Background: The availability and adoption of social media technologies suggests that nurses, nursing students, and patients simultaneously use the same digital platforms for all manners of everyday communication. An issue within nursing education pertains to how nursing students use this form of technology during their undergraduate education and its subsequent outward professional impact on the profession.
Purpose: This study explores the ways in which nursing students use social media technology within/for nursing education.
Methodology: This study employs Kozinet’s (2015) netnography, alongside elements of grounded theory and visual methodology.
Sample and setting: The study was conducted by examining pictures and text posted to Instagram, an image-based social media platform. Through purposive and theoretical sampling strategies, Instagram entries posted by 40 nursing students was analysed.
Results: Core findings that emerged from the data analysis included two top-level themes: (a) Selfies and Soliloquies; and, (b) #becominganurse with an Evolving Digital Footprint. It was found that through the use of selfies and soliloquies, nursing students described and demonstrated their former and evolving nursing personas. Further, students commonly displayed moments of assimilation into the nursing profession as they evolved as a nursing student during their time in nursing school.
Conclusions: There is a considerable lack of understanding and awareness regarding the adoption and use of social media technology among nursing students. This study provides important findings regarding how nursing students use platforms like Instagram during their education
