Macquarie U has cancelled its student email newsletter MyMQ, with content now to appear on a Facebook page. Apparently, “students are social beings and aren’t really that interested in opening emails.”

But aren’t they over Facebook, seen, it is said, as their parents’ platform?

Probably not – Pew Centre Research reports 80 per cent of 18-24 year olds in the US use Facebook, way ahead of all other social media, except YouTube.

And a survey by University of the Sunshine Coast researchers Karen Sutherland, Cindy Davis, Uwe Terton and Irene Visser published in March found a majority of participating students, “still feel connected to their university community as a result of following university social media profiles. This finding supports the attempts being placed on social media as a tool to strengthen university communities and their social capital.”