It is amazing how the Internet is
changing people's lives. People are able to quickly do research and gather data
on the web, navigate through websites flawlessly, and most people are able to find
anything on the Internet in ten seconds flat thanks to search engines such as Google.
The Internet has provided our world with a different means of communication and
it is accessible to anyone at any time at a click of a mouse. There are social
media networks like Facebook, Twitter, World of Warcraft, Second Life,
LinkedIn, Flickr and so on. There are approximately 845 million users on
Facebook, 462 Twitter users, 135 million users on LinkedIn, and 50 million
users on Flickr. These numbers gives us an idea of just how many people around
the world are involved in social media. From the numbers mentioned it is clear
to see that the most popular social media network with over 845 million users
is Facebook, most of whose users are students. This research blog will speak to
how social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter are a distraction for
students causing them to do poorly in their education. It will also outline how
the students' addiction to the social media networks can have a negative
impact. Lastly, this blog will speak to what educational institutes such as
Universities are doing to handle the distraction that social media networks are
having on their students.
Social
media is available to anyone at any time. Students are religiously connecting
themselves to it and are continuously signing online to check their status. Even while in class, students are on their
laptops or smartphone and spend the majority of their time checking their 'home
page' and only partially listening to the lecture their teachers. The partial
attention students are giving their teachers is not sufficient for getting good
grades. In the Time Magazine | U.S. Edition an article called Wired for Distraction: Kids and Social Media,
written by Dalton Conley, states that students and people who are heavily
involved in social media have "continuous partial attention", which
is quoting Linda Stone, a Microsoft Executive. Meaning, their ability to pay
attention to one person or thing is nearly impossible; they will always be
doing something else.
Social
media networking takes a lot of one's time. With all the new information that
people are absorbing, social networks are taking people's time and life away
and everything around that person is ticking by without the person knowing it.
Usually people have the right intention of 'checking' their Facebook or Twitter
for a certain amount of time. They usually say 'give me 5 minutes to check my
Facebook'. The 5 minutes turns into 20 minutes and that turns into 40. People
are so focused on checking social media that they are wasting their life
sitting at computer or looking down at a screen, letting their lives stop just
so they can scroll through other peoples' lives.
In
2010, the Kaiser Family Foundation reported that children ages 8 to 18 spend
approximately 7 or more hours using social media networks and entertainment per
day; and when you add text messaging the hours soar up to 11 hours each day. "People are paying more and more
attention to the environmental stimuli at the expense of focus,” says Anthony
Wagner, a Stanford University Study's co-writer.
Social
media networks are accessible to anyone who has a device like a laptop or Smartphone,
which has the capability to connect to the Internet. Thanks to social norms, it
is almost expected to see with such devices and therefore most people are
connected to a social media network. The Internet, which is wireless and free
at postsecondary institutions provide students with the opportunity to become
distracted from their lectures. Facebook is a prime example of a social media
network that has a serious effect on students' lives and education. Some
effects are seen to be negative and some can be seen as positive.
The
constant distraction that the social networks have affects how one learns and
how their brain absorbs new information. Students who are surfing through their
social media networks while they are listening to their teachers' lectures are
not using the full potential power of their brains' learning centre. Smith
(2011) said that once an hour 9 out of 10 British students are distracted by
Facebook and Twitter. This type of compulsive behaviour can almost be deemed as
an addiction. Classes in higher education are usually three hours long,
subtract twenty to thirty minutes per hour for social media checking, and if one
does the math you have a student who is only paying attention 90 minutes out of
the 180 minutes there are in one lecture; multiply that by six or seven courses
and by now you should get where this blog is going. University and college
students go through demanding courses and do many assignments, which require
the complete focus of the student. However, students are not realizing the harm
they are doing when they are taking thirty minutes to check their social media
network accounts when they are suppose to be working on a paper.
There
are many ways people are able to learn, i.e. typing up notes, recording
lectures, etc., however there are in fact only two ways that a brain can absorb
information. According to the University of California, Los Angeles there are
two types of learning sections in the brain. The 'focused learners' are those
who pay full attention in class and are not distracted by their laptops and
other devices; they use the hippocampus region of their brain. This area is the
heart of the memory and learning part of the brain. These students are able to
think in high level situations and usual end up with higher paying jobs than
those categorized as 'multitaskers' (Conley, 2011). 'Multitaskers' are those
who are doing two to three things at once and are not solely focusing on one
task alone. These students are using the area of the brain called the striatum.
