Every day around 28 million Mexicans connect to Internet, 9 out of every 10 users have an account in Facebook and 6 out of 10 have Twitter accounts (AMIPCI, 2014). Despite this progress, the digital divide between those who have Internet access and those who doesn’t (51 million) (AMIPCI 2014) begins to define their educational possibilities, employment alternatives and professionalization.

Researchers such as Bauerlein (2009) and Nicholas Carr (2011) believe that the use of Internet and social networks is damaging students and making them slower in their thinking and less active in their mental processes because of spending too many hours "being programmed" through the social platforms and the Google oracle.

These concerns increased our interest and we started this research, asking the following questions: How much impact do social networks have on college education? Are these statements from researchers and journalists real? Does the Mexican case have the same characteristics as the rest of the world? Particularly, for this research, we studied the question: How do High Education Students of Business and Informatics use social networks to improve communication and exchange knowledge?

We decided to implement an exploratory study in 2010 among our students at the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico that would generate some ideas and allow us to assess our measuring instrument for such a new phenomenon as the use of OSN among students. Later, we repeated the study in 2012. We added some questions and new observations to the instrument as a result of the previously acquired experience. This article only shows the comparison between some questions asked in the first survey and the last measurement.

This article is divided into five sections. The first one is an introduction to the context and the described issue; the second section reviews the related literature to the topic of communication among students using social networks; the third section describes our methodology when analyzing students in the years 2010 and 2012; the fourth section shows the findings; and the fifth and last one shows some conclusions and future research lines.

Literature Review

The purpose of this literature review is to explore the main research on three areas: 1. College students and their use of online social networks; 2. Online social networks and its use in education; and 3. Previous research about Twitter and Facebook platforms related to college students and OSN.

1. College students and their use of online social networks

Under the educational approach of the electronic social networks, Richardson & Hessey (2009) started interviewing 11,000 teenagers in USA in order to understand this "network" generation and discovered new ways of thinking, interacting, working and socializing. Their work reveals how this new generation processes information and is committed to establish joint actions. This is a pioneering work that illustrates how the use of different social networks and platforms is interrelated.

In another similar study, 700 teenagers in public schools were analyzed, trying to foresee whether social inequality, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, self-esteem, etc., had an impact on how they behave online using social networks such as Facebook and MySpace. The results indicated that there was a digital divide according to the criteria of social inequality offline - or physical - in contrast to the activity using social networks (J. Ahn, 2011). Following this line of research, Bauerlein's book (2011) contains a number of texts, essays and research related to the digital divide against the use of Facebook, Google and text messages, where several authors, as well as the same Tapscott analyzes the challenges and difficulties of accessing these new technologies under the gaze of adolescents.

Other researches have focused more on general issues such as the use of social networks and their impact on learning (Greenhow, 2011) or focused on getting to understand issues such as trust (Jessen & Jørgensen, 2011); acceptance in the use of these new technologies (Pinho & Soares, 2011) and their use by socio-demographic variables (Ruleman, 2012) or ethnographic studies (Murthy, 2013).

An interesting research by Rajagopal, Brinke, Bruggen, & Sloep (2011) presents a model for creating a personal learning network, using social networks as a result of a series of semi-structured interviews with both professionals and university students.

Ahn's research (2011) analyzes a data set of 701 U.S. teenagers (ages 12-18) that merges an online survey of social network site (SNS) preferences with administrative records from their public school districts. She examines offline divides across gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, self-esteem and social capital predicting teenagers’ membership to Facebook and MySpace. Her findings offer two main contributions by providing an analysis of: (a) teenage SNS users, a population that is less examined in the research literature of online communities; and, (b) the relationship between their off-line characteristics and online social networks.

On the other hand, Theocharis (2012) studied the role of a variety of online tools and methods that were used to coordinate and mobilize young people after the UK riots. The study revealed the extensive use of old and new online platforms and hardware, and the constant blending of offline and online repertoires of participation. Fardoun, Zafar, & Ciprés (2013) analyzed features and differences between Facebook and Learning Management System (LMS) in educational activities.

Burkell, Fortier, Wong, & Simpson (2014) focused their research on Facebook as a public or private space. They found that online social spaces are indeed local spaces of public display rather than a private revelation: online profiles are structured with the view that ‘everyone’ can see them, even if the explicitly intended audience is more limited. These social norms are inconsistent with the claim that social media are private spaces.

A complete research from Nicolle Merrill (2011) shows how social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter are increasingly being integrated into recruiting and outreach activities throughout US universities. Using an exploratory online survey, distributed through online social networks, the author gathers data about the use of social media in international higher education, recruiting and outside activities, gaining insight into the norms, rules and workings of social networking communities. Her findings pointed to new methods for understanding the evolution of higher education communications for researchers and university staff alike.

