Social networking is coming of age… and it is here to stay! The way we look at it will be for students’ lifetime, since there are good effects to users, but caution, there are also bad effects to users. Let us try to analyze first the good side for students of using the social media.

1. Social media brought more information and knowledge and gave better opportunities for students to use this. It made the students to explore more places and know more people around the world.
2. Social media improved our ability to absorb information, what would have seemed to be overwhelming to an individual some 20 years ago is now normal to us. Students now have an extreme ease in processing and are evolving quickly.
3. Social media helped students have a better direction of what they want; now they have ease of reaching to mentors in the same organization, their teacher which was quite impossible for students 10 years ago.
4. Students got closer to art and design and are exposed continuously to new ideas and are given a big chance.
5. Students’ talents got discovered faster, students who are good in programming got their name out easily. Students who are good in singing, painting, video script writing are easily discovered leading them to their dreams.
6. Students were helped by Google in their reports, assignments and other tasks.
7. A lot of students were able to inform public about their issues- using social media which brought awareness and helped solve a lot of problems.

Similarly, there are also bad effects of social media to students.

1. There are lesser instances of interpersonal skills with other people since they are spending more time talking from behind the screen.
2. Attention to the four language macro skills, like attention to pronunciation, spelling, grammar has declined drastically, due to the most of the communication that happens online are not edited properly.
3. Our ability to retain information has decreased, and the willingness to spend more time researching and looking up good information has reduced, due to the fact that we got used to the ease of accessibility to information on social media.
4. Social media has become a major distraction to students, causing the overall performance of students to decline especially the ones who had to check their Facebook and Twitter account while studying.

            Now that we have known the good and bad sides of social media, as teachers, we can help the students discern the present situation of social media use.

References:

http:/ansonalex.com, posted Dec.13, 2013

The NMC Horizon Report: 2014 Education Edition Wikipedia

Social Media as a Primary Source: A Coming of Age, Vicki Coleman, EDUCAUSE

By: Mrs.Lolita N. Pangan | Teacher III | Bagac National High School