Let’s tweet again? Social networks and literature achievement in high school students

The availability of cheap Wi-Fi internet connections has encouraged schools to adopt Web 2.0\r\nplatforms for teaching, with the intention of stimulating students’ academic achievement and\r\nparticipation in school. Moreover, during the recent explosion of the SARS-CoV-2 crisis that\r\nforced many countries to close schools (as well as offices and factories), the widespread\r\ndiffusion of these applications kept school systems going. Despite their widespread use as\r\nteaching tools, the effect of adopting Web 2.0 platforms on students’ performance has never\r\nbeen rigorously tested. We fill this gap in the literature by analyzing the impact of using\r\nTwitter as a teaching tool on high school students’ literature skills. Based on a large-scale,\r\nrandomized controlled trial that involved 70 schools and about 1,500 students, we find that\r\nusing Twitter to teach literature has an overall negative effect on students’ average\r\nachievement, reducing standardized test scores by about 25 percent of a standard deviation.\r\nThe negative effect is stronger on students who usually perform better.