My colleagues Julie (Lin) Zhu and Reed Reynolds in the Communication Department at UMass Boston and I are investigating the extent to which social media engagement affects student attitudes toward their university and their undergraduate major. We have developed several different measures of student engagement and are currently conducting a quasi-experimental study of social media outreach strategies.

Through this research, we hope to gain a better understanding of the ways academic departments can invest their resources. Some research suggests that students will develop more positive attitudes about their university experience and will be more highly motivated in their studies when their university nurtures a closer relationship through social media. It is also possible that social media “fatigue” will prevent such efforts from having any real impact.