang et al., 2016 ). WoS includes high-quality articles on international research (Ciavolino et al., 2022 ), including journal articles related to emergency language services, and provides journal and article citations.

Data screening

To ensure the accuracy and representativeness of the selected literature, the inclusion criteria of the literature were established: (1) the literature source was the core dataset of WoS; (2) The publication period of the literature is from January 1, 1988–December 31, 2023; (3) The literature sources were SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI, ESCI, and A&HCI; (4) The language type of the document is English. Exclusion criteria: (1) The topic unrelated to emergency language services but only containing the keywords “emergency” and “language”; (2) Conference minutes, editorial materials and other non-academic articles. Finally, 3814 articles were obtained that were highly consistent with the research theme of this paper.

The data retrieval and cleaning process in the bibliometric analysis section is described as follows:

Using the advanced search method with the search condition “(Topic = emergency)” and “(Topic = language)”, a total of 5592 records were retrieved.

The literature retrieval type was set as “Article” or “Review article”, with the language filter set to English. The literature source categories included SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI, ESCI, and A&HCI. The retrieval period spanned from January 1, 1988, to December 31, 2023. Subsequently, book reviews, book chapters, conference proceedings, and other irrelevant materials were excluded, resulting in a final set of 4662 articles.

Further exclusions were made by reviewing and analyzing abstracts to eliminate articles unrelated to emergency language services. This included articles that only had keywords in the abstract without addressing research in the field, research papers not involving emergency language services in their descriptive topics, and data that was insufficient or findings that were unclear. In the end, a total of 848 papers were excluded, leaving 3814 papers for analysis.

Bibliometric analysis

In recent years, bibliometric research has witnessed rapid development, with its methods and tools increasingly applied in various scientific fields (Broitman and Davis, 2013 ). This study mainly focuses on bibliometric analysis, supplemented by content analysis. A total of 3814 literature articles on emergency language services published between January 1, 1988, and December 31, 2023, were analyzed from different perspectives. The first article retrieved from the WoS database on emergency language services was titled “Language Concordance as a Determinant of Compliance and Emergency Room Use in Patients with Asthma” (Manson, 1988 ). Therefore, it served as the starting point for data collection in this study.

Author influence analysis and national institution analysis were carried out after topic search and screening. This was done to identify authors with high influence and contributions in the research field of emergency language services, to pinpoint the hot research frontiers in this field, and to understand the situation of international cooperation. This analysis promotes cooperation and exchange between different national institutions and supports the international development of emergency language services research.

Various bibliometric cartographic analysis methods were applied to obtain answers to the research questions described in section “Introduction”. Each method of bibliometric cartographic analysis is designed for specific research purposes (Li et al., 2022 ). In this study, the following bibliometric network maps were created: keyword co-occurrence graph, cluster graph, and other types of tables and graphs to answer the research questions.

Content analysis

By employing content analysis, a more systematic and in-depth analysis was conducted on the disciplinary distribution, keywords co-occurrence, and clustering results related to emergency language services research. This helped identify different aspects and focal points of research in the field, providing guidance and direction for further research and practice. Content analysis and bibliometric analysis worked in tandem: bibliometric analysis identified pivotal articles and areas of focus, while content analysis delivered a detailed and objective portrayal of the research landscape of emergency language services.

Publications output distribution

The distribution of publication output is a key indicator that provides insights into research activities related to a particular set of documents (Li et al., 2020 ). In this section, the main analysis is the trend in the number of publications and journal distribution of the 3814 articles.

Analysis of annual publication volume

Figure 2 illustrates the trend in the annual publication volume since 1988. It is evident that, although the overall trend indicates growth, the annual publication volume does not consistently increase. There were some temporary declines in certain years, such as 2001, 2007, and 2009. However, the number of articles has progressively increased in the field of emergency language services research, from only 1 article in 1988 to 488 articles in 2023. This indicates that in recent decades, there has been increasing attention from researchers in the field of emergency language services, and the prominence of emergency language services has been continually rising.

Annual publication growth of research literature on emergency language services (1988-2023). Data points are represented by black diamonds ( ◆ ), with the number of publications per year indicated by blue numbers next to each data point. The three phases are demarcated by red dashed lines and labeled accordingly.

It can be observed that the average annual publication counts for research on emergency language services from 1988 to 2023 is 109 articles, with a simple average annual growth rate of 30.92%, and a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 14.64%. Based on the annual growth rate of the articles, this indicates a continuous upward trend: an initial exploratory period (1988–2003), a stable growth period (2004–2014), and a rapid growth period (2015–2023).

During the initial exploratory period from 1988 to 2003, an average of 15 articles related to emergency language services were published each year. Among them, the highest number of articles was published in 2002, with a total of 36 articles. In the stable growth period from 2004 to 2014, the publication count showed a steady increase with minor fluctuations, averaging 74 articles per year. After 2014, there was a significant increase in the number of publications, with a total of 2779 articles published in the following nine years, averaging 309 articles per year. This is approximately eight times the number of articles published during the initial exploratory period and the stable growth period. In 2022, there were 541 published articles, accounting for 14.18% of the total, reaching its peak.

Journal distribution

Figure 3 shows the top 20 journals in terms of publication quantity related to emergency language services. It can be seen that “Academic Emergency Medicine” leads the list with a total of 80 articles. Notably, “Academic Emergency Medicine” has published significantly more papers on emergency language services ( n  = 80) than other journals, such as “Pediatric Emergency Care” ( n  = 51), “Annals of Emergency Medicine” ( n  = 48), “BMJ Open” ( n  = 47), “American Journal of Emergency Medicine” ( n  = 44), “PLoS One” ( n  = 40), “International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health” ( n  = 36), and “Journal of General Internal Medicine” ( n  = 34). Despite the relatively small overall number of publications, the number of papers published in “Academic Emergency Medicine” is nearly double that of any other journal. This indicates that, in terms of publication quantity, the journals ranking higher are more likely to attract the attention of researchers.

The top 20 journals in terms of publication quantity related to emergency language services are listed from top to bottom in descending order.

Research power results

Author influence analysis.

Research authors play a crucial role in reflecting the research capacity of an academic field and evaluating its development (Guo et al., 2021 ). Among the 3814 analyzed articles, there were a total of 17,026 authors, with an average of 4.46 authors per article. Given the large number of core authors, this study ranked the top 20 most prolific authors in descending order based on the number of publications, as shown in Table 1 .

Table 1 reveals that, in terms of publication output, Lion, K. Casey from the University of Florida, and Topaz, Maxim from Columbia University in the United States have the highest number of publications on emergency language services research, with 13 articles each, which is significantly more than other scholars. Following closely is Camargo, Carlos A. from Massachusetts General Hospital in the United States, with 12 articles, maintaining a considerable lead over other contributors. Notably, 16 of the top 20 authors in this field are affiliated with American institutions, highlighting the significant emphasis placed by the United States and underscoring its influence in the global research landscape.

Country and institutional analysis

Analyzing the distribution of research on emergency language services across countries and institutions unveils the geographical landscape of such research, offering insights into its focus, strengths, and challenges globally. This information aids decision-makers in resource allocation and serves as a reference for international collaboration and knowledge sharing.

Table 2 presents the number and proportion of publications in the field of emergency language services research for the top 20 countries by publication count. At present, a total of 3814 articles were retrieved from 12,302 institutions studying emergency language services, covering 931 countries or regions. In terms of the number of publications and proportion, the top three countries are the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Among them, the number of articles published in the United States is significantly higher than in other countries, accounting for 45.65%, which is 5.49 times and 5.58 times of Canada and the United Kingdom, ranking second and third, respectively. Therefore, the United States represents a major research force and a leading contributor to the development of the field of emergency language services research worldwide.

