Social Media: For Dopamine Fiends or Innocuous Help? by Namuuka

Social Media: For Dopamine Fiends or Innocuous Help? by Namuuka - March 2022 Scholarship Essay

The creation of the internet in the 1980s opened up a door of immense opportunities for everyone who partook in the phenomenon. As people hopped onto various websites, they found themselves fascinated by the copious amounts of information available at ease and the ability to now communicate with people millions of miles away from them. Perhaps the most dramatic outcome of the internet was the invention of social media platforms; it would and has wholly shaped how the world views each other, politics, and more. Included in this shift of thinking was education: Social media has inhibited the ability for students to learn while simultaneously providing them with more resources than ever before.

Social media has acted as a double-edged sword in my educational pursuit. I am ashamed to admit that I am a phone addict and a complete slave to this tiny black box, and I cannot spend five seconds without it . With every scroll on Instagram or Snapchat, my brain receives instant gratification and rewards me with some semblance of dopamine. This reward system has effectively crippled me and destroyed my ability to focus on tasks for long periods. For instance, just trying to open up and begin this essay took me nearly two hours because I kept getting distracted by YouTube videos and TikTok videos. Homework has become almost impossible to complete; I will sit on my bed for hours with my assigned work lying next to me as I scroll on and on and on. This addiction has even impacted me while I am physically in class, and I, unfortunately, find myself staring at my screen in the middle of my AP Statistics class. It is a bit frightening to admit the extent to which social media has effectively zombified my brain, and practically everyone I talk to has revealed that they have undergone this same effect. This ubiquitous enslavement to our screens has led to schools attempting to halt this addiction through various methods--most resulting in complete failure. Schools are now left with a seemingly unsolvable issue: how do we get our students to put their phones down? Unfortunately, as long as social media exists (and thus the physical/physiological addiction that comes with it), it will be near impossible to get students to engage fully in lesson plans and teaching.

I have to give credit where it is due, however, and I thank social media for the benefits it has granted me and others. Social media has introduced other students and me to numerous helpful educational resources. Within every platform, there are hundreds upon hundreds of people dedicated to disseminating beneficial teaching methods. For instance, I dedicate my successful grades in my social studies classes to Heimler’s History, whose YouTube videos I have watched for probably hours at this point. TikTok has also served as a semi-surprising way to begin educational accounts. I have received SAT preparation advice and AP test exam help from the app. These accounts aid in closing the education gap. Now, if a student is struggling with content taught in class, they can easily go to their phone and type the subject matter and receive a plethora of helpful information in response.
Additionally, the usage of social media has facilitated communication between students and faculty members. Many schools have created social media accounts to broadcast school events and extracurricular activities. With the click of a button, students receive information about school cancellations, test-taking dates, important upcoming events, and more. This increased communication prevents misinformation from spreading and overall leads to a better functioning school. Students can get more involved in school activities and easily share this information with their peers.

Social media has now become inextricable from education and learning. We need to learn to coexist with social media; we can uplift its educationally beneficial parts while rejecting the brain-rotting aspects. The approach that most schools take, with embracing social media to a certain extent while still maintaining some caution, has proved to serve as the best method on tackling the influx of social media usage. As a student, I hope to see a future where we can all detach ourselves from social media more and place energy into our education.