**8. Conclusion**

The results of research conducted in 2019 showed that demographic characteristics of teachers, such as age, gender, and the scientific field of the teacher's profession, do not affect the frequency of teachers' use of social media for higher education, and this is also the case with individual attitudes toward use, social influences, and anxiety during use. At the same time, a significant positive impact on the teachers' use of social media for higher education would have higher education institutions through the implementation of education for both teachers and students on the use of social media, which could reduce their feeling that the use of social media is for higher education a little scary. Also, teachers'social media usage is significant and students believe that teachers should use social media for higher education, as well as support the faculty administration regarding the use of social media for higher education.

The results of research conducted in 2021 showed that teachers consider easier and faster access to information, when and where it is needed, as the most important characteristic of social media usage for higher education purposes, followed by sharing ideas and experiences, fast feedback reactions and low level of complexity of use which has affected the reduction of their stress during mandatory online classes during the **COVID**-19 pandemic. Under the given circumstances, their stress


**Characteristics of social media that have affected the reduction of teachers' stress during**

#### **Table 7.**

*Characteristics of social media that have affected the reduction of teachers' stress during mandatory online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic, N = 38.*

reduction was least influenced by the characteristics of strengthening ties with the wider local community, and also with people around the world/international community, marketing and recruitment of new students as well as the possibility of making new acquaintances.

The biggest lesson which was left to us by the stressful teaching situation during the **COVID-**19 pandemic, is that stress caused by online teaching and the use of new


#### **Table 8.**

*Characteristics of social media that have affected the increase in teaching stress during mandatory online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic, N = 38.*

digital tools **COVID-**19 pandemic would have been much milder if adaptation to the digital environment had started earlier before it became a kind of necessity and compulsion. The changes in society that occurred due to the emergence of social media, even before the **COVID-**19 pandemic, and especially after, require a change in the scientific and teaching paradigm from a classical paradigm that is gradually becoming a thing of the past to a progressive paradigm focused on the future.
