THE POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON EDUCATION.

By Bilkisu Kasim

Social media is a collective term for websites and applications that focus on communication, community, based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration. People use social media to connect and communicate with friends, families and various communities. In today’s era of globally connected learning, the impact of social media platforms on education is becoming a dynamic factor. Social media is now seen as a learning platform that can help increase student engagement and empowerment. These platforms allow students to connect, communicate, access information and conduct research. The techniques mentioned here can be found on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat. There are video presentation platforms such as Skype, Google Hangouts or Web Video. These technologies have led to flexible classrooms and transformed the way students are taught. Anyone with an internet connection can create a social media account. Users can share any content through this account.

However, social media has many positive impacts on education, especially better communication, timely information and online socialization. However, there are also negative effects such as identity theft, cyberbullying and social isolation.

Let’s see the positive impact of social media.

1. Enhances creativity: social media encourages students’ creativity by allowing them to express their thoughts and opinions. In these environments, self-learning and the ability to direct one’s own learning can provide much-needed confidence or help determine the career path to pursue.

2. Quality education: social media has increased the speed and quality of student collaboration. Being able to communicate well with each other and share information quickly increases your productivity and helps you learn how to communicate better within a group.it also help student research about a particular topic and make work very easy for them.

3. Familiarity with new technologies: By spending more time with new technologies, students become more familiar with computers and other electronic devices. By focusing more on technology in education, students can develop skills that will be useful throughout their lives.

4. Learn new skills: social media teaches students the skills they need to survive in the business world. Being able to connect and support large numbers of people from different places is an essential part of developing a career or building a business, and that’s what social media provides.

5. Improve academic performance: social media helps students collect data and information to improve academic performance and increase knowledge. When students are assigned a variety of projects, they use a variety of online platforms to get the information they need to solve the challenges.


Let’s see the negative effects of social media.

1. Privacy is not maintained: The amount of privacy available online is not secure. Most students do not regularly evaluate the content they post online, which can have negative consequences months or years later.

2. Reduces self learning: Today, students trust the accessibility of information, especially in social media and on the Internet, to trust information to provide answers. This can reduce the focus of students on learning and individual maintenance of information.

3. Cause distractions: Social media platforms are a major source of distraction and hindrance. Students tend to lose focus and enjoy browsing social media while studying. All this is wasting time without learning anything.

4. Health effects: Careless use of social media platforms can affect your mental and physical health. Students who don’t get enough rest and constantly sit in front of their phones or laptops can have a negative effect on their eyes. Parents and schools should monitor what their children do online. Excessive use of social media can negatively affect students’ minds, and they can suffer from poor posture, eye strain, and physical and mental stress.

5. Social media causes low grades: Social media offers many advantages to students. However, in some cases, social media can also affect academic performance. Most students cannot imagine a day without posting on social media or chatting with friends through social media platforms. Studies show that students spend up to 12 hours using social media. Social media has a huge impact on academic performance. Students who mainly use social media scored lower. My experience and research have shown that social media lowers students’ grades and other academic achievement. Students prioritize using social media and want to use it all the time, including during school hours.

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