The people over at Fieldhouse Media put together their second annual survey taking a look at how student athletes are utilizing social social media. This data was taken mainly from Division I student athletes (who made up for 64% of the data received) followed by 14% from NAIA programs, 13% from Division II programs and 9% from Division III programs.
Last year, we polled coaches on how they utilize social media and got some interesting results.
While Fieldhouse's full study can be seen here, I've included a handful of some of the more interesting takeaways from the study below that may interest you and your coaching staff, the compliance office, and your athletic director;
- 78% of student-athletes use Twitter (up from 72% last year)
- 78% of student-athletes are using Instagram (up from 65% a year ago)
-94% of all student-athletes are using Facebook.
-85% of student-athletes use Facebook less today than they did last year.
-40% have no social media education or training (down from 51% last year.
The following statistics are from areas that coaches would find particularly interesting;
- 6% of the student-athletes surveyed have received hateful or critical tweets from fans and 72% of them have responded to them.
- 18% of those surveyed on the use of Twitter admit to have tweeting something inappropriate (drugs, alcohol, sexual, racial, profanity), while 9% of Facebook users, and 5% of Instagram users admit to doing the same.
-8% of student-athletes admit to have checking social media during a game
-5% admit to posting on social media during a game
-38% spend more than 1 hour per day on some type of social media
One thing that can't be denied after looking at the various results of this study is that social media plays such a large role in the lives of our players today that we (as coaches, and an athletic department) should be finding some way to educate them on the dangers of it.
The results should also illustrate the most effective way for you and your staff to communicate with current players and recruits.