For decades, the Uses and Gratification (U & G) Theory has been the main theory of communication that explains what people do with the media. To many, the theory seems old. However, the emergence of social media breathes a new life into this aging theory. This paper seeks to explore the current functions of the U & G Theory in the students' use of social media. Survey and focus group discussion were used to elicit information from purposively selected 111 final year students of mass communication. The paper discovers that majority of the respondents (98.2%) used social media for communication, collaboration, news sharing, research, expression of opinion, maintaining a connection, and making friends from other countries. Facebook and WhatsApp were the most preferred social networks among the respondents. The paper confirms that social media platforms have revived the functions of the U & G Theory and provided a plethora of media uses that the traditional media never could. Very few of the respondents used social media for information, to investigate why, the paper suggest that the Media Information Utility theory should be thoroughly investigated.

Emergence and integration of Web 2.0 technologies in the students' learning process brought a pedagogical paradigm shift in many of today's classrooms. Unfortunately, many educators (including the teachers of Teaching English as a Second Language [TESL]) are either unaware or skeptical about this new culture. Students taking English as a Second Language (ESL) are still having a problem in writing an error-free assignment or test. Fortunately, blog (a computer-mediated technology) brought a hope and serves as a help to both tutors and learners by being a teaching and learning tool that can promote the students' English language writing skills. Using systematic review, this paper aims to examine the students' perceptions of blog in some selected ESL writing classes. The purpose is to introduce blog and create awareness to both educators and students about its application and benefits in today's educational institutions, especially ESL writing classes. One research question was developed and two academic social network platforms were explored and about 41 relevant journal articles were found. After using inclusion and exclusion criteria, only five articles met the criteria of this review. Findings revealed that though blog was still new to many respondents but their perceptions of it (blog), was positive.