In today’s connected world of education, the impact of social media on education is a driving factor. The world is getting smaller, and through the use of technology like social media, the way we deliver instructions is changing. Social media and education can complement each other if used effectively. The technology in question here is really just social media technology like Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat. The technology that enables this platform to function is also one of the driving forces behind the impact of this technology on education. There are both positive and detrimental impacts of social networking on college students, and the jury is still out on the long-term impact social media exposure may have. Social media and education have not historically been allies and many educators see social media as a deterrent to real learning. This is changing as the cloud-based nature of social media for collaborating on projects evolves into a relevant and useful technology. Facebook has the ability to create rooms and video chats by invitation. This is great for student projects that rely on successful collaboration as the global pandemic shuts down many face-to-face interactions. For example, video presentation platforms, such as Zoom, Skype, Google Hangouts, or Web video conferencing such as Cisco Webex, have allowed instructions to be delivered across great distances. There is no longer a need for faculty members to be in the same room as students. This technology has given rise to the inverted classroom model and changed the way knowledge is conveyed to students. Today’s faculty must be more technologically savvy than previous generations because students not only prefer communication through this medium, they expect it. The adoption of social media in everyday life is one of the driving forces behind these changing expectations and how social media is changing education. Today’s students want to connect with a higher number of other people than the old educators might have thought. There is a complete industry of apps designed to help people increase their social media following.
Related : HOW CAN SOCIAL MEDIA HELP EDUCATION?
The impact of this technology on education can be considered positive but it also has some negative consequences. It’s not clear what positive impact social media has on college students or negative impact on long-term development, but there are some downsides.
Profit:
• Improve student collaboration
• Increased Participation
• Content Rich Resources
• Useful for team projects
Loss:
• Student distractions can be a problem.
• Lack of control for inappropriate content
• Rely on Social Media for all contacts
Positive Impact of Social Media on Education
• The world is smaller, and as such, students are more diverse in how they think about their interactions. You might wonder if that’s too diverse with the many protests going on on campuses these days, but it shows students are thinking about more than one point of view than they’ve been taught.
• The negative noise listed above can also be positive. Because there is so much noise on the internet, some college students have gotten better at getting rid of the unimportant and absorbing what is. This is one of the positive impacts that social media may have in terms of education. Students better understand how to research a topic using a variety of resources and in some cases, social media can be an excellent resource for statistics-type instruction.
• Students now have the ability to reach out to industry experts across disciplines, and this can help students find more authoritative sources of information. This is a complex undertaking, and students must be taught how to evaluate data sources even when they may come from a supposed expert.
• It is very easy for students to collaborate on various team projects using social media platforms. They can create Facebook groups or even just use Twitter hashtags to communicate about projects and share ideas. This can also be done in media such as email. However, social media delivers on the promise of keeping conversations open and even convenient for educators to view threads and determine if everyone on the team is participating.
Some of the Negative Impacts of Social Media on the World of Education
There is research on the detrimental effects of social media on the human brain, and these adverse effects not only have an impact on social media in education, but also on society as a whole. This is one of the main negative impacts of t