The millennial generation (people born in or after 1980) is a group of people that rely heavily on the use of social and professional interactions. They have an expectation that technology will be used as an integral part of education. For this reason, they show a tendency to turning to social networking sites (SNS) to learn. The SNS is preferred as a learning tool because it offers newer ways of communication and transmitting information. Facebook is one of the commonly used social networking sites, and users are relying on it for academic purposes.
One of the major reasons why Facebook is preferred as a learning tool is because it has been discovered to promote collaboration among students. Additionally, this tool has been used in a learning environment to increase communication between students and lecturers. Many users prefer using it as a learning tool because it facilitates learning through interaction, collaboration, information, and resources sharing. It also enables easy and quick communication between teachers and lecturers (Cuesta et al., 2016). Facebook has a multitude of users, therefore if a student uses it to get the information he or she will get a variety of it. For instance, if a student posts an academic-related query he will get answers instantly form different users. Then he or she will have an opportunity to compare them and choose what works best for the query.
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Experts have criticized the use of Facebook as a learning tool because it comes with privacy issues. Facebook use requires that students put their personal information on a web server. The users are also unaware of how their personal information might be used or how they may be accessed by the wrong people. This puts them at risk. Facebook is known to collect data about the users and their profiles, this information might get disclosed to complete strangers, and this might affect their privacy (Cuesta et al., 2016). Therefore Facebook comes with its advantages as well as disadvantages when used for educational purposes.
Reference
Cuesta, M., Eklund, M., Rydin, I., & Witt, A. K. (2016). Using Facebook as a co-learning community in higher education. Learning, Media and Technology , 41 (1), 55-72.
