EDUCATIONAL USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA BY DISTANCE EDUCATION COMMERCE STUDENTS IN DELHI: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

This study aims to determine the use,vitality, purpose, significance, and challenges that distance mode students of commerce at School of Open Learning (SOL) of University of Delhi (DU), Delhi and Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), Delhi face while utilizing social media for educational/learning purposes.Social media is a type of platform for conversation and communication that takes place online. Blogs,microblogs, photo-sharing websites, wikis, texting, video-sharing sites, widgets, virtual worlds, and podcasts are some examples of social media. It refers to internet resources and platforms that let people make, share,and engage with user generated content.In the digital age,it completely changed how people connect,communicate,and exchange information. With the help of social media tools users can express themselves, interact with others, and create virtual communities. A sample of 200 participants who are distance learning commerce students of IGNOU and SOL, DU is chosen for collection of data for the studies. Simple arithmetical and statistical techniques have been then utilized to analyze and derive results from the data collected. The study reveals that social media platforms influence its uses and behaviours of users on education. The students have shown their familiarity with the social media and the mobile phones are taking lead as the most utilized tool for social media usage over the laptops and tablets. The platforms such as Youtube and Whatsapp are being widely utilized for educational purposes and students are putting almost three hours a day on social media platforms. Practical explanation of the contents is what making the students to incline more towards these platforms and it is very safe to say that these are becoming important educational tools amongst the student community more precisely for distance learning students. The study reveals that that the commerce students of SOL, DU are leading the board for utilizing social media for academic purposes.