Learning, Media and Technology
Vol. 34, No. 2, June 2009, 157–174
ISSN 1743-9884 print/ISSN 1743-9892 online
© 2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/17439880902923622
http://www.informaworld.com
Faceworking: exploring students’ education-related use
of Facebook
Neil Selwyn*
London Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education, University of London, London, UK
Taylor and FrancisCJEM_A_392534.sgm
(Received 31 October 2008; final version received 25 March 2009)
10.1080/17439880902923622Learning, Media and Technology743-9884 (print)/1743-9892 (online)Original Article2 09Taylor & Francis340 0002009N ilSelwynn.se wyn@ioe.ac.uk
Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace have been subject to much
recent debate within the educational community. Whilst growing numbers of
educators celebrate the potential of social networking to (re)engage learners with
their studies, others fear that such applications compromise and disrupt young
people’s engagement with ‘traditional’ education provision. With these ongoing
debates in mind, the current paper presents an in-depth qualitative analysis of the
Facebook ‘wall’ activity of 909 undergraduate students in a UK university.
Analysis of these data shows how much of students’ education-related use of this
social networking application was based around either the post-hoc critiquing of
learning experiences and events, the exchange of logistical or factual information
about teaching and assessment requirements, instances of supplication and moral
support with regards to assessment or learning, or the promotion of oneself as
academically incompetent and/or disengaged. With these themes in mind, the
paper concludes that rather than necessarily enhancing or eroding students’ ‘front-
stage’ engagement with their formal studies, Facebook use must be seen as being
situated within the ‘identity politics’ of being a student. In particular, Facebook
appears to provide a ready space where the ‘role conflict’ that students often
experience in their relationships with university work, teaching staff, academic
conventions and expectations can be worked through in a relatively closed
‘backstage’ area.
Keywords: Facebook; university; student; social networking; identity
Introduction
Over the past five years social networking sites (SNSs) have become one of the most
prominent genres of social software, popularised by the MySpace and Facebook
applications that now each boast hundreds of millions of users. SNSs are personal and
personalisable spaces for online conversations and sharing of content based typically
on the maintenance and sharing of ‘profiles’ where individual users can represent
themselves to other users through the display of personal information, interests,
photographs, social networks and so on. Users of an SNS can maintain their own
profile and access the profiles of others on the network with a view to establishing
connections with preferred ‘friends’. Given their broad range of features, SNSs
function in different ways depending on the preference of the user. Individuals can use
SNSs to ‘hang out’, to waste time, learn about each other or simply as a directory
(Stutzman 2006). Younger users often use social networking in the micro-management
*Email: n.selwyn@ioe.ac.uk

158 N. Selwyn
of their social lives, as an arena for social exploration and to develop networking skills
(Ito et al. 2008; Livingstone 2009). The orientation of SNSs towards self-presentation,
the viewing of others’ personal information and multiple means of communication and
exchange has certainly proved attractive to students in high school, college and
university settings.
The prominence of SNSs in the lives of learners of all ages has prompted great
enthusiasm amongst some educators. It has been claimed, for example, that social
networking applications share many of the desirable qualities of good ‘official’
education technologies – permitting peer feedback and matching the social contexts
of learning such as the school, university or local community (Mason 2006). The
conversational, collaborative and communal qualities of social networking services
are felt to ‘mirror much of what we know to be good models of learning, in that
they are collaborative and encourage active participatory role for users’ (Maloney
2007, 26). One of the main educational uses of social networking is seen to lie in
their support for interaction between learners facing the common dilemma of
negotiating their studies. SNSs may also benefit learners by allowing them to
enter new networks of collaborative learning, often based around interests and
affinities not catered for in their immediate educational environment. As Maloney
(2007, 26) continues, ‘social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook have
shown, among other things, that students will invest time and energy in building
relationships around shared interests and knowledge communities’. This has
prompted some educationalists to explore the potential of social networking to
augment ‘conventional’ interactions and dialogue between students and teachers.
Some have welcomed the capacity of social networking services to offer educators
a forum for ‘easy networking and positive networking with students’ (Lemeul
2006, 1).
It is recognised that some of the qualities of social networking may clash with
current pedagogical paradigms. Whilst educationalists hope that social networking
promotes exchanges between learners that are related to formal educational
objectives, SNSs are also celebrated for providing channels for informal and
unstructured learning. For example, it has been suggested that social networking
offers the opportunity to re-engage individuals with learning and education,
promoting a ‘critical thinking in learners’ about their learning, which is one of ‘the
traditional objectives’ of education’ (Bugeja 2006, 1). Some commentators contend
that SNSs offer ‘the capacity to radically change the educational system… to
better motivate students as engaged learners rather than learners who are prima-
rily passive observers of the educational process’ (Ziegler 2007, 69). Of course
these qualities are seen as detrimental by other commentators. Concerns that have
been raised include the heightened disengagement, alienation and disconnection of
learners from education and to the detrimental effect that social networking tools
may have on ‘traditional’ skills and literacies (Brabazon 2007). Fears abound
within some sections of the education community that SNSs could contribute to
the intellectual and scholarly de-powering of a ‘Google generation’ of learners
incapable of independent critical thought, and generally hasten the onset of what
Ziegler (2007, 69) has termed ‘the mis-education of Generation M’. Despite the
popular positioning of social networking as exciting educational tools, some crit-
ics think they may distract learners from their studies (Cassidy 2006). The use of
social networking therefore continues to be a controversial element of the digital
education landscape.