Figure 4 shows the collaboration institutions in emergency language services research. The size of the circle in Fig. 4 represents the number of publications by each institution in the field. The larger the circle, the more publications the institution has. Institutions such as the University of Washington, Harvard Medical School, and the University of California, San Francisco, are represented by the larger circles, signifying their significant contribution to research and publications in the field of emergency language services. These institutions demonstrate a high level of activity and influence. The top 20 institutions in the field of emergency language services, ranked by the number of publications, are listed in Table 3 .

The collaboration network of institutions is visualized using CiteSpace, with nodes representing institutions.

Table 3 provides basic information on the top 20 institutions in the field of emergency language services, ranked by the number of publications. It can be seen from this that the University of Washington, Harvard Medical School, and the University of California, San Francisco, have published the most papers. Additionally, centrality measures the importance of institutions in academic networks. Centrality was measured using a value between 0 and 1, with higher values indicating higher centrality in the academic network. The University of Washington and the University of California, San Francisco, are institutions with high centrality. These institutions hold significant research influence and occupy important positions in this field. These data reveal that institutions from the United States dominate in terms of article output and centrality in the field of emergency language services research.

Discipline analysis

In the WoS core database, each publication is classified into at least one thematic category, along with its research direction content, to indicate its research domain. This section analyzes the disciplinary knowledge and directional characteristics of 3814 retrieved literature to determine the main disciplinary directions involved in the research field of emergency language services. Considering the interdisciplinary nature, this article also explores the core disciplines in this field. Table 4 describes the Top 20 disciplinary direction rankings in emergency language services.

The 3814 literature articles retrieved so far encompass a total of 194 disciplines related to emergency language services. The top 20 disciplinary directions reveal a broad range of disciplines that contribute to this interdisciplinary field (Table 4 ). Emergency Medicine leads the list with a significant frequency of 524, followed by Public Environmental Occupational Health, Medicine General Internal, and Health Care Sciences Services.

Highly cited topics, such as Nursing and Healthcare Policy, highlight the importance of these themes in the emergency language services domain. Themes like Trauma & Emergency Surgery, Health Literacy & Telemedicine, Knowledge Engineering and Representation, Language and Linguistics, and Education Educational Research, highlight the need for effective communication and technology integration in emergency settings.

The research directions show a similar trend, with Emergency Medicine, General Internal Medicine, and Public Environmental Occupational Health leading the way. Additionally, disciplines like Computer Science and Education Educational Research indicate the increasing relevance of technological solutions and training programs in enhancing emergency response capabilities.

In summary, based on the analysis of disciplinary categories, highly cited topics, and research directions, the disciplinary theoretical foundation of emergency language services mainly concentrates on emergency medicine, environmental science, public health and preventive medicine, computer science, educational science, and language and linguistics. This interdisciplinary approach underscores the complexity of providing effective language services in emergency scenarios and the need for collaboration across multiple fields. Besides, special attention should be given to theories that integrate computer science with other fields, as these theories play a crucial role in understanding emergency language services research.

Core keywords and co-occurrence analysis

Keywords provide information about the core content of an article (Liu et al., 2015 ). When two or more keywords appear together in the same paper, it is referred to as keyword co-occurrence (Fang et al., 2017 ). Keyword co-occurrence analysis can identify research hotspots and emerging frontiers in scientific knowledge domains (Liu et al., 2015 ). In a keyword co-occurrence graph, the size of the circles represents the total frequency of occurrence of keywords in the field of emergency language services research. The larger the circle, the more representative it is of research hotspots and directions in the field (Yang et al., 2020 ; Yu et al., 2020 ). Using CiteSpace software, keyword co-occurrence analysis was conducted on the text of the retrieved 3814 literature articles. The keyword co-occurrence network is shown in Fig. 5 . The parameter settings are as follows:

year (s) per slice: 1 year;

Selection criteria: g-index (k = 10), LRF = 3.0, L/N = 10, LBY = 5, e = 1.0;

Pruning: Pathfinder;

Nodes Labeled: 1.0%.

Co-occurrence network of keywords in the field of emergency language services (1988-2023). The network is visualized using CiteSpace. Each node represents a keyword, with the size of the node indicating the frequency of the keyword’s appearance.

From Fig. 5 , it can be observed that the circles containing the keywords “emergency department”, “natural language processing”, and “COVID-19 pandemic” are the largest, indicating their high frequency of occurrence. Therefore, the research hotspots in the field of emergency language services may be related to increased research in emergency medicine, natural language processing, and emergency services resulting from public health events like the COVID-19 pandemic.

To understand the co-occurrence of the keywords in Fig. 5 , the core keywords were classified according to the three stages of emergency language service development. The top 20 keywords in each stage were listed in Table 5 .

In the initial exploration stage from 1988 to 2003, “emergency department”, “communication”, “language”, “emergency medical services”, and “interpreters” were the top five keywords in terms of frequency. Among them, the “emergency department” has the highest frequency of occurrence, indicating that the emergency department was the core focus of research during this period. In addition, during this period, research on emergency language services also focused on communication issues in emergency situations, language barriers or cross-cultural communication barriers that may be encountered during communication, emergency pharmaceutical services, interpretation services, emergency management, and other aspects during emergency rescue.

During the steady growth period from 2004 to 2014, the keywords with high frequency were: “natural language processing”, “emergency medicine”, “systematic review”, “language barriers”, and “limited English proficiency”. During this period, researchers began to pay attention to the application of natural language processing technology to solve the problem of emergency language services. For example, Starlander et al. ( 2005 ) described the evaluation of an open-source medical speech translation system (MedSLT) for safety-critical applications with a view to eliminating the language barrier in emergency situations. St-Maurice, Kuo ( 2012 ) used natural language processing to analyze primary care data extracted from identification to identify inappropriate emergency room use. On the other hand, researchers are also working to overcome language barriers, focusing on public health and the harm caused by natural disasters and public health events to children or migrants with limited language skills.

During the period of rapid development from 2015 to 2023, high-frequency keywords such as “COVID-19 pandemic”, “machine learning”, “social media”, “emergency remote teaching” and “artificial intelligence” emerged. The keywords during this period covered multiple aspects of emergency language services research. Keywords such as “COVID-19 pandemic”, “emergency remote teaching”, “online learning”, “triage”, and “telemedicine” are highly likely to be related to the COVID-19 pandemic in public health in 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on research on emergency language services, and researchers have begun to pay attention to the evaluation and response of the COVID-19 pandemic to language service needs, language barriers, multilingual transmission, and cross-cultural communication.

In the field of education, emergency remote teaching and online learning have been conducted. For example, Jiang et al. ( 2023 ) conducted a case study using a renowned Chinese language university to explore how Chinese university scholars responded to the challenges of emergency remote teaching during the pandemic. In the medical field, triage and prioritization are carried out during emergency situations, considering how to provide appropriate language support during the triage process to ensure the fair allocation of resources and timely provision of language services. For instance, a natural language processing system using nursing triage records was used to predict the quantity of emergency resources needed in the future (Sterling et al., 2020 ). Analysis of spoken expressions during simulated emergency call triage processes was also conducted (Morimura et al., 2005 ). Additionally, remote medical services are provided through technologies like video conferencing to offer cross-lingual medical consultations and support, addressing language barriers and promoting healthcare accessibility. For example, the usage of remote medical services by non-elderly patients with limited English proficiency during the COVID-19 pandemic was evaluated, along with its relationship to emergency department visits and hospital encounters (Chang et al., 2023 ). Remote medical methods under low bit-rate communication conditions have also been explored (Ruminski, 2008 ).

