THE EDUCATIONAL USE OF SOCIAL NETWORKING WEBSITES: FROM PROMISE TO REALITY

The platforms supporting social networking activities on the Internet are applications for the creation, sharing and exchange of user-generated content that manifests in various forms. Users can freely express their ideas and opinions, and have opportunities to launch and participate in collaborative projects and virtual communities. Facebook (FB) is a social networking website featuring an explosive growth in the last years and an increased popularity among university students. For example, the number of Facebook users in Romania was 8.5 million in June 2016 (Facebrands.Ro, 2015) out of which 33% are young people of 15-24 years old. Recent research on the Facebook use shows that Romanian university students have large Facebook networks and spend a lot of minutes per day (Pribeanu & Lamanauskas, 2016).