EXPERIENCED RISKS IN SOCIAL MEDIA USE - LONGITUDINAL STUDY AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Several recent studies indicate that there is a need for increased use of ICT and social media in the Finnish education [1], [2]. This research was conducted in order to explore the attitude towards social media use among university students. The motivation for seeking answer to the research question: "What risks students experience in social media use?" derived from the need to discover learning barriers in social media based learning environments. In particular, there is a need for novel interaction means in order to co-create and learn informally [3] also beyond the traditional classroom. The assumptions, beliefs and attitudes towards social media are studied from the perspective of perceived risks of the students. The study was conducted among graduate students attending "Communities and Social Media in Knowledge Management" course between the years 2012-2016. A web-based survey was executed annually, with a total of 113 respondents. Based on the results we were able to categorize the perceived risks and derive implications on how to lower learning barriers of students in social media based learning environments.