Let’s face it – at least half of us spend hours of our precious time on social networks such as Facebook or Twitter! The reason? – Is it just fun or is there something else behind it?
The latest Retrevo Gadgetology study asked social media users questions such as when, where, and how much time they spend on social media sites. It came out that people were obsessed with checking in with their social media circles throughout the day and even the night.

Social Media replacing the night sleep?

Social media fanatics checking Facebook and Twitter throughout the day are almost half of the respondents – they check in on the social media scene in bed, during the night or as soon as they wake up in the morning. Teenagers and younger social media users said they tweet by night more than 25+ years old.

Tweeting first time in the morning?

According to the study, it appears that social media may have begun to replace more conventional sources for news with many social media users saying tweets trump TVs for that morning cup of news. Among social media users, almost half are so involved with Facebook and Twitter that they check in the first thing in the morning. With 16% of social media users saying this is how they get their morning “news,” the research is questioning wheatear we are  witnessing the first signs of social media services beginning to replace the morning shows as the source for what’s going on in the world.

Professors who wish to engage students during large lectures face an uphill battle, claims recent post from Mashable. Not only is it a logistical impossibility for 200+ students to actively participate in a 90 minute lecture, but the downward sloping cone-shape of a lecture hall induces a one-to-many conversation. This problem is compounded by the recent budget cuts that have squeezed ever more students into each room.

Fortunately, educators (including myself) have found that Twitter is an effective way to broaden participation in lecture. Additionally, the ubiquity of laptops and smartphones have made the integration of Twitter a virtually bureaucracy-free endeavor. This post describes the two main benefits professors find when using Twitter in lecture.

Classroom shyness is like a blackhole: Once silence takes over, it never lets go. In my own experience, in a class of hundreds, the fraction of students who speak up is small, and a still tinier fraction contribute regularly.

That’s why, Dr. Monica Rankin of the University of Texas at Dallas was pleasantly surprised when her experiment with Twitter began pulling more students into discussion. “It’s been really exciting because, in classes like this, you’ll have three people who talk about the discussion material, and so to actually have 30 or 40 people at the same time talking about it is really interesting,” said Megan Malone, Teaching Assistant to Dr. Monica Rankin’s United States history course, in the video below.

During lecture, students tweet comments or questions via laptop or cell phone, while the TA and Dr. Rankin respond to a real-time feed displayed prominently in front of the room. Students who manage to live off the grid for 50 minutes can still pass in hand-written notes for the TA to tweet after class.

“The first thing I noticed when the class started using Twitter was how conversations continued inside and outside of class,” Parry wrote. “Once students started Twittering I think they developed a sense of each other as people beyond the classroom space, rather than just students they saw twice a week for an hour and a half.” As a result, classroom conversation became more productive as “people were more willing to talk, and [be] more respectful of others.”

Parry’s experience is in line with results of one of the first education studies of Twitter, which found that students do indeed carry on discussion outside of the classroom.