Social Media's Effect on My Education by Brianna

Social Media's Effect on My Education by Brianna - March 2022 Scholarship Essay

Social media is one of the most polarizing topics among individuals today. With its rapid growth people become more and more for an against it. Specifically in the realm of my learning there are both pros and cons. With the COVID-19 pandemic social media has been an immense help. When we had to stay home from school my first thought was how I was going to finish my senior year of high school. Then it came out that everything would be taught via zoom and our homework would be turned in on an online platform. We had already previously been using Canvas to submit our homework, but zoom was an entirely new realm. While it was stressful at first, I became accustomed fairly quick. Zoom allowed for me to still have interactions with my teachers and my friends from school, while still adhering to the social distancing guidelines. Being able to receive an education has always been one of my top priorities and in spite of the pandemic technology and social media allowed that to continue. Moving toward some of the cons of social media, it has caused many distractions in the learning realm. While I do consider myself a motivated individual, social media can deter my motivation. When I sit down to work on an assignment or I am in a class the constant notifcations from social media pull my attention elsewhere, for example, TikTok. When this app was released I avoided downloading it for as long as possible in fear of having another added distraction. Eventually, I caved and downloaded the app and quickly became enthralled. I have taken steps to prevent the distraction like setting limits for myself, but it is still a struggle to minimize the distraction as much as possible. Looking at the distraction from the bright side, it has strengthened my time management skills. Of course, in an ideal world I would want to be able to still scroll through social media for as long as I would want, but also still managing to finish my work. By focusing in more on my work I will have time to look at social media afterward rather than taking a break for too long and completely losing sight of my goal to complete my work.
Overall looking at the positives and the negatives, I believe social media and technology have positively benefited my learning. It serves as a constant reminder that in every aspect of my day to day life there will be distractions from my end goal, but I must remain motivated to finish. Secondly, it is important to view social media as a tool to better my learning rather than an evil to prevent me from learning.