This study presents and tests new methods for conducting research in higher education communications. The author presents digital ethnography as a relevant methodological approach for researching and understanding online communities in higher education. The exploratory survey sought information about which social media tools were being used by university staff, the perceived benefits and drawbacks of social media use in international recruiting and outreach activities, and how universities measured social media for international recruiting purposes using a digital ethnographic approach.

2. Online Social Networks and Education

Online social networks research has to be divided into two different moments: before and after Internet. The first stage – before Internet – shows that social networks started to be studied since the XVIII century and that its conceptualization comes from Durkheim and Ferdinand Tonnies. Afterwards, in the XIX century, it was Simmel – according to Freeman (2004) – who used the concept “social networks” for the first time. From that time on, many schools were devoted to investigate the impact of social networks in organizations, businesses, schools and social movements (Freeman, 2004).

The second stage began when social networks started to use technology and they are now called Online Social Networks (OSN) Haythornthwaite (2005). This is the result of an evolutionary process of social organization in which groups of individuals are connected to coordinate and act together.

Research about online social networks has experienced a boom during the last decade. Katz, Lazer, Arrow, & Contractor (2004) were the first ones to analyze the network theory and social groups with the use of technology. Kavanaugh et al. (2006) analyzed one of the first blogging tools to exchange information, solve problems and interact with groups. Their analysis of opinion-leaders’ is one of the first serious studies on the impact of these new tools and their interaction with citizens.

One of the preliminary researches on privacy in OSN was made by Krishnamurthy & Wills (2008). This field has become tremendously important nowadays. Following this topic of research, Marwick & boyd (2014) studied about teenagers and privacy. They argue that the dynamics of sites such as Facebook have forced teens to alter their conceptions of privacy to account for the networked nature of social media. From this perspective, these scholars developed a model of networked privacy to explain how privacy is achieved in networked publics.

Chung & Chatfield (2011) examines the role of online social network structure as a mechanism for facilitating collaborative civic engagement. Indrupati & Henari's research (2012) focuses on entrepreneurial success using OSN. They found that social networking is a cheap and easy method of advertising and giving all entrepreneurs a better chance of reaching their target market. Another online social network research is business impact. For example, Swamynathan, Wilson, Boe, Almeroth, & Zhao (2008) has been researching about e-commerce impact and social media with data from 400,000 overstock users.

3. Twitter, Facebook & College Students

There are several scholars that have been studying social media in education. Junco (2008) analyzed the introduction of technologies for college students; Lampe, Ellison, & Steinfield (2006) analyzed students using Facebook. Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe (2007) demonstrated the benefits of Facebook through social capital. Another example comes from Isacsson & Gretzel (2011) who presented the idea that a platform has to be an entertaining educator in order to attract students’ attention and to transmit knowledge. Loving & Ochoa (2011) gave another approach about using the platform as a tool to manage a course while encouraging greater interaction between students and teachers. In this sense, Aharony (2012, 2013) performed studies in Israel on th©e impact of Facebook being used in libraries and how it influenced students’ perception, personalities, self-esteem and interaction features.

A very recent study showed changes in the preferences of international students compared to "local" students. They were analyzed through Facebook and showed differences in both, collaboration and teamwork (Saw, Abbott, Donaghey, & McDonald, 2013). Another similar study found that different levels of Facebook use - more or less use - was linked to various school-related attitudes. For example, a greater use was associated to a negative attitude in school and this had a greater impact among women (Koles & Nagy, 2012).

One of the few theoretical models for analyzing the impact of Facebook on students is the one developed by Koroleva, Brecht, Goebel, & Malinova (2011), which needs to be tested with more students, because they only worked with a small sample of less than 10 students. This model can become an important tool to study the impact.

There are different studies regarding Facebook. Some are less related to education as highlighted by Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe (2007) who compared the "social search" and the "social navigation of the network"; or Hargittai's investigations (2007) on non-social network users as a public space and its impact on privacy (Boyd & Hargittai, 2010). Also, the use of Facebook as a promoter of negative groups has also been studied by Oboler (2008).

(Wang, Niiya, Mark, Reich, & Warschauer, 2015) conducted a mixed-method study of computer and phone logging with daily surveys and interviews to track college students' use of social media during all waking hours during seven days. They found age differences: younger students tend to be heavier users and they use different sites more often than Facebook. Their results suggest that students construct their own patterns of social media usage to meet their changing needs in their environment. Also there are very few studies which look into the effect of gender on the use of SNS in education (Teoh et al., 2014).

However, guidelines and policies describing the institutions' strategy and expectations for the use of social media are being utilized at a much lower rate than the use of social media itself. This has the potential to reduce the effectiveness of social media by institutions of higher education and to create a barrier in the use of social media before the benefits can even be fully realized (Lenartz, 2012). Regardless of the popularity of social media, the effectiveness of using existing social media tools to facilitate teaching and learning is not noticeable (Au et al., 2014).

