Students, Social Media & Schools (SSMS) is a research group at Florida State University interested in the how students use social media, both in and out of the school environment, and how social media use influences their learning (both formal and informal) as well as their interactions within the school environment.

Current Project

During Summer 2020 we received a COVID-19 seed grant from Florida State University to study how teenagers are using social media during the pandemic. For this project, we surveyed teens and parents about teen happiness, activities, and social media use this summer. We also interviewed 43 teens and had them keep video diaries for one week. Research briefs reporting initial survey findings are forthcoming.

Recent Publications & Presentations

Dennen, V. P., Rutledge, S. A., Bagdy, L. M., Bunn, S., Jung, D., Cargill, C., Cosgrove, C., Hedquist, A., & McWaters, S. (2021, April 8-12). Teenage social media use in the time of COVID-19:  Resilience, connection, entertainment, and learning [Conference Poster]. American Educational Research Association, online. http://aera21-aera.ipostersessions.com/Default.aspx?s=6C-5D-EC-AD-C6-F2-B8-14-3B-70-E6-3C-62-67-53-69

Dennen, V. P., Rutledge, S. A., & Bagdy, L. M. (2020). (Dis)connected: The role of social networking sites in the high school setting. American Journal of Education, 127(1), 107-136.

Rutledge, S. A., Dennen, V. P., Bagdy, L. M., Rowlett, J. T., & Burnick, S. (2019). Exploring adolescent social media use in a high school: Tweeting teens in a bell schedule world. Teachers College Record Yearbook, 121(14). 

Dennen, V. P., Rutledge, S. A., & Bagdy, L. M. (2019). Social media use in high school settings: Rules, outcomes, and educational opportunities. In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Social Media and Society (pp. 205-213). New York: Association for Computing Machinery. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1145/3328529.3328561

Dennen, V. P., & Rutledge, S. A. (2018). The embedded lesson approach to social media research: Researching online phenomena in an authentic offline setting. TechTrends, 62(5), 483-491. doi:10.1007/s11528-018-0315-

Dennen, V. P., Rutledge, S. A., Bagdy, L. M., Rowlett, J. T., & Burnick, S. (2018). Avoiding drama: Student and teacher positioning within a school’s social media ecosystem. In Proceeding of the 9th International Conference on Social Media and Society (pp. 271-275). Association for Computing Machinery.https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3217804.3217927

Bagdy, L. M., Dennen, V. P., Rutledge, S. A., Rowlett, J. T., & Burnick, S. (2018). Teens and social media: A case study of high school students’ informal learning practices and trajectories. In Proceeding of the 9th International Conference on Social Media and Society(pp. 241-245). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3217804.3217920 

Current Team

Principal Investigators

Vanessa Dennen, Professor of Instructional Systems and Learning Technologies
Stacey Rutledge, Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy

Graduate Student Researchers

Lauren Bagdy, Doctoral Candidate, Instructional Systems and Learning Technologies
Stephen Bunn, Doctoral Student, Educational Leadership and Policy
Daeun Jung, Doctoral Student, Instructional Systems and Learning Technologies

Undergraduate Research Assistants 2020-21

Casey Cargill, 2019-present
Catherine Cosgrove, 2018-present
Amber Hedquist, 2019-present
Shannon McWaters, 2018-present

2020-21 UROP Students

TBD

Past Team Members

Sara Bouhamid, UROP Program, 2019-20
Charleine Etienne, UROP Program, 2019-20
Meghan Gilmore, UROP Program, 2019-20
Thomas Lovegren, UROP Program, 2019-20
Mackenzie Tolrud, UROP Program, 2019-20
Anthony Boucher, UROP Program, 2018-19; RA 2019-20
Kristian Diaz, UROP Program, 2018-19
Emma Jo McAuliffe, UROP Program, 2018-19
Vanessa Oduro, UROP Program, 2018-19
Sophie Rhoads, UROP Program, 2018-19
Brandell Theard, UROP Program, 2018-19
Caitlin Violette, UROP Program, 2018-19
Jerrica Rowlett, Doctoral Student, Communication, 2015-2017
Shannon Burnick, UROP Program, 2016-17
Sarah Joyce, UROP Program, 2015-16