摘要：Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have come to dominate internet usage in
recent years. Facebook alone has over 550 million users as of Fall 2010, while Twitter claims
over 100 million users. While academia was fairly quick to adopt online education models in the
1990s, it has thus far not yet embraced social media portals as a way to deliver course content
and engage students. This may be due to uncertainties regarding student perceptions about social
media, its purposes, and its applications. In this research, the Social Media Affinity Scale was
created and deployed to measure perceptions about social media. The results of this scale provide
a measure of readiness that university academics could use to determine whether social media
might be used effectively and efficiently among students. Results of the study showed that,
among the students surveyed, no significant differences exist between males and females in their
internet usage, social media usage, and beliefs about social media sites in general. Based on these
results, a roadmap for social media integration is proposed for college classes.