This section or manner of learning is not a bad learning approach; nevertheless,
this area of the brain is for learning in a habit or pattern manner. This kind
of knowledge is usually only good for those who want to work on an assembly
line (Conley, 2011). Students graduating
with degrees are usually aiming for high paying jobs and to do this, they need
to shut down their phones and laptops and start paying attention in their
classes.
A
startling fact is just how dependent and almost fixated students are when it
comes to having the Internet. A few studies have been done where you would
think a student would obviously choose one over the other, but in the end it’s
having the Internet that comes before all. One research study that was done by
the CEO of Cisco, Phil Smith had an astonishing result where students chose
having the Internet over having a car. Another fact from Smith's (2011)
research is 1 in 3 college students consider the Internet to be just as
fundamental as air, water, shelter, and food are. These thoughts are very
astonishing and very irrepressible. Many of these students would actually find
the Internet to be more important than dating or even going out with friends. Last
fact from Smith's (2011) research was 1 of 4 students in the study thought that
updating their Facebook status was more important than partying, music, or
seeing friends. It is amazing how a social media network can alter lives
completely that we become desensitized by flesh and blood contact and prefer
online contact instead.
The
Internet is a network that allows for anyone to have the ability to become a
different persona. The Internet is an easy way for people to escape their
reality and create an altered image of themselves online. The Internet provides
an escape that becomes increasingly distracting the more time one puts into it.
Students are finding that they use social media as a network of procrastination
or a place to escape to especially when they are needed to do an assignment or homework
of any kind. A study done by the Ohio State University has demonstrated that
students who utilize Facebook spend less time studying and typically have lower
grades than those students who do not use these popular social media sites
(Cowler-Amoss, 2012). It is all about the student balancing the time they are
on the Internet and its entertainment and a students' homework habits.
Some
schools have had enough of students abusing social media networks while on
campus, one in particular has banned social media networks from a few of their
library computers. The University of Colorado had implemented a system on their
library computers on March 9th 2012 where twenty two of the university's
library computers have a permanent social media block to Facebook, Twitter, etc
(Fitz, 2012). The reason for the new system is students who needed to do
research on computers had to wait twenty to thirty minutes for a free computer.
They had noticed that those who had a computer were using it to check their
Facebook or look up 'tweets' on Twitter. This had aggravated many students and
so the school had agreed to have designated computers which still had Internet
but were social media free; meaning no access to Facebook or Flickr. An
assistant professor at the university, Rory Lewis agrees with this compromise
and believes that libraries at schools around the nation will start offering
these 'social-media-less' computers in the future.
At
another educational institute, the University of Ottawa, Professor Marcel
Turcott is very frustrated with the students in his class. He believes that his
students are missing out in important opportunities and lectures and thinks the
"laptop ban" that the University is thinking of putting into place
will be in the best interest of the students. In the video posted by CTV
Ottawa, reporter Catherine Lathem records clips of students who are admitting
to misusing their laptops in class, however they believe that their laptop
helps them with learning (Lathem, 2012). Does that mean that they need access
to social media websites? Professor Turcott wants to do a study with his
students: one day laptops will be forbidden to be used in class and at the end
of the lecture a surprise quiz will be handed out and Turcott strongly believes
that his students would perform better than they would of if they had their
laptops in front of them.
One
social media network in particular has a strong grasp on the world today,
particularly on students. With 845 million users, Facebook is starting to have
negative impacts on student grades and their educational performances. It is
quite clear that many students are not able to cognitively control their
absorption of Facebook and it is affecting their personality and studying
habits. Facebook has an effect that is harmful to the productivity of students
and has been proven to decrease the students' academic performance and their
grades. Social media is a very hard to ignore since there are constant
distractions and new information been fed into the system, i.e. pictures being
posted and status updates of friends. Many students are admitting that social
media networks are the cause to their grades suffering (Weeks, 2011). In
Weeks' video from CBC News | British Columbia, a professor is noticing
that his students are dropping out of courses because they simply cannot handle
or balance their technology use.
