Academic peer pressure in social media: Experiences from the heavy, the targeted and the restricted user

The degree of social media uptake in research practice differs greatly, across and within disciplines. This qualitative study explores the use of social media within a specific target group of researchers working in the field of technology-enhanced learning. The individual cases reveal a range from heavy use, leading to addiction, to very restricted or no use of social media. One of the main implications of social media penetration in academia is the emergence of peer pressure. People adopt different strategies and different digital identities to cope with the perceived pressure. Based on individual cases, this qualitative study gives insights into current transformation processes related to the scholarly uptake of social media and leads to the establishment of further challenging research questions.