The keywords “social media” and “Twitter” may be related to the role of social media in the field of language services. Social media platforms and Twitter can be used to disseminate emergency information, provide multilingual support, promote community participation and communication. Keywords such as “refugees”, “pediatrics”, and “accident & emergency medicine” may be related to language service needs and practices specific to refugees, pediatric patients, and emergency medical settings. Through co-occurrence analysis of keywords, the focus of emergency language services research has changed in different periods. From a focus on emergency departments, communication, and language barriers during the exploration period, to a focus on natural language processing and language barriers in emergency medicine during the stable development period, and systematic reviews of previous research, to research on emergency language services, remote education and medical services, and the application of social media during the rapidly developing COVID-19 pandemic. This reflects the development trend and evolution of research focus in the field of emergency language services, while also revealing future research directions and challenges.

Literature co-word cluster analysis

This study employed co-occurrence cluster analysis to unveil intricate relationships between words in the literature, shedding light on the research content and patterns within current emergency language services research. By applying the co-occurrence clustering analysis method, many articles were successfully classified and organized based on their content, characteristics, and word co-occurrence. This approach has the potential to reveal nuanced topics and highlight potential connections within related literature, thus facilitating the identification of interdisciplinary research opportunities (Wang et al., 2016 ). By conducting an in-depth analysis of keyword frequencies, this paper successfully constructed multiple keyword co-occurrence networks. These networks vividly outlined the diverse landscape of emergency language services research. Figure 6 shows the co-word cluster network of emergency language services, generated using CiteSpace software. Notably, the analysis produced 10 distinct clusters, each offering valuable insights into specific facets of the emergency language services domain. The parameters are set as follows:

Slice Length = 1;

Selection criteria: g-index (k = 10), LRF = 3.0, L/N = 10, LBY = −1, e = 1.0;

Network: N = 429, E = 645 (Density= 0.007);

Nodes labeled: 1.0%.

Nine large clusters of co-word in the field of emergency language services were generated by CiteSpace software. Each cluster is represented by a different color.

Based on the parameters used, 15 clusters were identified. Figure 6 displays the top 10 of these clusters. From Fig. 6 , it can be clearly observed that the symbiosis is visualized as a knowledge domain graph composed of ten keyword co-occurrence networks. Each of these networks is represented by a different color. To provide a clearer and more intuitive presentation of each cluster, Table 6 was created, which includes the labels, the number of keywords in each cluster, and some of the keywords contained in each cluster.

Cluster #0: emergency-medicine resident

This initial keyword cluster delves into the myriad challenges and complexities encountered by emergency medicine residents, specifically focusing on communication hurdles, language comprehension, and interactions with immigrant patients. The research within this cluster centers on resident physicians within the emergency medicine field, addressing various critical aspects:

Exploring communication challenges in emergency settings is urgent. This facet involves a thorough examination of the challenges and barriers that emergency medicine residents face in effectively communicating with patients. Noteworthy studies, such as those exploring emergency physicians’ awareness of language barriers within the emergency department environment (Hendry et al., 2012 ), contribute valuable insights into fostering improved communication strategies.

The exploration of health literacy levels is an important topic. Researchers within this cluster delve into how emergency medicine residents navigate patients’ health literacy levels. This includes investigating how emergency medicine residents address patients’ health literacy levels and potential obstacles in providing medical care, including issues related to patients’ understanding of diagnoses, treatment, and self-management abilities (Doty et al., 2022 ).

Addressing the unique challenges faced by emergency medicine residents when dealing with immigrant patients, including language barriers, cultural differences, and legal and policy-related issues, is necessary. For instance, assessing residents’ attitudes towards culturally competent care, their preparedness to provide quality care to diverse patient populations, as well as their experiences and educational environment regarding cross-cultural training (Betancourt et al., 2007 ). Additionally, exploring the approaches taken by emergency department physicians when facing unique barriers to accessing healthcare for undocumented residents (Samra et al., 2019 ).

The primary goal of these studies is to improve the communication skills of emergency medicine residents. Furthermore, they aim to foster a deeper understanding and trust between healthcare providers and patients, ultimately contributing to the delivery of enhanced medical services within emergency medicine settings.

Cluster #1: trial study design

This cluster primarily focuses on the application of experimental research designs in the field of emergency medicine. The research may involve evaluating health disparities among different populations (Cegala, Post ( 2006 )) and understanding differences in health status, healthcare accessibility, or health outcomes among diverse populations to promote health equity and improve healthcare strategies targeting specific groups. It may also involve assessing the effectiveness of different medications, interventions, or acute asthma management approaches to study treatment methods and strategies for acute asthma (Press et al., 2012 ). Additionally, it may explore emergency department situations related to alcohol use (Vaca et al., 2020 ), such as examining the impact of alcohol-related incidents on emergency department visits, evaluating alcohol-related emergency interventions, or studying the health consequences of acute alcohol poisoning.

The main goal of this cluster is to advance the understanding of emergency medicine through robust experimental research designs. By assessing health disparities, differences in health status, and the efficacy of interventions, researchers contribute to the ongoing efforts to refine emergency medical practices and strategies. This cluster plays a pivotal role in shaping evidence-based approaches for diverse populations within emergency medicine contexts.

Cluster #2: review article

Cluster 2 is related to literature reviews, indicating that researchers at a certain stage focused on reviewing articles in the field of emergency language services. These reviews aimed to extract lessons learned and explore new research directions. The research within this cluster can be summarized into the following two aspects:

Clinical practices, diagnostic and treatment methods in the field of emergency medicine, and emergency medical systems and processes, are important research topics. For example, improving the analytical utility of clinical trial content by integrating data innovations to provide information for health disparity research (Cohen, Unangst ( 2018 )). Systematically reviewing the differences in the usage of patient portals among vulnerable populations, with the aim of increasing the impact of interventions that promote portal use or predict factors associated with usage disparities (Grossman et al., 2019 ).

Emergency management in disaster situations, along with psychological well-being in emergency situations, deserves investigation. For example, Almukhlifi et al. ( 2021 ) conducted a comprehensive review of the literature on the perceived preparedness of emergency healthcare personnel for disaster management. The review revealed that most emergency healthcare workers appear to lack sufficient disaster preparedness, and past experiences and training have improved preparedness efforts. Future research should focus on interventions to enhance the preparedness of emergency healthcare workers for disasters. North, Pfefferbaum ( 2013 ) reviewed and summarized the evidence on how to best identify individuals in need of disaster mental health services and classify them into appropriate care. The aim is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the field of emergency medicine by synthesizing existing research and provide evidence for emergency medicine practice and policy-making.

This cluster, characterized by literature reviews, plays a crucial role in consolidating existing knowledge in emergency language services. By delving into clinical practices, diagnostics, treatment methods, and the broader spectrum of emergency management, researchers contribute to the synthesis of evidence. The outcomes of these reviews aid in informing and shaping the landscape of emergency medicine practices, paving the way for improved policies and strategic interventions.

Cluster #3: emergency call

Cluster 3 labeled “emergency call” is highly relevant to the field of emergency telephone services. The research on emergency language services within this cluster can include the following three points:

Analysis of emergency call data is a crucial theme. This involves examining the content and patterns of emergency calls to identify common issues, improve response protocols, and enhance emergency communication strategies. Researchers may investigate the relationship between emergency telephone services and patient mortality rates. For example, Cabrita et al., ( 2004 ) conducted a study on the impact of emergency medical service calls on the management of acute myocardial infarction. The study concluded that patients with symptoms of myocardial infarction underutilized emergency medical service calls and documented the beneficial effects of emergency medical service calls in reducing prehospital delays and increasing early reperfusion therapy.

Emergency telephone services provide medical support for non-healthy patients, such as those with dementia and heart failure. Research in this area includes Voss et al., ( 2018 ) qualitatively exploring the nursing experience of emergency medical services (EMS) nursing staff in dementia patients through focus groups and interviews, evaluating EMS staff’s views on dementia management. Jung et al. ( 2022 ) employed a descriptive qualitative approach to investigate 911 calls for EMS in cases of heart failure. Their findings suggest that interventions are needed to assist heart failure patients and their families in communicating more effectively during emergencies.

