Will such Information Technology as Facebook Become Regular Mean for Study Process? Vilmante Kumpikaite + , Kestutis Duoba and Audrius Taraskevicius Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania Abstract. Looking at Facebook‘s growing popularity in all the world and among students we raise the question: will Facebook become regular mean for study process? In this paper we present results of the research, describing Facebook’s usage reasons by university students and students’ opinion of its use in study process. Results showed that explored students are not very positive for Facebook‘s usage in study process especially of course information posting in Facebook. However they are more positive to use this space for communication with other students and with professors in study process. To conclude we could say that it seems Facebook will be a regular mean in study process in future decades. Keywords: Facebook, information technologies, students, study process, Lithuania. 1. Introduction Growing importance of globalization of knowledge and information technologies (IT) make us to understand the importance of lifelong learning, modern technologies, and knowledge spread (Kumpikaite and Ciarniene, 2008). The first priority in education is to prepare people to integrate into information society. New media have already begun to develop by adoption of improvements in computer and information processing to communication technologies since the 1970s (Kumpikaite and Duoba, 2011). However use of the computer increased markedly in the last decade of the twentieth century. The actions, which take place in virtual extent, such as corresponding via e-mail, chatting on MSN or Skype, using Social networks such as Myspace or Facebook, searching information on websites, e-shopping, playing digital games, using mobile messenger, and the iPod, have been taking hold of the time and the place traditional media occupies in our daily life and have become a natural part of our lives (Kumpikaite and Duoba, 2011). At the same time IT play an increasingly significant role in the lives of today’s undergraduates, who use technology extensively in course, job, and recreation activities (Salaway et al., 2008). The purpose of this paper is to look at possibilities of Facebook to become regular mean for study process. The structure of this paper is as follows. The first part describes a theoretical framework of Facebook phenomena and its usage in study process. In the second empirical research on Facebook use in study process and its results are presented. And finally, conclusions and further research proposal are presented in this paper. 2. Theoretical Framework 2.1. Facebook’s Phenomena Facebook is essentially an online social network site in which individuals can share photographs, personal information, and join groups of friends with one another (Buckman, 2005). It was originally created in February 2004 as a Harvard online social networking site but had opened its site to the general public in + Tel.: + 370 37 300571; fax: + 370 37 323683. E-mail address: vilmante.kumpikaite@ktu.lt 36 2011 3rd International Conference on Advanced Management Science IPEDR vol.19 (2011) © (2011) IACSIT Press, Singapore