Under The Influence by Ivy

Under The Influence by Ivy - March 2022 Scholarship Essay

Social media has become a very controversial topic over the past few years. It has always been a big problem, but with Jeff Orlowski's most recent film, The Social Dilemma, more and more people have been taking the issue a little more seriously. Social media is a trap. Something that is supposed to keep your attention hooked on the screen. And the scary part is that their methods work! Students today are hooked to their handheld mobile devices and are distracted from their school work. As I write this I am being distracted by my phone and its notifications. It is a disruption. I've seen some people not able to go a whole class period without a phone in their hands. Texting, snapping, looking things up, watching videos. It's all supposed to draw your attention and keep you in that space for as long as possible. It's a dangerous game, toeing the edge between education and technology. But without technology, the students that had online learning from the pandemic wouldn't have accomplished anything.

Social media impacted me over the pandemic the most. Teachers couldn't give their full attention to each student. So kids started turning to their phones or playing games when they were supposed to be learning about a new lesson or topic. Students were sleeping on meets, cheating on online tests, not paying attention to the lesson plan. All of these things happen in classes regardless but happened more often during online classes. Just because they could get away with it. I was guilty of using my phone or doing other things during online meets because I was bored. It was boring to sit and listen to a teacher drone on and on over a computer. I was in my house, the dogs were constantly asking for attention, there was all the food I could get my hands on, and there was a perfectly capable laptop sitting in front of me. I was often distracted very easily in a classroom anyway, but being in my own house where I was more than comfortable as a whole was an issue in itself. I find it hard to comprehend that I cant not look at my phone. It's hard to put it down and not touch it when I talk to so many people in a day. Even if there is nothing there, I feel the need to touch the home button to see if any notifications light up my screen. Having social media is not only distracting and takes time away from your learning, but it also takes away from the teachers and their teaching.

Social media only takes away from class time. All I see are its disadvantages in classrooms. Though, search engines, such as Google, can be used in educational ways. Like looking up topics or trying to find the answer to a problem. However, the influence it has on education is quite large. More and more teachers are starting to switch to online methods of teaching which might make it easier for kids to get distracted. I had a teacher who would collect phones at the beginning of class to make sure we paid attention to the lesson plan instead of our phones. We would get our phones back when we needed to look things up to work on something online. It's a genius idea. I can't say I wasn't itching for my phone back the whole time, but at least I had music and was able to complete lots of work that I wouldn't have had if I had my phone on me. Though I find having a phone distracting, I find that not having it near me might be more distracting.

Overall, social media is distracting in trying to get an education. It takes away an instructors' precious time in teaching and essentially throws it down the drain. Social media is a distraction. Having a phone next to, or even away, an individual is a distraction. Social media is basically a getaway for people to escape too when in uncomfortable, boring, or unwanted situations. Having social media is a gateway into another world that people utilize every day in an obsessive type manner. To me, it seems as though everyone is under the influence of social media and cant escape from its hold.