Emergency call response and quality assurance deserve significant attention. This includes investigating the effectiveness and efficiency of emergency call response systems, evaluating the quality of emergency services provided over the phone, and identifying areas for improvement in terms of language support and cultural sensitivity. For example, Penverne et al. ( 2019 ) reported on a strategy to reduce waiting time for emergency calls at dispatch centers. Through their research, they found that connecting dispatch centers can improve their performance, especially during periods of overload. This enables the prompt handling of emergency calls and appropriate dispatching of emergency medical services.

This cluster serves as a focal point for enriching the understanding of emergency language services within the realm of emergency telephone services. By dissecting emergency call data, addressing the medical support needs of non-healthy patients, and scrutinizing the efficiency of emergency call response systems, researchers contribute to the enhancement of emergency services, ultimately ensuring more effective and culturally sensitive outcomes.

Cluster #4: COVID-19 crisis

Cluster 4, denoted as the “COVID-19 Crisis”, is inherently tied to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. During the COVID-19 crisis, researchers have explored the application of qualitative research methods in addressing the COVID-19 crisis. Qualitative research techniques mainly encompass the gathering and examination of data that is not expressed in numerical form, such as observations, interviews, and textual analysis. These methods aim to provide valuable insights into comprehending the COVID-19 crisis and evaluating response measures. Qualitative research in emergency language services can provide insights into various aspects of pandemic prevention and response measures (Wang et al., 2022 ), the involvement of social media in public health (Han et al., 2020 ), emergency online teaching (Adedoyin, Soykan ( 2023 )), and remote medical services (Reza Safdari et al., 2021 ).

Furthermore, qualitative research provides researchers with an opportunity to gain an in-depth understanding of emergency language services. This includes exploring the experiences of participants such as translators, staff of translation service agencies, and service users, as well as examining service quality and effectiveness, the roles and practices of service providers, cultural and cross-cultural communication, and other aspects. Such research contributes to the improvement and optimization of emergency language service practices and policies to meet diverse language needs during emergency situations. When conducting qualitative research on emergency language services, methods such as focus group interviews and text analysis are commonly employed. For instance, the use of focus group interviews can facilitate discussions within a community to understand the importance of their surrounding environment, existing resources, and assistance. This engagement of the public helps in building resilient communities to minimize the impact of disasters (Nirupama, Maula ( 2013 )). Regression text analysis, on the other hand, can be utilized to evaluate the quality and reliability of emergency language services and eliminate ambiguities in emergency response plans (Guo et al., 2020 ). These methods play a pivotal role in comprehending the diverse needs and challenges associated with emergency language services, ensuring accuracy, timeliness, and reliability in emergency situations. The insights garnered contribute not only to research advancements but also to the refinement of practices and policies in the broader landscape of emergency language services.

Cluster #5: pharmaceutical service

Cluster 5 is labeled “pharmaceutical service” and is highly relevant to pharmacy services in disaster and emergency situations. Additionally, researchers have also focused on the provision of pharmaceutical services within hospitals and issues related to healthcare inequalities. This may include studying the organization and management of pharmacy services within hospitals, the safety and efficiency of the pharmaceutical supply chain, and inequalities in accessing and utilizing pharmacy services among different populations. However, it is worth noting that the average year of research within this cluster is 1996, indicating that the studies related to pharmaceutical services in emergency language services are relatively earlier compared to other clusters.

Cluster #6: ethnic disparities

Cluster 6 is labeled “ethnic disparities”, and researchers focus on the differences among various ethnic groups in emergency language services, including variations in language needs, service access, and outcomes. Based on other keywords within the cluster, researchers also examine disparities among different ethnic groups in emergency language services related to stroke prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation, particularly in children. The aim is to improve the efficiency of treatment and rescue efforts and reduce the impact of diseases or disasters on physical health. For example, Flores, Ngui ( 2007 ) conducted a literature review to uncover several racial/ethnic disparities in pediatric patient safety and proposed a new conceptual model for understanding racial/ethnic disparities in patient safety. Lim et al. ( 2019 ) studied racial/ethnic disparities in the utilization of mental health services among Medicaid adults aged 21–64 in Hawaii. Hartford et al. ( 2022 ) explored differences in the treatment of pediatric migraines among different racial, ethnic, and language preference groups in the emergency department, highlighting another area where equity in emergency department patients must be improved.

Cluster #7: remote teaching

Cluster 7, denoted as “remote teaching”, primarily focuses on the realm of remote teaching in emergency situations, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers within this cluster may concentrate on strategies for emergency remote teaching, online learning tools, teaching effectiveness, and the experiences of both students and teachers. For instance, Latif, Alhamad ( 2023 ) conducted a study by surveying 112 Arabic and English as a foreign language teachers and conducting semi-structured interviews with 14 teachers. The research investigated the experiences and reflective beliefs of Saudi university language teachers in emergency remote teaching, with specific attention to: a) the general educational challenges faced by teachers and how they overcome these challenges, b) the perceived difficulties of remote teaching and assessing the foreign language domain and their coping strategies, and c) a reflective evaluation of remote language teaching after three semesters. Wang et al. ( 2022 ) explored the positive emotions and language enjoyment of Chinese language learners in the context of emergency remote teaching (ERT) during the COVID-19 pandemic, adopting a positive psychology perspective. Knežević et al. ( 2022 ) surveyed the teaching practices and experiences of foreign language teachers during the “lockdown period” in 2020, as well as their self-assessment of their digital technology application skills in teaching. The results indicated a lack of pedagogical knowledge and skills among foreign language teachers in utilizing the mentioned tools in teaching. Consequently, the authors called for more attention to digital technology teaching issues in foreign language methodology courses.

Cluster #8: emergency department visit

Cluster 8 “emergency department visit”, combined with other keywords in the cluster, indicates that this cluster may focus on applying techniques such as natural language processing, machine learning, deep learning, and nursing informatics to process and analyze data related to emergency department visits. For example, Doan et al. ( 2016 ) attempted to create and test the performance of the Natural Language Processing (NLP) tool KD-NLP to identify emergency department (ED) patients who should be considered for diagnosis as Kawasaki disease Lee et al. ( 2019 ) provide an overview of machine learning related to clinical and operational scenarios in emergency medicine.

Cluster #9: systematic review

Cluster 9 centers on research involving systematic reviews and meta-analyses of specific topics or issues. Systematic review is a research method designed to systematically collect, evaluate, and synthesize existing literature to answer specific research questions. Meta-analysis, on the other hand, is a statistical analysis method within systematic reviews that involves the reanalysis and synthesis of existing statistical data from studies on a particular topic.

Through systematic review and meta-analysis, researchers can synthesize and analyze a large amount of research evidence on emergency language services, thereby obtaining more comprehensive and reliable conclusions and providing support for decision-making, policy formulation, and further research. For example, Iqbal et al. ( 2021 ) evaluate the evidence of clinical outcomes of digital alert systems in remote monitoring through system reviews and meta-analyses and call for trials of different alert protocols to understand the best alerts to guide future widespread implementation. This will further promote the development of emergency language services.

This study conducted bibliometric and content analysis on 3814 items of literature retrieved from 1988 to 2023. Furthermore, it proposed several crucial research indicators, encompassing basic analyses of publication time and quantity, notable journals, primary research contributors (authors, countries, and institutions), disciplinary direction analysis, and co-occurrence clustering of keywords. Overall, the literature in the field of emergency language services research is constantly increasing, indicating that researchers’ interest in the field of emergency language services is gradually increasing.

