Abstract

Among many social networking websites, Facebook has become an effective learning tool in many institutions. Apart from educational purposes, Facebook can be employed for other purposes that benefit users who learn to use it creatively. The objectives of this research were to examine how creatively Thai university students used Facebook and investigated how gender and type of university had an effect on their usage. This was exploratory research where a questionnaire was used to collect data from 1,080 undergraduate students in Thailand. The data were then analyzed using frequency, percentage, Mann-Whitney U tests, and Kruskal-Wallis tests. It was found that most Thai students used Facebook for more than five hours a day. They creatively used Facebook to follow up on news, contact friends for study, and keep pictures. Creative usage was more common among male students than female students. In addition, public university students had a higher mean score of creative uses than those from other types of university. Significant differences were found in nearly all items except sharing personal experiences with others.