Abstract
To assess the patterns of social media uses and their impact on the learning of male medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic. A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted from March to May 2020 at the College of Medicine, University of Bisha (UBCOM) in Saudi Arabia. A validated questionnaire was used to collect data from the students at first year, pre-clerkship and clerkship levels about the types, patterns and benefits of social media usage in their learning. A five-Likert scale was used to measure the students’ responses. Descriptive statistics and ANOVA tests were used for data analysis. Of the 203 students enrolled, 89.2% (n=181) were responded. Most students commonly used Twitter (75.1%), followed by YouTube (52.5%) and Facebook (24.3%). The highest usage of Twitter was found among clerkship students (85.1%) compared to first-year (76.2%) and pre-clerkship students (69.6%), with no significant differences (p = 0.133). About 38.7% of students spent over 10 hours per week on social media and pre-clerkship students being the highest group (43.5%). Most students (67.9%) showed that social media enhance learning activities, 65.2% are interested in using social media in their learning and 64.1% suggested that their inappropriate use consumes time. We concluded social media become interactive tools of learning in medical schools during the urgent situation such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Such findings highlighted the benefits of considering social media inclusion when designing medical curricula.