Research trend

In addressing RQ 1: What is the current status of emergency language services research, and what progress has been made in recent years? Section “Publications output distribution” analyzes the current status and latest progress of research on emergency language services. The examination of published literature suggests a progressive rise in the number of research journals dedicated to emergency language services, indicating a growing trend toward diversification within the field. This phenomenon can be attributed to the fact that natural disasters and public health events impact countries worldwide to different extents, such as the Lushan earthquake in China in 2013 (Lu et al., 2014 ), the East Japan earthquake in 2011 (Onuma et al., 2017 ), the Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand and the Bangkok flood in Thailand (Noy, 2015 ), the novel coronavirus pandemic in 2019 (Wang et al., 2020 ) and the Ebola epidemic in West Africa in 2014–2016 (Agnihotri et al., 2021 ), Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf of Mexico in the United States (Kahn, Barondess ( 2008 )), etc. Faced with numerous natural disasters and sudden public health emergencies, scholars from various countries have gradually enhanced the significance of research on emergency language services. Nevertheless, the multidisciplinary nature of emergency language services and the wide range of disciplines involved have contributed to a diverse trajectory of development. This emphasis on the advancement of emergency language services from various fields has fostered a diversified overall direction of progress.

Research power

Section “Research power results” analyzes the distribution of core authors and national institutions in emergency language service research, addressing RQ 2: What is the distribution of core authors, journals, and institutions involved in emergency language services research? An examination of research influence reveals that countries such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia hold significant positions in publishing papers on emergency language services. Notably, the United States stands out with its dominant presence in terms of article output and centrality within the field. Institutions such as the University of Washington, Harvard Medical School, and the University of California, San Francisco, have a high research impact in the field of emergency language services. First, these countries have large populations, vast lands, and high rates of natural disasters and public health events. In this case, fast and accurate information transmission is crucial to ensure the safety of people’s lives and property. Modern technology provides a more powerful guarantee for emergency communication, effectively improves the efficiency of post-disaster emergency rescue work, and achieves good disaster reduction effects. These countries, owing to their robust economic and technological capabilities, as well as well-developed communication and information technology infrastructure, have shown a heightened focus on emergency management and response. Their ability to efficiently collect, process, and disseminate vast quantities of real-time emergency information enables them to effectively meet public demands and facilitate advancements in emergency language service research.

Research content

Section “Content analysis” mainly addresses RQ 3: What are the hotspots of emergency language services research, and what are the prospects for the field in the future? This part examines the multidisciplinary nature of emergency language services and explores the current research trends and focal areas within the field. By examining disciplinary categories, highly cited topics, and research directions, the disciplinary, theoretical bases of emergency language services mainly concentrate on emergency medicine, environmental science, public health and preventive medicine, computer science, educational science, and language and linguistics. However, the research focus varies across each field. The field of emergency medicine is more focused on optimizing the collaboration in emergency medicine research (Perry et al., 2021 ), language support in emergency medical facilities, medical translation, and interpretation services in emergency situations, etc. For example, it explores the application of mobile technology in medical interpretation (Ji, 2019 ). Environmental science mainly focuses on the language exchange of environmental information and risk communication in emergency events, language support for emergency environmental monitoring and data processing, etc. For example, in order to improve the efficiency of emergency rescue, the coal mine emergency rescue communication system based on a wireless mesh network and environmental monitoring subsystem is tested (Zhao, Yang ( 2018 )). The research focuses on the field of public health and preventive healthcare science may include health information dissemination and education in emergency situations, multilingual emergency warning systems, and cross-cultural adaptation of emergency medical resources. The field of computer science primarily focuses on researching machine translation, such as evaluating two specific automatic translation techniques to assess their potential impact on improving communication in emergency situations (Turner et al., 2019 ), applying natural language processing, speech recognition, and intelligent language services. For example, the development of speech recognition technology in emergency calls (Valizada et al., 2021 ) provides online language support and emergency language services for medical translation services. The field of educational science focuses on training medical translators and interpreters, conducting cross-cultural communication, and education in emergency situations.

In terms of keyword clustering analysis, this paper elaborates on the three stages of emergency language service development to better understand its research progress. Firstly, during the exploration period, focus on emergency departments, communication, and language barriers. How should medical staff effectively communicate with patients in the emergency department when facing situations such as non-native language communication, hearing or speaking difficulties, or cultural differences between doctors and patients.

Secondly, during the stable development period, attention should be paid to natural language processing, language barriers in emergency medicine, and a systematic review of previous research. By conducting a systematic review of previous research, researchers can gain a comprehensive understanding of the current situation and development trends in the field of emergency language services, identify knowledge gaps and research challenges, and propose new research questions and directions to promote further development in the field of emergency language services. Moreover, with the continuous development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, researchers have begun to combine some AI technologies, such as natural language processing technology, with emergency language services, to apply in emergency rescue and emergency medical care, to improve the efficiency and accuracy of language barrier handling, and make up for the shortcomings of human translation and interpretation.

Finally, during the rapid development period, attention should be paid to research on emergency language services, remote education, and medical services, as well as the application of social media during the COVID-19 pandemic. The outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic has had a significant impact on the world. During COVID-19, emergency services such as distance learning and telemedicine developed rapidly. At the same time, social media plays an important role in information dissemination and crisis notification, multilingual support and translation services, and strengthening community cooperation. For example, Twitter is widely used in emergency situations to issue real-time emergency notifications and alerts. Many government agencies and emergency management departments use Twitter to release key information to the public, including disaster alerts, evacuation guidelines, safety tips, etc. This rapid and extensive dissemination of information helps people to promptly understand emergency situations and take appropriate action.

Emergency language services domain research shortcomings

To facilitate the disciplinary development of emergency language services research, this article presents a comprehensive synthesis of research findings and methodologies, with the goal of identifying the current limitations and shortcomings within the field.

Firstly, the analysis conducted in this paper highlights the interdisciplinary nature of emergency language services as a research field. Given the interdisciplinary nature of the subject matter, it is crucial to emphasize the comprehensive development process within this field. In the face of interdisciplinary content, it is needed to pay attention to its comprehensive development process. Currently, due to variations in disciplinary nature, there is often a tendency to overlook the holistic management of emergency information resources or the cross-disciplinary sharing of practical cases. For example, computer science can apply natural language processing technology to medical education (Chary et al., 2019 ), which can advance potential future work in the field of emergency medical education. However, the applicability of research results of these interdisciplinary theories in innovation still needs to be further increased.

Secondly, natural disasters and public health incidents often occur suddenly, and emergency rescue is extremely urgent. Therefore, the provision of emergency language services is also very urgent. Although current emergency translation technology and interpreters have made significant contributions to emergency language services, there are also significant limitations. For example, in remote areas lacking professional interpreters and basic communication facilities, hiring nonnonprofessional interpreters such as hospital employees and family members may bring great risks and cause serious medical accidents (Kletečka-Pulker et al., 2021 ). Therefore, it is necessary to further study the technological progress and practical application of emergency language services, and cultivate more professional interpreters.

Finally, the article focuses on the research focus of the three stages of emergency language services. At present, there are many applications of intelligent technologies related to emergency language services, such as natural language processing technology in emergency departments, the use of video interpretation systems during emergency rescue, and AI translation software. However, further exploration is needed to explore the differences, advantages, and disadvantages of various AI technologies in different application scenarios, and there is a lack of relevant literature. Besides, given the increasing use of AI in emergency language services, it is essential to consider the ethical implications of these technologies. Moral considerations arise, such as whether to use AI over live interpreters when cost-saving could compromise the quality of communication and patient care. The disparity in access to interpreters based on language prevalence raises equity concerns, particularly for less common languages like Karen. Rigorous testing is needed to validate the effectiveness of AI solutions for rare languages in real-world emergency scenarios to ensure they do not perpetuate disparities and meet ethical standards. Despite the challenges, the ongoing advancement of knowledge and technology will give rise to novel theories and technologies that can effectively address practical applications.

