Exploring the Use of Social Media by Female Saudi Nursing Students for Personal and Academic Purposes.

Abstract

Introduction: Social media is increasingly deployed in diverse fields, including nursing, but few studies have considered this in Saudi Arabia. Aim: To examine the role of social media in female Saudi nursing students’ lives and to explore the positive and negative influences of this from students’ perspectives. Research design: The grounded theory approach used in this research project was informed by the work of Charmaz (2014). A semi-structured interview consisting of open- ended questions was developed by the researcher for face-to-face interviews, which were digitally recorded, transcribed, translated, and then analysed using a constant comparative method, with participants’ consent. Constant comparative method was used in each phase of data collection and analysis, facilitated by MAXQDA software. Participants: 12 female undergraduate and postgraduate nursing students at King Saud University were recruited to participate in the study using purposive and theoretical sampling techniques. Ethical approval was gained from the Ethics Committees at Bournemouth University and King Saud University. Findings: Three categories were identified as being key components of the theoretical model of the study findings regarding nursing students’ usage of social media platforms: personal interests, extending knowledge, and challenges. Personal interests were identified as a core category because they are crucial in terms of understanding how nursing students connect and collaborate, extend their knowledge, and address challenges. Conclusions and key recommendations: User personal interests shape personal and academic communication. Participants were acutely aware of the dangers posed by excessive use of social media, and the need to develop self-control to prevent this. Social media communication was perceived to have beneficial capabilities for academic organisation and planning, but to have issues related to information quality, distraction and attention loss, time consumption, and Internet connection problems. A key gap pinpointed in this research was the absence of formal guidelines on the use of social media, and strategies to develop social media learning abilities to benefit nursing students.