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Social Media and Education
Social Media a buzzword and a hot button issue these days in most societies is by no
doubt a revolutionary invention. It is basically a platform available in virtual communities and
networks where people are able to share and exchange information and ideas. It differs from
traditional media in many ways which include reach, usability and mode of transmission. Social
media has become an integral part of our lives and most of us cannot resist staying away from
Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. The biggest users of social media are the youth. Normally, most
of them are still school going. Therefore, social media are largely seen as having a negative
impact on education because they interfere with the ability of students to concentrate in class or
to their personal studies. In this respect, they are detrimental to education. This paper aims at
discussing how the youth life and their education are affected negatively by the use of social
media.
Some of the worrying aspects of excessive use of social media among children according
to some studies on this subject are: deterioration of quality of relationship between two
individuals as was not the case in face-to-face communication and despite the ease of
interconnectedness people have been found to be lonelier and isolated. This is mostly the case
with children having some kind of psychological issues and status updates of others showing
their happiness end up being catastrophic for such people. Similarly cyber bullying is a
phenomenon which seem to have increased drastically with the use of social media as one can

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remain anonymous and target whosoever he or she wishes and to add salt to injury this activity of
bullying is viewed by many due to networking and everyone part of a particular group or circle
has full access to all the activities taking place. This kind of association mostly leads to fake and
insincere relationships (Valkenburg et al. 586).
Although the virtual relations have their own benefits but the single major disadvantage
that it has is, it decreases social gatherings which renders severe blow to true and sincere
relationship development. These new modes of relationship building might look easy and
attractive apparently but in reality are just artificial means and there remains lot of vacuum to be
filled. When one cannot interact physically there is a greater chance of misconceptions coming to
the surface and damaging the relationship which is the prized entity for two individuals.
The general pattern observed among children addict of social media sites like facebook is
their poor academic performance, not only this but also fights with their fellow students are also
common. The thorough analysis of their personality shows that they argue a lot with their
teachers and skip classes for no reasons. They show poor results in academics in contrast to those
who don't use social media sites. The concentration level drops as a result and they are not able
to focus on their studies. The poor academic performance is mostly the result of excessive time
spent on useless activities at these entertainment sites (Pempek et al. 232).
A research shows that excessive users of social media sites suffer with depression and higher
anxiety level and their own fantasized world do not allow them to adjust in the realistic world
which is governed by certain rules and regulations. These children live in their own world where
they break laws at will and follow this in the real world as well resulting in different

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psychological issues as mentioned which will makes the person a failure as it becomes
extremely difficult to adapt to real world (Suler 325).
In the digital world, privacy concerns are becoming an important issue day
by day and authorities are doing their best to control the consequences. Privacy
of many people is getting disturbed on social media websites. It is alarming that
the level of privacy is lowering due to the vast use of social media websites day
by day. Its hard to think that everyone in this world is comfortable sharing his
private information in front of general public. For example not everyone wants
people to know where does he spend his time and with whom does he spend it?
What kind of websites he visits on regular basis and to what religious or
political group youre attached. Definitely the answer is big NO because it
ma y disturb privacy concerns of the people to an alarming extent.
The absence of tort of privacy has lead to shortage of guidance on question of damages for
mental distress and injury to feelings. These damages basically are the consequences of intrusion
in private life of an individual and therefore tend to have negative effects. Similarly these privacy
intrusions can have economic losses as well which can hamper the overall progress. It can be
said that privacy is a very sensitive and precise concept for which confidentiality prism offers a
concrete foundation for crafting remedies in case of any breach. Some of the most commonly
cited basis on which remedy of confidence is based upon include moral principles of loyalty,
duty of good faith and fair dealing (Barnes 2006).
In the same way we should make sure that our children are not restricted to the use of social
media sites only, instead we should provide them variety of entertainment options which might
include reading books, outdoor sports and watching good TV programs. This multidimensional

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approach helps us to groom each and every aspect of our child whether its physical, mental or
psychological. There should be certain moderation that should be followed in opting for any
means of entertainment.
Similarly it is extremely important that certain schedule for entertainment should be
followed while planning timetable for our children. They need to be trained to follow that
particular schedule which should balance out their work and entertainment timings so that they
can extract maximum benefit out of all their activities. Likewise monitoring the effect of these
sites on the behavior of our children is extremely important (Kaplan et al. 67).
The long and short of it all is that use of social media sites like facebook today are one of the
fastest growing modes of entertainment for the children and they have been found to affect our
childrens mental state both positively as well as negatively. Today we are in need of pragmatic
handling of our children in order to minimize the negativities associated with this entertainment
medium. This provides great number of benefits and effective utilization of entertainment so that
we are able to groom the personalities of our children in a way that they become constructive
entities of society. The task might be uphill as we need to draw lines for our behavior but once
addressed in a right manner it will result into everlasting benefits for our young ones.

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Work Cited
Valkenburg, Patti M., Jochen Peter, and Alexander P. Schouten. "Friend networking sites and
their relationship to adolescents' well-being and social self-esteem." CyberPsychology &
Behavior 9.5 (2006): 584-590.

Pempek, Tiffany A., Yevdokiya A. Yermolayeva, and Sandra L. Calvert. "College students' social
networking experiences on Facebook." Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 30.3
(2009): 227-238.

Barnes, Susan B. "A privacy paradox: Social networking in the United States." First Monday
11.9 (2006).

Suler, John. "The online disinhibition effect." Cyberpsychology & behavior 7.3 (2004): 321-326.

Kaplan, Andreas M., and Michael Haenlein. "Users of the world, unite! The challenges and
opportunities of Social Media." Business horizons 53.1 (2010): 59-68.

David-Ferdon, Corinne, and Marci Feldman Hertz. "Electronic media, violence, and adolescents:
An emerging public health problem." Journal of Adolescent Health 41.6 (2007): S1-S5.

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