Prospects for emergency language services

To address the identified shortcomings, three targeted recommendations are proposed:

Firstly, emergency language services have interdisciplinary nature, therefore, it is necessary to strengthen cooperation and knowledge sharing between different disciplinary fields. Encourage experts in computer science, medicine, linguistics, and other fields to conduct collaborative research, promote the cross-application of technology and theory, and promote the comprehensive development of emergency language services.

Secondly, cultivate more professional interpreters and translation experts to meet the emergency needs of various situations. In addition, the efficiency and accuracy of emergency translation technology should be further improved to address translation errors caused by equipment issues.

Finally, it is necessary to explore the advantages and limitations of intelligent technology in different application scenarios, evaluate the applicability of different intelligent technologies in emergency language services, and select the most suitable technical solution based on specific circumstances. Simultaneously, active development of emergency language service technologies should be pursued, exploring the applications of technologies such as speech recognition, machine translation, and real-time video communication in emergency response.

Potential areas for future research on emergency language services

In outlining future research directions for emergency language services, this study identifies three key potential areas.

Firstly, the frequent occurrence of natural disasters has highlighted the increasing demand for emergency language services. At present, there are existing deficiencies in emergency rescue auxiliary equipment, and emerging technologies have the potential to provide essential assistance in addressing various challenges encountered during emergency rescue operations. As an example, within the healthcare domain, the application of AI algorithms and natural language processing techniques can play a critical role in identifying syncope patients within medical records of emergency departments (Dipaola et al., 2019 ). Further exploration by researchers is needed to determine how to effectively apply these state-of-the-art technologies to the field of emergency language services.

Secondly, it has been proven that social media platforms are effective in collecting information during emergencies caused by natural or man-made disasters (Khatoon et al., 2021 ). In the event of an emergency, emergency response managers need to respond quickly and handle the victim’s request for help. Citizens will use Internet social media to quickly disseminate information about the development of events, but for emergency response managers, it is difficult to select the most relevant information from a large number of data (Overbey et al., 2015 ). Therefore, it is crucial to study the application of straightforward natural language processing techniques to extract location information from social media networks and search for event-related messages. This research can greatly assist emergency response managers in making timely and accurate decisions (Nieuwenhuijse et al., 2016 ). For instance, by studying and comparing various machine learning models for the correlation classification of flood-related tweets, it becomes clear which machine learning-based method is most suitable for the correlation classification of flood-related tweets. This can assist emergency rescue personnel in identifying more effective disaster management information (Blomeier et al., 2024 ). In addition, text analysis techniques, machine learning (ML), and deep learning (DL) techniques can also be applied to automatically filter and analyze social media data in order to extract real-time information about key events and promote emergency response in crises (Khatoon et al., 2021 ).

Lastly, language models are assuming a progressively significant role in the domain of emergency language services. The current language models include acoustic and language models for automatic speech recognition, neural network language models, and multilingual speech recognition systems, which are widely used in medical emergencies and emergency rescue. For example, because of its advanced natural language processing capabilities, ChatGPT has become a tool that continues to evolve and advance in the ability to assist healthcare information. The study evaluated the accuracy of ChatGPT-3.5 and ChatGPT-4 models in solving queries related to CRRT alarm troubleshooting (Sheikh et al., 2024 ). Ungureanu et al. ( 2023 ) explore the use of automatic speech recognition models to enhance Romanian emergency services and reduce their response times. Future speech models will also have more breakthroughs and developments in the field of emergency language services.

Conclusions

This article conducts a comprehensive analysis of 3814 papers published between 1988 and 2023 on emergency language services using CiteSpace. The analysis aims to shed light on the research progress and future directions in this field. Analysis shows that there is an increasing number of published literature on emergency language services, and researchers are increasingly interested in researching emergency language services. The sources of disciplinary theory for emergency language services mainly concentrate on emergency medicine, environmental science, public health and preventive medicine, computer science, educational science, and language and linguistics. The findings of keyword clustering analysis demonstrate that current research in emergency language services leverages emerging technologies, such as natural language processing, language modeling, and machine learning. These technologies are utilized to expedite emergency response time and improve the quality of emergency services. In addition, there are also methods such as telemedicine and remote teaching to address emergency situations. Other cutting-edge areas include the adaptation and development of interdisciplinary methods for emergency language services, as well as the analysis of the important role of social media in the field of emergency language services.

Future research in emergency language services should focus on addressing pivotal issues related to research frameworks, fostering interdisciplinary and comprehensive development, and comprehending significant advancements in emerging technologies within the field. Of particular importance is the vast potential offered by social media and AI in supporting emergency language services.

This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the scope of emergency language services for research purposes. Nonetheless, it is important to acknowledge certain limitations. Specifically, this paper predominantly relies on the WoS core database and does not encompass other significant databases like Scopus and PubMed. In addition, this study is limited to the analysis of English papers and does not cover literature in other languages. Due to language limitations, this study may not be able to obtain or analyze relevant research results in other language contexts. Future research can consider expanding the language scope to include literature in more languages, to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the development and trends in the field of emergency language services.

Data availability

Data sharing is not applicable to this article, as no datasets were generated during the current study, which is based on bibliometric information from published articles in the Web of Science.

Adedoyin OB, Soykan E (2023) Covid-19 pandemic and online learning: the challenges and opportunities. Inter Learn Env 31:863–875. https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2020.1813180

Article   Google Scholar  

Agnihotri S, Alpren C, Bangura B et al. (2021) Building the Sierra Leone Ebola Database: organization and characteristics of data systematically collected during 2014–2015 Ebola epidemic. Ann Epidemiol 60:35–44. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annepidem.2021.04.017

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Almukhlifi Y, Crowfoot G, Wilson A, Hutton A (2021) Emergency healthcare workers’ preparedness for disaster management: An integrative review. J Clin Nurs https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.15965

Berchtold C, Vollmer M, Sendrowski P et al. (2020) Barriers and facilitators in interorganizational disaster response: identifying examples across Europe. Int J Disast Risk Sci 11:46–58. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13753-020-00249-y

Betancourt JR, Weissman JS, Kim MK et al. (2007) Resident physicians’ preparedness to provide cross-cultural care: implications for clinical care and medical education policy. The commonwealth fund

Blomeier E, Schmidt S, Resch B (2024) Drowning in the information flood: machine-learning-based relevance classification of flood-related tweets for disaster management. Information 15:149. https://doi.org/10.3390/info15030149

Broitman J, Davis JM (eds.) (2013) Treating NVLD in children: professional collaborations for positive outcomes. Springer, New York

Cabrita B, Bouyer-Dalloz F, L’Huillier I, Dentan G et al. (2004) Beneficial effects of direct call to. emergency medical services in acute myocardial infarction. Eur J Emerg Med 11:12–18. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.mej.0000115810.43489.91

Cegala DJ, Post DM (2006) On addressing racial and ethnic health disparities: the potential role of patient communication skills interventions. Am Behav Sci 49:853–867. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764205283805

Chang E, Davis TL, Berkman ND (2023) Differences in telemedicine, emergency department, and hospital utilization among nonelderly adults with limited English proficiency post-COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional analysis. J Gen Intern Med 38:3490–3498. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-023-08353-7

Article   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Chary M, Parikh S, Manini AF et al. (2019) A review of natural language processing in medical education. West J Emerg Med 20:78–86. https://doi.org/10.5811/westjem.2018.11.39725

Cheng Q, Zhang S (2023) Research status and evolution trends of emergency information resource management: based on bibliometric analysis from 2003 to 2022. Int J Disast Risk Reduct 97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2023.104053

Ciavolino E, Aria M, Cheah JH, Roldán JL (2022) A tale of PLS structural equation modelling: episode I—a bibliometrix citation analysis. Soc Indic Res 164:1323–1348. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-022-02994-7

Cohen SB, Unangst J (2018) Data integration innovations to enhance analytic utility of clinical trial content to inform health disparities research. Front Oncol 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fonc.2018.00365