Social Media has infiltrated in different ways among users, and none more than the current digital native who is studying at university. This has led to the rise in questions of how best to use these computer-mediated communications in academic settings (Danino & Sim, 2014).

Another problem is that the training of social media skills is not yet sufficiently integrated into the processes of vocational education (Di Valentin et al., 2014). Moreover understanding why some users adopt or reject any technology is a difficult question to answer. Nirban & Chasul (2014) used the Unified Theory of Acceptance and the Use of Technology to understand the students’ acceptance of a Learning Management System.

A very important consequence is that the information boom has radically altered the teachers' roles. Teachers can no longer be a source of information, but are now meant to provide methodological assistance to students. So the new type of teaching-learning can be addressed as connectivism and connective knowledge, which is adapted to 21st century man dynamic way of life (Molnar & Szuts, 2014). This way, communication among students and between students and teacher has changed, such as knowledge sharing. Thus, one important question to answer is the use of advanced mobile communication services and applications in the base of higher education (Molnar & Szuts, 2014).

Particularly, in developing countries, social media not only satisfies personal communication needs, but also tends to compete with mainstream media for news and play a significant role in social movements. Hence potential use of this mounting medium for education needs to be explored (Celik & Schoreels, 2014).

Thus the objective of this research is to answer the particular question: How do college students use social networks to improve communication and exchange knowledge? We will explore some factors of this new trend of connectivism and connective knowledge in the use of Social Networks by high education students.

Methodology

Research from Estalella & Ardevol (2011) on Internet studies states that this is a new field that requires a different approach because of the conditions in which it is generated: a very fast changing field of study where it is not possible to do research in a typical and traditional way, as used for natural or exact sciences (Galliers & Myers M, 2002).

Internet research has to be done in socioeconomic and cultural heterogeneous structures - such as municipalities, urban or rural, state and federal offices, etc., which causes several problems in the design and implementation of the study (Gallupe, 2007). Finally, we must say that the information system is an applied science; it is not a pure science. Therefore, in order to use the same methods used for pure sciences would not provide optimal results (Boudreau, 2001; Galliers & Myers M, 2002). These reasons distinguish the Internet research from a qualitative or quantitative method.

The focus of this study is to use quantitative descriptive methods. According to (Hernández Sampieri, Fernandez Collado, & Baptista Lucio (2010) a descriptive study is a second stage that supports a correlational research and seeks for specific properties, features and profiles of groups, people or objects. They measure, assess or collect data about several variables with the intention of describing what is being searched.

This implies to find evidence in order to establish concepts, research areas and even that we can suggest some explanations to help building a theory (Hakim, 1987). Being a descriptive study, there is no hypothesis for this paper. However, there is a question that will lead this study: How do high education student of Business and Informatics use social networks in order to improve communication and exchange knowledge?

Based on the literature review we developed a questionnaire of 27 questions. We only present 9 questions in this study because we consider them the most relevant ones in order to show the change in the interaction of communication and knowledge sharing. The questionnaire was tested with a pilot test in 2010 and some questions were added in 2012. The questions for comparison purposes were not changed. The data collection was performed during November and December, 2010 and in December and January, 2012. We used the online system called Survey Monkey.

The sample consists of students of the Business’ School at the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico. In this school there are students of Management, Accounting, Marketing, and Informatics. Management, Accounting, and Marketing are Business’ students. But Informatics’ students are specialist in the use of technology. So we classified into this two groups in order to compare them.

Furthermore our sample was divided into two parts: the students interviewed in 2010 and the interviewed ones in 2012. Table 2 shows the composition and the number of valid cases. Respondents were 52% males and 48% females in both years. For both measurements, the questionnaire was sent by email and students were asked to answer on line. Although more than 100 emails were sent for each type of student (business and informatics) per year (400 mails), the response rate was less than 56%. Personal data was never requested.

13.24% of BBA’s students and 3.77% of BIM’s students of the sample of 2010 believed that social networks didn’t help in projects and homework. But not a single student in the sample of 2012 thinks that social networks aren’t useful for their academic activities.

Conclusions

The objective of this research is to answer the question: How do college students use social networks to improve communication and exchange knowledge? We analyzed online social networks in which they are connected while doing their schoolwork. We also analyzed the use of the words "explanation" or "resolution of doubts" as categories for the analysis in order to determine the exchange of information. We also got to know their "preferences or usefulness" of networks at the time of doing their school work.

Likewise, we observed that the explanation of concepts, data sharing and the fulfillment of school works or final projects increased using these social networks. These evidence supports previous research (Merril, 2011; Koroleva, et.al (2011), and more recent research as the findings of Saw et al. (2013).