Students
will always have the choice of how well they do in school, they are in control
of their own grades, what they want to learn, and what they want to retain in
their brains. Social media networks are
continuously feeding new news throughout the day. Students are choosing to take
the time and to read through them and most are able to remember what they had
read. An idea to help students be more involved with their education is by
connecting their learning material with social media networks. Perhaps teachers
should think of creating a Facebook page for their courses and students will
have updates from their classes right on the Facebook home page. Perhaps,
teachers should think of using Facebook to post assignments as well, it’s
convenient for the student who is already on Facebook to quickly check their assignments.
With large lectures, students can post their questions on their class' Facebook
wall so not to interrupt the lesson; these questions might even spark
discussions amongst the class that teachers can directly facilitate. Both teachers and students need to realize
that going through the school's education website is not always the best way to
catch a student, sometimes the teacher or educational system needs to bring
their materials to the students. They can do this by getting their class
materials and lectures up on Facebook, Twitter, Blog websites, etc.
An
article written by Fewkes explains that 90% of students that had taken part in
his survey were university students (Fewkes, 2012). This segment of a
demographic is very influential and it would be a great success if there could
be a positive link between social media networks and education. Some
educational institutions though want to use social media networks to enhance
learning and not take away from it or be a distraction. Students are very
active on social networking sites, meaning that many have good communication
skills. It is a challenge for schools to incorporate social media sites into
their education while controlling the content the students can access while in
class. There needs to be a shift from
social media network such as Facebook or Twitter being a negative impact on
academics to an influential and helpful network for students to turn to for aid
in their homework, studies, etc.
An
amazing Internet tool that has developed and grown over the years is the social
media network. There are many different
social media networks available to students to join such as Twitter and
LinkedIn. Most of them have a strong grasp on the lives of students in
universities and colleges nationwide. One in particular, which is popular to
see students on in class, is Facebook. It has generated over 845 million users
and the majority of the users are in the age range of students that could be in
college and university (18 years to 24 years old). The number of students
conversing per hour and per day are staggering. Students are checking up on
their friends’ status, photos that are posted, comments that are posted.
However, there is a time and place for doing these things and in class or
during lectures is not the time. Many surveys and research have been conducted
to prove that social media networks are the reason to the downfall of students’
grade and educational performance. Twitter and Facebook, distract students when
they need to review a lecture, write a paper, or study for exams and test. The
distraction is called “continuous partial attention"(Conley, 2011), and it
proves that students cannot focus solely on one task, i.e., pay attention to
the teacher in class; they always need to be doing something else at the same
time. However, this learning behaviour makes it impossible for the brain of
students to absorb information and retain it. There are children who spend 7 to
11 hours on social media networks and entertainment programs, and that means
the majority of the day they are staring some sort of screen and letting their
lives tick by: no wonder why their grades are dropping. Students as well as
teachers need to realize the potential that social media networks have and need
to harness it and use it in a positive way that is productive educationally for
both parties. Having the perfect balance between a social media network and
homework can be achieved through self-disciplining and suitable scheduling. It
is time for students to realize all the negative impacts mentioned throughout
this blog are in fact affecting them and their schooling. Students need to start
making big decisions and start changing their habits and becoming less
distracted by social media networks.
Bibliography
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Cowler-Amoss, C. (2012, 1 March). Social media useful, yet
distracting. The Advocate: Minnesota
State University Moorhead. Retrieved
on April 5th 2012 from http://msumadvocate.com/2012/03/social-media-useful-yet-distracting/
Fewkes, A. M., & McCabe, M. (2012). Facebook: Learning
Tool or Distraction?. Journal Of Digital Learning
In Teacher Education, 28(3), 92-98. Retrieved April 4 2012 from
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Fitz, R. (2012, 8 March). Cover your Facebook: Library
limits distraction with ban of social media. University of Colorado: News and Information
for Faculty and Staff. Retrieved on April 5th 2012 from
http://connections.cu.edu/across-cu/cover-your-facebook-library-limits-distraction-with- ban-of-social-media/
Rouis, S., Limayem, M., & Salehi-Sangari, E. (2011).
Impact of Facebook Usage on Students' Academic Achievement:
Role of self-regulation and trust. Electronic Journal Of Research In
Educational Psychology, 9(3),
961-994. Retrieved on April 4th 2012 from EBSCOhost http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=70137730&site=ehost-live
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