Are Social Networking Sites information sources? : Informational purposes of high-school students in using SNS

Karine Aillerie (1) , Sarah Mcnicol (2)

1 Techné [Poitiers] - Technologies numériques pour l'éducation [EA 6316]
2 ESRI - Education & Social Research Institute: MMU

Although social networking sites (SNSs), such as Facebook or Twitter, are widely used by teenagers, to date, research has focused on the social uses of SNSs. This research sought to investigate the ways in which high school students (15-19 years) use SNSs in order to find information. It highlights the importance of considering how young people may use SNSs for everyday life information as well as for academic and school oriented information. Findings from a web-based survey of students from the UK, France, Thailand and Denmark show that SNSs are information sources for most teenagers, especially for information related to social activities. Although academic information seeking were not among the most common reasons for using SNSs, the findings indicate that many students do use SNSs for such purposes, as well as everyday life information seeking.

Mots clés: Social media; Social networking sites; Information seeking; Teenagers; Information literacy; Transliteracy; information grounds Keywords: Social media; information grounds

Domaines: Sciences de l'information et de la communication

Karine Aillerie, Sarah Mcnicol. Are Social Networking Sites information sources? : Informational purposes of high-school students in using SNS. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 2016, 1 (12), pp.2 - 12. ⟨10.1177/0961000616631612⟩. ⟨hal-01489154v2⟩