Haunted House Mirrors by Ava

Haunted House Mirrors by Ava - March 2022 Scholarship Essay

Every summer, a fair arrives in my hometown. Along with rides and animal exhibits, there is a large haunted house with tunnels, slides, jump scares, and more. My favorite part of this haunted house when I was younger was the distorting mirrors. I would watch in amazement how I became more clear the closer I was and the more distorted the farther I was. Now as I reach adulthood, I don't play in the haunted house anymore, but I find the same feeling when accessing social media. With the lines between technology and education blurring, what needs to be asserted is if social media has a positive impact on the learning process. For many students, social media provides an outlet for communicating with peers for information missed in class or to engage in discussions, but what is being observed more is that students use social media as a distraction from the real world and are having more and more trouble being able to focus on tasks.

As a student who experienced high school through zoom and limited interaction with the teacher, what helped was being able to access platforms like Snapchat to message classmates about due dates or to simply ask questions about lessons. Although this sounds like a convenient method of communication, many of my peers abused this ability of accessible communication through social media to cheat on tests and homework assignments. This lessens the quality of work ethic in the classroom and the amount of material learned. Because of this, what is being observed is that more students are passing classes and not retaining as much information. In the article “CHEATING IN SCHOOL: FACTS, CONSEQUENCES & PREVENTION” the author details how students who cheat do not grasp the overall concept of lessons, which in turn harms them in the long run. Because social media is used as an outlet to cheat, it is not a positive resource to use in the classroom.

Along with the provocation of cheating, social media worsens the mental state of students. From my experience, social media provides a distraction from the world, and even in some cases school work. Because of the endless videos or images out there for students to watch, social media is distracting and makes students lose track of time. In the study "The Social Dilemma: Social Media and Your Mental Health'' the author analyzes the effects of social media on the mental health of its users. What the author found is that "The platforms are designed to be addictive and are associated with anxiety, depression, and even physical ailments." This provides evidence that social media platforms make students less efficient in their school work because they are constantly distracted by platforms that are meant to be addictive. Along with this, social media has been proven to worsen the mental health of students. With students taking difficult classes, not getting enough sleep and participating in rigorous sports, the addition of social media makes things harder for students to function productively.

Social media reflects the same ideas of the distortion of image that the mirrors in the haunted house do. In some perspectives, it seems like a wonderful way to be able to communicate with classmates, and in another perspective social media worsens the mental health of students, restricting their functionality in learning environments. While technology and education are becoming one, I think it is best to have social media as far away from the classroom as possible to allow students to learn in a positive environment.