Perceived risks in social media use: a longitudinal study among university students

This research was conducted in order to explore the attitude towards social media use among students in technical university. In particular, there is a need for novel interaction means in order to co-create and learn informally also beyond the traditional classroom. The motivation for seeking answer to the research question: \"What risks students experience in social media use?\" derived from the need to discover learning barriers in social media based learning environments, such as learning games, blogs and wikis for example. The assumptions, beliefs and attitudes towards social media are studied from the perspective of perceived risks of the students. The study was conducted among graduate students attending \"Knowledge Management\" course between the years 2014-2016. A web-based survey was executed annually, with a total of 206 respondents. Based on the results we were able to categorize the perceived risks and derive implications on how to lower learning barriers of students in social media based learning environments.