Dipaola F, Gatti M, Pacetti V et al. (2019) Artificial intelligence algorithms and natural language processing for the recognition of syncope patients on emergency department medical records. J Clin Med 8. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm8101677

Doan S, Maehara CK, Chaparro JD et al. (2016) Building a natural language processing tool to identify patients with high clinical suspicion for Kawasaki disease from emergency department notes. Acade Emerg Med 23:628–636. https://doi.org/10.1111/acem.12925

Doty AM, Rising KL, Hsiao TA et al. (2022) Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer for you”: how resident physicians communicate diagnostic uncertainty to patients during emergency department discharge. Patient Educ Couns 105:2053–2057. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2021.12.002

Fang C, Zhang J, Qiu W (2017) Online classified advertising: a review and bibliometric analysis. Scientometrics 113:1481–1511. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2524-6

Flores G, Ngui E (2007) Racial/ethnic disparities and patient safety. Pediatr Clin N Am 53:1197–1215. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pcl.2006.09.003

Goode EJ, Thomas E, Landeg O et al. (2021) Development of a rapid risk and impact assessment tool to enhance response to environmental emergencies in the early stages of a disaster: a tool developed by the European Multiple Environmental Threats Emergency NETwork (EMETNET) project. Int J Disast Risk Reduct 12:528–539. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13753-021-00352-8

Grossman LV, Masterson Creber RM, Benda NC et al. (2019) Interventions to increase patient portal use in vulnerable populations: A systematic review. J Am Med Inf Assn 26:855–870. https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocz023

Guo W, Zeng Q, Duan H et al. (2020) Text quality analysis of emergency response plans. IEEE Access 8:9441–9456. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2020.2964710

Guo YM, Huang ZL, Guo J et al. (2021) A bibliometric analysis and visualization of blockchain. Fut Gener Comput Syst 116:316–332. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.future.2020.10.023

Han X, Wang J, Zhang M, Wang X (2020) Using social media to mine and analyze public opinion related to COVID-19 in China. Int J Env Res Public Health 17:1–22. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17082788

Article   CAS   Google Scholar  

Hartford EA, Blume H, Barry D et al. (2022) Disparities in the emergency department management of pediatric migraine by race, ethnicity, and language preference. Acad Emerg Med 29:1057–1066. https://doi.org/10.1111/acem.14550

Hendry PL, Zima G, Wylie T et al. (2012) Improving emergency medicine resident and pediatric emergency medicine fellow knowledge of language barriers in the emergency department setting. Ann Emerg Med 60:S181–S182. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annemergmed.2012.07.081

Iqbal FM, Lam K, Joshi M, Khan S et al. (2021) Clinical outcomes of digital sensor alerting systems in remote monitoring: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Npj Digit Med https://doi.org/10.1016/10.1038/s41746-020-00378-0

Ji X (2019) Utility of mobile technology in medical interpretation: a literature review of current practices. Patient Edu Couns https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2021.02.019

Jiang X, Nam BH, Tian X, Jin H (2023) How to cope with emergency remote teaching for university academics: the case of a high-profile language university in China. SAGE Open 13. https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440231158026

Jung M, Hays LM, Pang PS et al. (2022) 911 Calls for emergency medical services in heart failure: a descriptive qualitative study. J Cardiovasc Nurs 37:418–426. https://doi.org/10.1097/JCN.0000000000000861

Kahn LH, Barondess JA (2008) Preparing for disaster: response matrices in the USA and UK. J Urban Health 85:910–922. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-008-9310-y

Khatoon S, Alshamari MA, Asif A et al. (2021) Development of social media analytics system for emergency event detection and crisis management. Comptu Mater Contin 68:3080–3100. https://doi.org/10.32604/cmc.2021.017371

Kletečka-Pulker M, Parrag S, Doppler K et al. (2021) Enhancing patient safety through the quality assured use of a low-tech video interpreting system to overcome language barriers in healthcare settings. Wien Klin Wochenschr 133:610–619. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00508-020-01806-7

Knežević Željka, Šenjug Krleža Ana, Ivančan Monika (2022) Teaching English and German language in primary school during the COVID-19 pandemic—implications for foreign language teaching methodology. Croat J Educ 24:719–752. https://doi.org/10.15516/cje.v24i3.4677

Latif MMMA, Alhamad MM (2023) Emergency remote teaching of foreign languages at saudi universities: teachers’ reported challenges, coping strategies and training needs. Edu Inf Technol 28:1–26. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-022-11512-8

Lee S, Mohr NM, Street WN et al. (2019) Machine learning in relation to emergency medicine clinical and operational scenarios: an overview. West J Emerg Med 20:219–227. https://doi.org/10.5811/westjem.2019.1.41244

Li J, Goerlandt F, Reniers G et al. (2022) Chinese international process safety research: collaborations, research trends, and intellectual basis. J Loss Prevent Proc 74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jlp.2021.104657

Li J, Goerlandt F, Reniers G, Zhang B (2020) Sam Mannan and his scientific publications: a life in process safety research. J Loss Prev Proc 66:104140. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jlp.2020.104140

Lim E, Gandhi K, Siriwardhana C et al. (2019) Racial and ethnic differences in mental health service utilization among the Hawaii medicaid population. J Ment Health 28:536–545. https://doi.org/10.1080/09638237.2018.1521917

Liu Z, Yin Y, Liu W, Dunford M (2015) Visualizing the intellectual structure and evolution of innovation systems research: a bibliometric analysis. Scientometrics 103:135–158. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-014-1517-y

Lu Y, Xu J (2014) The progress of emergency response and rescue in China: a comparative analysis of Wenchuan and Lushan earthquakes. Nat Hazards 74:421–444. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-014-1191-7

Manson A (1988) Language concordance as a determinant of patient compliance and emergency room use in patients with asthma. Med Care 26:1119–1128. https://doi.org/10.1097/00005650-198812000-00003

Article   PubMed   CAS   Google Scholar  

Markakis EK, Politis I, Lykourgiotis A et al. (2017) Efficient next generation emergency communications over multi-access edge computing. IEEE Commun Mag 55:92–97. https://doi.org/10.1109/MCOM.2017.1700345

Morimura N, Ishikawa J, Kitsuta Y et al. (2005) An analysis of spoken language expression during simulated emergency call triage. Eur J Emerg Med https://doi.org/10.1097/00063110-200504000-00006

Nieuwenhuijse A, Bakker J, Pechenizkiy M (2016) Finding incident-related social media messages for emergency awareness. In: Berendt B, Bringmann B, Fromont É, et al. (eds) Machine learning and knowledge discovery in databases. Springer International Publishing, Cham, 67–70

Nirupama N, Maula A (2013) Engaging public for building resilient communities to reduce disaster impact. Nat Hazards 66:51–59. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-011-0045-9

North CS, Pfefferbaum B (2013) Mental health response to community disasters: a systematic review. J Am Med Assoc 310:507–518. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2013.107799

Noy I (2015) Comparing the direct human impact of natural disasters for two cases in 2011: the Christchurch earthquake and the Bangkok flood. Int J Disast Risk Reduct 13:61–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2015.03.009

Onuma H, Shin KJ, Managi S (2017) Household preparedness for natural disasters: Impact of disaster experience and implications for future disaster risks in Japan. Int J Disast Risk Reduct 21:148–158. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2016.11.004

Overbey LA, Williams B, Batson SC et al. (2015) Identifying Firsthand accounts of emergencies from social media. In: 2015 IEEE International Symposium on Technologies for Homeland Security (HST). https://doi.org/10.1109/THS.2015.7225319

Penverne Y, Terré M, Javaudin F et al. (2019) Connect dispatch centers for call handling improves performance. Scand J Trauma Resusc Emerg Med 27:1–2. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13049-019-0601-y

