Learning about Social Media from College Students

First, a big thank you to Clemson University for inviting me to speak three times so far this school year. They asked me to speak about social media and using emerging technology to build relationships and personal networks. I’ve also had several opportunities to interview students from other campuses both in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Now, because many people see social media as a “kids’ toy,” I took advantage of being on the college campus and with students to ask a lot of students a lot of questions about social media. Here’s what I learned.

First a “no-duh” observation: college students and the emerging generation of leaders are wired, incredibly wired. Every college student I spoke with not only had a cell phone, but had one in his or her hand, actively using it before and after my interview. Young people are fully integrated into the digital world (or it’s fully integrated into them).

Second, those charged with shaping and influencing those students are not so wired. Several students passionately protested the obstacles their teachers placed in their digital paths. Apparently, some professors are not only not-wired, but actively discourage students from being wired themselves.

Consider the adversarial relationship the wired-embrace vs. wired-rejection fosters. One foundational aspect of teaching is connecting new knowledge to existing knowledge, or making new information relevant to the learning. When I was a student, a sure-fire way to frustrate my instructor was to ask a simple question, “how does this apply to something I make possibly do in the future?” You’ve probably done the same thing on occasion.

Here’s how the student sees the wired-rejection phenomenon:
• “You don’t understand my world.”

• “Because you don’t understand my world, I seriously doubt you can make the stuff you’re talking about relevant to the world I know today or even the one I can imagine for the future.”

To some degree, learners expect teachers to not only competently communicate content, but to provide a context that makes new knowledge relevant.

In addition to talking with students, I’ve interviewed professors as well. Every single one demonstrated a sincere desire to help students coupled with a determined commitment to be reflective, continually growing/improving instructors.

For some reason, though, they haven’t embraced social media to the extent their students have, which means those students feel like their instructors haven’t embraced their world.

A universal take-away from this experience: those attempting to influence others, whether in the classroom, on the campaign trail, or from the corner office, have an obligation to understand the “others’” world around them. Fortunately, social media actually makes this objective simply to achieve.

A few others things I learned:
• College students LOVE Facebook.

• College students use Facebook for connection to real-life friends they already know.

• College students do not expect or even want commercial relationships through Facebook. (I wish I would have video-tapped their quite visceral responses to that question! Scrunch up your nose, pulling your checks into your eyes, and you’ll have a picture of what they did.)

• College students hear the word “Twitter” and laugh out loud or ask “What’s Twitter.” Almost no one used Twitter and those few who did said, “I just don’t get it.”

• Few college students are aware of LinkedIn. However, when they heard about the power of LinkedIn, especially as it applied to finding a job, they almost universally expressed excitement and a commitment to create an account immediately. (They did NOT express such sentiment toward Twitter.)

• College students not only LOL (laugh out loud) at politicians using social media, they ROFLOL (roll on the floor, laughing out loud). Though many express admiration for what Barack Obama did with social media, they see political leaders as woefully, hopelessly out-of-touch.

So, what can you DO with these observations?
• Whatever you want to do. After all, that’s the beauty of social media in the first place.

• If you’re a teacher, ENCOURAGE students to use wikipedia. I realize that means you’re going to have to dig into the research where you’ll discover how accurate wikipedia is. For starters, look up the study Lara Devgan from Johns Hopkins presented at the American College of Surgeons.

• If you’re a teacher, go ahead and turn the students loose on bloggers and then take advantage of the opportunity to TEACH them how to do their own fact-checking to discover “the truth” for themselves. They will NOT be getting their “truth” the same way you did. They’ll be turning to their peers instead of tuning into America’s grandfather, Walter Cronkite. (And THAT’S the way it is!)

• If you’re a business executive or manager, choose immersion (for yourself) and instruction (for everyone). Learn for yourself and then TEACH positive use of technology. Instead of creating policies to manage, bar, restrict, control, etc. take the time to teach the positive characteristics and skill sets for effectively using technology. Remember, the kids who did so much damage to the Dominos brand were genuinely shocked at the negative consequences of their “fun” videos. No one taught them nor MODELED appropriate behavior on social media (after all, neither their teachers from school or bosses on the job were even taking social media seriously!).

Bottom line: Now is the time for all leaders everywhere to stop making fun of social media, or thinking it’ll pass. Dive in. Immerse yourself in the world of the coming generations. Learn how to be a positive influence in the digital world yourself. Five years from now, you’ll be glad you did! And, if you don’t, you’ll be bagging that kid’s groceries, full-time, in just that time. (i.e., you’ll be irrelevant to the real world of 2014)

Have fun.