Social media usage in nursing education is limited and the active use of various new developed learning environments are left behind. The purpose of this research was to survey second-year nursing students’ social media usage in studies and in their free time. The research was also interested to know students' interest and skill level in using different social media applications. The research presented a descriptive survey research design. The data was collected from second-year nursing students ( ) through electronic and paper questionnaire in 2012. The questionnaire contained 20 structured questions and was analyzed statistically. The response rate was 61.4%. Students used social media applications more in their free time than in their studies. The most used applications in studies were an e-learning environment. Web video and online community services were the most used applications in their free time. The least used application was online games, in studies and in free time. Students were evaluated as having an excellent skill level in using social media, and they felt that the social media application was interesting. The relationship between age and application skill level was statistically significant. Younger students had better skills in using social media applications than older students. 1. Introduction Social media in nursing education has been seen to have great potential [1, 2]. Usage of social media, defined as information networks and information technology that utilizes a form of communication dealing with interactive and user-generated content and creating and maintaining relationships between people, is increasingly expanding [1, 3]. Eighty percent of Americans and Canadians use the Internet, and between 70 and 80% of these users seek health information through this medium. In Europe in 2012, almost half of all adults (48%) used social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter [1, 4]. Social media usage in education has increased 21.3% from 2012 to 2013 [5]. Individuals use blogs, Twitter, and other social networking sites to communicate both personally and professionally with others [5]. Different kinds of social media tools are used to share documents, work in groups, and learn from videos, which are good applications to use in schools [1, 6]. According to previous research, 53% of nursing schools reported using social media applications, and Twitter has been used in critical care simulations [7]. The most well-known social media applications in education are Facebook, Twitter, different kinds of blogs, and Second Life [1, 5, 6,
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