Perry JJ, Vaillancourt C, Hohl CM et al. (2021) Optimizing collaborative relationships in emergency medicine research. Can J Emerg Med 23:291–296. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43678-020-00080-w

Press VG, Pappalardo AA, Conwell WD et al. (2012) Interventions to improve outcomes for minority adults with asthma: a systematic review. J Gen Intern Med 27:1001–1015. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-012-2058-9

R Safdari, M Gholamzadeh, S Rezayi, M Tanhapour (2021) Telehealth and Telemedicine in response to selected critical coronavirus: a systematic review. Iran Red Crescent Med J https://doi.org/10.32592/ircmj.2021.23.9.1150

Ruminski J (2008) Telemedicine methods for low bit rate communication. In 2008 1st International Conference on Information Technology. IEEE, Gdansk, 1–4

Samra S, Taira BR, Pinheiro E et al. (2019) Undocumented patients in the emergency department: challenges and opportunities. West J Emerg Med 20:791–798. https://doi.org/10.5811/westjem.2019.7.41489

Shao M, Song Y, Teng C, Zhang Z (2018) Algorithms and simulation of multi-level and multi-coverage on cross-reginal emergency facilities. Wirel Pers Commun 102:3663–3676. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-018-5399-9

Sheikh MS, Thongprayoon C, Qureshi F et al. (2024) Personalized medicine transformed: ChatGPT’s contribution to continuous renal replacement therapy alarm management in intensive care units. J Pers Med 14:233. https://doi.org/10.3390/jpm14030233

Starlander M, Bouillon P, Rayner M et al. (2005) Breaking the language barrier: machine assisted diagnosis using the medical speech translator. Connecting Med Inform Bio-Inform 116:811–816

Google Scholar  

St-Maurice J, Kuo MH (2012) Analyzing primary care data to characterize inappropriate emergency room use. Stud Health Technol Inf 180:990–994. https://doi.org/10.3233/978-1-61499-101-4-990

Sterling NW, Brann F, Patzer RE et al. (2020) Prediction of emergency department resource requirements during triage: An application of current natural language processing techniques. JACEP Open 1:1676–1683. https://doi.org/10.1002/emp2.12253

Turner AM, Choi YK, Dew K et al. (2019) Evaluating the usefulness of translation technologies for emergency response communication: a scenario-based study. JMIR Public Hlth Sur 5. https://doi.org/10.2196/11171

Ungureanu D, Toma SA, Filip ID et al. (2023) ODIN112—AI-Assisted emergency services in Romania. Appl Sci (Switz) 13. https://doi.org/10.3390/app13010639

Vaca FE, Dziura J, Abujarad F et al. (2020) Trial study design to test a bilingual digital health tool for alcohol use disorders among Latino emergency department patients. Contemp Clin Trials 97:106128. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cct.2020.106128

Valizada A, Akhundova N, Rustamov S (2021) Development of speech recognition systems in emergency call centers. Symmetry 13:1–17. https://doi.org/10.3390/sym13040634

Voss S, Brandling J, Black S, Cheston R et al. (2018) Carer and clinician perceptions of the use of emergency medical services by people with dementia: a qualitative study. Prim Health Care Res 20:1–4. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1463423618000191

Wang C, Zhang H, Gao Y, Deng Q (2022) Comparative study of government response measures and epidemic trends for COVID-19 global pandemic. Risk Anal 42:40–55. https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.13817

Wang J, Jing R, Lai X et al. (2020) Acceptance of COVID-19 vaccination during the covid-19 pandemic in China. Vaccines 8:1–14. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines8030482

Wang L, Ren J, Sun J et al. (2020) Concept, developments, system, and mechanism construction of emergency language services. J Beijing Int Stud Univ 42:21–30

Wang X, Fang Z, Sun X (2016) Usage patterns of scholarly articles on Web of Science: a study on Web of Science usage count. Scientometrics 109:917–926. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-016-2093-0

Wang Y (2021) Multiperiod optimal allocation of emergency resources in support of cross-regional disaster sustainable rescue. Int J Disaster Risk Sci 12:394–409. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13753-021-00347-5

Yang W, Zhang J, Ma R (2020) The prediction of infectious diseases: a bibliometric analysis. Int J Env Res Public Health 17:1–19. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17176218

Yu D, Xu Z, Wang X (2020) Bibliometric analysis of support vector machines research trend: a case study in China. Int J Mach Learn Cybern 11:715–728. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13042-019-01028-y

Zhao H, Yang W (2018) An emergency rescue communication system and environmental monitoring subsystem for underground coal mine based on wireless mesh network. Int J Distrib Sens Netw 14:1–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/1550147718805935

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

College of Foreign Languages, Shanghai Maritime University, 1550 Haigang Ave, Shanghai, 201306, P. R. China

Xingrong Guo & Di Xiao

School of Economics and Management, Shanghai Maritime University, 1550 Haigang Ave, Shanghai, 201306, P. R. China

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

All authors contributed to the writing and revision of the paper. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xingrong Guo .

Ethics declarations

Competing interests.

The authors declare no competing interests.

Ethical approval

Ethical approval was not required as the study did not involve human participants.

Informed consent

This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Guo, X., Xiao, D. & Guo, Y. From crisis to opportunity: advancements in emergency language services. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 11 , 1170 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03698-8

Download citation

Received : 08 May 2024

Accepted : 30 August 2024

Published : 10 September 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03698-8

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

News | Crime

Man from west London guilty of encouraging terrorism in anti-vax social media posts during covid pandemic

Get our award-winning daily news email featuring exclusive stories, opinion and expert analysis

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice .

An anti-vaxxer who called for a wave of terror against the government during the covid pandemic has been convicted.

Patrick Ruane, 55, from west London, was found guilty at the Old Bailey of two counts of encouragement of terrorism .

He was charged after an investigation by the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command.

Ruane had encouraged others to carry out violent attacks in response to the government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic using social media to spread his message, the court heard.

He is due to be sentenced at the same court on 8 November.

Officers arrested Ruane in November 2021 at his flat in west London, where they also seized a number of electronic devices. The devices were analysed by specialist officers and they found that he had posted in various groups which were against the government policies in relation to Covid-19 and the vaccination rollout.

Officers identified that amongst his posts were a large number of messages where Ruane had actively encouraged people to commit acts of violence.

Detectives found posts where he was encouraging others to target staff linked to pharmaceutical companies producing the Covid-19 vaccinations. Ruane also posted about targeting MPs and police, as well as bombing vaccine laboratories and 5G infrastructure.

Acting Commander Gareth Rees, from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command said after Ruane was found guilty on Friday: “Our investigation found large numbers of posts by Ruane where he was encouraging others to carry out extremely violent acts, all because he didn’t like the government’s response to the pandemic. This wasn’t idle chit-chat online – he was encouraging people to seriously injure or kill others, suggesting who to target.

“This case should serve as a warning that if you’re encouraging people to commit acts of terrorism, then we will investigate. Where we find evidence of this, then there are very serious consequences, something that Ruane is now facing.”

Bethan David, Head of Counter Terrorism Division, at the Crown Prosecution Service added: “This is a dangerous man who was prolific in encouraging violence because of his firmly held beliefs in a conspiracy theory.

Covid conspiracy theorist guilty of terrorism after calls for vaccine violence

Keir Starmer vows to build NHS 'fit for the future' after damning report

Corruption 'red flags' on £15bn Covid contracts as inquiry returns

Anti-vaxxer on terror charges 'called for attacks on nurses and teachers'

“During a time when the nation was suffering a devastating pandemic and many lost loved ones, Patrick Ruane was using Telegram to spread false and damaging information and encourage violence and terrorism.

“He posed a credible threat to the peace and safety of the public, and it is only right that he has been found guilty. The CPS will always seek to prosecute such appalling criminal behaviour whether carried out in person or online to keep the public safe.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in