Social media seems to have become an integral part of everyday life — so integral, in fact, that some universities are now offering an undergraduate major and minor in the field.

“Social media has been around for years,” said Lisa Darnell, assistant professor of communications. “It’s not about knowing how to use it. The question now becomes ‘Do you know how to use it strategically?’”

Darnell said she can see the application of a social media degree in many different areas, such as public relations, journalism and marketing.

However, until individuals understand how to strategically utilize platforms, a degree would be of little use.

“Traditional media is important,” she said. “But you have to understand how to use it in conjunction with social media, again, strategically.”

Darnell said she recently proposed a course that would teach students how to develop social media strategies, instead of teaching students the ins and outs of each specific platform.

“You have Instagram, Flickr and Picasa — all are photography-based,” she said. “All of them do essentially the same things, so why would you need all three? Play around with each one and find out works for you. It’s about learning the strategic use of platforms that are catered to each type of thing.”

Social media or technology overload can become a problem, Darnell said.

“What people don’t understand is that it’s not necessary to use every form of media or technology,” she said. “You’re not utilizing it effectively if you do. It all comes back to one word: strategies.”

Newberry College, located in South Carolina, recently made plans to launch the social media major and minor in fall 2013, due to a “long-term demand for college graduates in a rapidly expanding field.”

In the press release, Newberry College officials said the program is going to be interdisciplinary, pulling strong courses from graphic design, communications, business administration, psychology and statistics, as well as four courses created specifically for the major. Students working toward the degree will also learn how to create Quick Response (QR) codes as a part of mobile marketing strategies, according to an article published by the Huffington Post.

“Through these courses, students will explore the techniques of social media in addition to the development and direction of social media as a creative industry,” said officials in the press release. “Students will work to develop marketing and branding strategies for projects including corporate, non-profit, entertainment, sports, news and politics.”

Caitlin Plummer, a senior at UNA, said that while she said she could certainly see why a social media major would be appealing, she feels like a degree in social media would be useless instead of useful.

“There are people out there already getting paid to look at people’s Facebook pages at their job all day long,” Plummer said. “It doesn’t seem useful to work toward a degree in it.”

Darnell said the feasibility and usefulness of the degree would vary for each person.

“It all depends on what you want to gather from the courses and degree,” she said.

She said that even though social media is prevalent now and will continue to become more prevalent in the future, she doubts a degree in social media will be of much use to college graduates right now.

“Who would hire you with a social media degree right now?” she said. “Eventually, maybe; but right now? We’re just not there yet.”