Social Networking Sites (SNS) are one of the most popular topics being talked about by the students in Limay National High School. Examples of social networking sites are Friendster, Facebook, Twitter and Plurk. Social Networking Sites help us to communicate with our friends, classmates, and relatives but they also allow us to communicate with other people who share common interests with us. For instance a person added another person as a friend on Facebook since both of them is addicted on playing Candy Crush. Through these SNS, we develop virtual interpersonal relationships.
An interpersonal relationship is a relatively long-term association between two or more people. This association may be based on emotions like love and liking, regular business interactions, or some other type of social commitments. Interpersonal relationships take place in a great variety of contexts, such as family, friends, marriage, acquaintances, work, clubs, neighborhoods, and churches. They may be regulated by law , custom, or mutual agreement, and are the basis of social groups and society as a whole.
Social networking sites influence the interpersonal relationship of students in many ways. Through social networking sites, users come to meet other people worldwide. These people can affect the user’s interpersonal relationship with other people close to him/her. This influence can either be good or bad for the user.
Many students always log in to their account on Facebook, Twitter, etc. as a part of their everyday routine. Could you imagine the number of all the students logging in to these social networking sites, everyday? That would be millions of students logging in social networking sites. Why students are interested on these sites?
Social networking sites typically offer many features and those features are positively the reason why many students are interested in checking out these sites. One of the general features of SNS is profiles. A profile contains all the information about the person plus their photos, videos, applications that they use and comments/messages posted by other persons. Well, SNS also offers special features like for example, Facebook has social games like Restaurant City and Pet Society.
It is evident that many students greatly rely on these sites in order to interact with their friends and other people whether they know them or not. Being dependent to these sites promotes online friendships which are not good since they might encounter people that are suspicious in behavior. These sites hinder face-to-face friendship but many students reason out that they use SNS in order to communicate conveniently with their faraway friends. What do these SNS possess to make the students keep on using them?
Why do students upload photos, videos, post comments/messages on other profiles and play social games? What are the benefits and purpose of doing these activities? Why are social networking sites frequently used by students nowadays?
As teachers, we should always remind our learners the importance as well as the ill effect of too much exposure to these modern flat forms of media. Education should develop a holistic learner who can adjust to the call of his time and his environment.
By: Dorothy Manansala | Teacher III | Panilao Elementary School