We found out that the use of social network platforms such as Twitter and Facebook have increased for business administration and informatics management students, displacing similar platforms.

The migration of social networks from MetroFLOG and Hi5 to Twitter, YouTube and mainly Facebook is notable for 2012. It would be important to apply this study nowadays in order to find new trends in the use of social networks as well as to study Twitter, Facebook and YouTube as different phenomena.

Paradoxically, we also found out that surveyed business administration students use these platforms even more than informatics management students. It would seem that because of their professional orientation, informatics management students would use these social networks even more. We also concluded that informatics’ students prefer to use Twitter more than the business’ ones.

In general, the increased use of social networks is remarkable and students find the use of social media platforms more useful to help and support in tasks related to school projects and homework. It also improves “communication” and knowledge sharing which is supported by some scholars such as Junco, Elavsky & Heibergerg (2012) and Lampe & Ellison (2007). Also our research provides enough evidence to support the idea of this connective knowledge (Molnar & Szuts, 2014) that is increasing nowadays.

More research needs to be done in this field in order to be able to determine the useful effectiveness of social networks in academic activities or if they are just distractors. This research will become a first contribution to the study of social networks in Mexican universities, as well as a tool for understanding the use of these technologies among students of different generations.

The sample size and gender are limitations on this research because we couldn’t collect all of the total data we expected. Another limitation is that we didn’t classify the two samples into males and females. Only for the year 2012 we got a 51.72% of males and 48.28% of females for business’ students, and 52.83% of males and 47.17 of females for informatics’ students. It will be important to study each gender in future works in order to make assumptions about males and females. Another limitation is the descriptive focus of the research. In a further research we will use variables to prove some kind of correlation or causality.

Due to the increase of followers of Facebook, it is important to focus on some specific research in the use of this social media tool and schoolwork, students’ collaboration and information exchange. Also research on Twitter, YouTube, and other social media in education – Skype, WhatsApp – could provide different insights about this new impact of technology in college students’ education.

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[1] Source: Mexican Association of Internet (AMIPCI, 2014) December 2014

Answer Options	BBA 2010	BIM 2010	BBA 2012	BIM 2012
Computer	42.6%	48.5%	27.6%	49.1%
Social networks (Twitter, Facebook, MetroFLOG)	13.0%	10.3%	34.5%	13.2%
Cellphone	25.9%	30.9%	31.0%	24.5%
All of these	53.7%	50.0%	55.2%	52.8%
None of these	1.9%	1.5%	0.0%	0.0%

Answer Options	BBA 2010	BIM 2010	BBA 2012	BIM 2012
MetroFLOG	2.0%	1.5%	0.0%	0.0%
Hi5	3.9%	4.6%	0.0%	1.9%
Facebook	82.4%	86.2%	100.0%	88.5%
Twitter	15.7%	20.0%	42.9%	46.2%
MySpace	3.9%	0.0%	0.0%	1.9%
Sonico	2.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
YouTube	0.0%	0.0%	46.4%	61.5%
Other	17.6%	12.30%	3.6%	9.6%

Answer Options	BBA 2010	BIM 2010	BBA 2012	BIM 2012
MetroFLOG	3.9%	0.0%	0.0%	1.9%
Hi5	7.8%	3.2%	0.0%	1.9%
Facebook	78.4%	81.0%	96.6%	90.4%
Twitter	7.8%	22.2%	24.1%	30.8%
MySpace	3.9%	0.0%	3.4%	0.0%
Sonico	0.0%	0.0%	3.4%	1.9%
Other	17.6%	19.0%	10.3%	13.5%

Answer Options	BBA 2010	BIM 2010	BBA 2012	BIM 2012
Always 100%	11.3%	4.5%	17.2%	5.7%
Not always 80%	17.0%	23.9%	10.3%	22.6%
Sometimes 60%	47.2%	40.3%	62.1%	58.5%
Never 0%	24.5%	31.3%	10.3%	13.2%

Answer Options	BBA 2010	BIM 2010	BBA 2012	BIM 2012
Always 100%	25.0%	16.2%	34.5%	23.5%
Sometimes 80%	21.2%	27.9%	20.7%	19.6%
Depends on the job/school tasks 60%	46.2%	41.2%	41.4%	49.0%
Never 0%	7.7%	14.7%	3.4%	7.8%

Introduction

Literature Review

Methodology

Findings

Conclusions

Answer Options	BBA 2010	BIM 2010	BBA 2012	BIM 2012
Many times	26.4%	22.1%	28.6%	24.5%
I have sometimes explained	35.8%	30.9%	53.6%	52.8%
I have explained a few times	24.5%	36.8%	17.9%	20.8%
I have never explained, I explain face to face or per phone	13.2%	10.3%	0.0%	1.9%