Religious implications of social media in education

Abstract

Widespread social media adoption has introduced threats and opportunities for religious and educational institutions alike, and each institutional type has responded in its own way to them. In this literature review, we (a) explore how world religious leaders have sought to use social media as a means for supporting religious expression, (b) establish how the research literature has encouraged educational institutions to essentially colonize these spaces for informal and formal learning purposes, and (c) identify some tensions that these two institutional forces introduce into the lives of social media users who must simultaneously navigate educational and religious aspects of use.