Social Media Essay by Benjamin

Social Media Essay by Benjamin - March 2022 Scholarship Essay

Social Media has impacted the way learning is done throughout both the United States and the world. The spread of social media has impacted the way things are done for education, both on the students end, and the teachers. It has done this by creating more ease to communicate with others, allowing for negative influences to be spread on social media, and providing an increase of resources to the everyday student.
One of the largest impacts that has been made on social media for education is the ease of communication. It allows students to communicate with one another in an instant, whereas previously, students would have to call one another or see each other in person, which was a much more difficult process. This ease of communication has both positive and negative effects on students throughout the education system. It allows students to discuss difficult homework, and cooperate with one another on group projects with greater ease. This allows for more cohesiveness in the classroom, as it is not as difficult of a task to get your students to cooperate and build relationships with one another. It also has a negative effect on students, largely outside of the classroom. Social media allows individuals to say what they want to on the internet, and can do so anonymously. This makes it increasingly easy for students to be mean to one another on the internet, or collectively cyberbully an individual. This can largely lead to strained relationships outside of the classroom, with a risk of spilling over into the classroom. The increased ease of communication has largely changed the way students work, both in a positive and negative manner.
Another important effect of social media on the education process is the ease for a negative example to spread to more individuals. Social media allows you to see what someone has to say in an instant, regardless of if what they have to say is intended for the audience it is reaching. This is especially the case with younger students, primarily middle school or younger. Children at these ages are largely impressionable, and it is very easy for a negative influence to begin to look more and more like a positive to them. They may not notice the fact that the influence they are getting from this individual is destructive, and leads to behaviors that inhibit them in their future goals. This is largely what influences students to partake in actions that would not regularly fit their pattern of behavior. Without these negative influences having a platform such as social media, students may never hear their destructive message. This is a largely negative impact on the classroom environment that is caused by social media.
Perhaps the largest impact of social media on the classroom is the increased access to learning resources. Social media has one of the largest databases of information in history, with massive amounts of individuals that work in a variety of fields. Innovators, entrepreneurs, and high level professionals all have access to all of these social media websites. Information is regularly shared and put out by many of these individuals, and resources to learn about a topic are often shared. These resources are often used by students who are curious about a topic, and are used as a way to gather more information. Using tools that have been directly given to the masses by professionals in these industries allows for students to get some of the newest, top level resources to gather their information. Without social media, these resources would be much harder to get access to, and the newest, most relevant information would not be in the hands of everyday students around the world.
Social media has an impact on the students of the world on a daily basis. While there are negative aspects to it, such as the spreading of misinformation, negative influences, and mean comments, overall it has the potential to help generate a whole new, more informed generation of individuals who are capable of gathering information on their own. Social media has indisputably had one of the biggest impacts on everyday classroom life in the past century.