ENGL 1113, Sec. 236 06 November 2018 Essay 2In today’s society, especially our generation, the rapid advancement of media technology has had a great impact on the way they communicate. The growing dimension of the use of social media among the youth of today cannot be overemphasized. Over the years, social networking among students has become more and more popular. In this same perspective, this rise of social media caused many students to a huge waste of time.
Social media is the collective of online communications channels dedicated to community-based input, interaction, and collaboration. It refers to websites and applications that are designed to allow people to share contents quickly, efficiently, and in real-time. The ability to share photos, opinions, events, in real-time has transformed the way we live and, also, the way we do business. Abused of social media can be caused many problems in academic performance, workplace, and health. By demonstrating the effects of social media in our lives, everyone could understand the global problem of this advancement.The excessive use of social media by college students causes the students to lose focus during class time, procrastinate.
The use of a cell phone for social media activities during class lectures, presentations or assignments results in students being sidetracked and losing focus on the task at hand. The lack of focus in the classroom has an effect on the student’s performance as they may miss assignment details such as in what to include, when it’s due, perform poorly on quizzes and tests, and fail to fully comprehend the learning material, leading to failing classes. According to Jacobsen, ; Forste study in 2011, two-thirds of the students reported using electronic media while in class, studying, or doing homework. Social media websites such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter gain popularity are becoming increasingly dangerous as they create modes to procrastinate while trying to complete homework. Hence, in a survey of 102 students, 57% stated that social media has made them less productive. Moreover, according to a new study by doctoral candidate Aryn Karpinski of Ohio State University and her co-author, Adam Duberstein of Ohio Dominican University, college students who use the 500 million-member social network have significantly lower grade-point averages (GPAs) than those who do not. Forty-five percent of the sample admitted that they spent 6-8 hours per day to check a social media site, 23% spent more than 8 hours, 20% spent 2-4 hours and only 12% spent less than 2 hours. The ratio of participants who posted or responded during school hours was 64%; 15% rarely used social media during school hours; 21% were not sure whether they would like to use it.
That means most college students would prefer to use social media and therefore spent vast hours checking social media sites. Ninety percent of students spent their time on entertainment; there were not too many college students who preferred using social media to deal with their homework. Eighty percent of the sample admitted that they posted or responded while completing homework. It has definitely affected their efficiencies and their grades. Regarding the negative impacts of social media on students, Jeff Platt, NIACC psychology instructor, said, “Social media can interfere with learning if students believe multitasking is possible. Research suggests that people actually are just switching between tasks rather than do several things at the time.
Wasting time on social media is also affecting workplace productivity. According to Kunal Sen, Managing Director, Korn Ferry Futurestep – India, while social media may be the most sought-after employee engagement and marketing tool and organizations want to tout them as “social”, the unrestricted use of it is having a negative impact on employee productivity. According to TeamLease World of Work Report, an average of 2.35 hours is spent accessing social media at work every day and 13 percent of the total productivity is lost owing to the social media indulgence alone. “Indulgence in social media and the resultant slacking is a testimony of pastimes getting more interesting than work. Hence rather than blindly instituting rules, organizations should get to the root cause of the misuse and devise policies that make work more challenging and the work culture more aspirational,” Kunal Sen, Senior Vice President, TeamLease Services said. As per the study, apart from the loss of productivity, the extensive use of social media by employees has also resulted in an increase in the loss of confidential information, defamation, misinformation, and employee solicitation.
According to the report, Facebook is the most visited social media platform. Out of the 62 percent employees who accessed social media during working hours, nearly 83 percent of them spend significant time browsing Facebook. The report noted that the use of social media in the workplace and resultant slackening has become very rampant. Some employers have policies in place, and some are leveraging social media to their benefit, but most are clueless about how the menace could be handled, it said. Apart from the loss of productivity, the extensive use of social media by employees has also resulted in an increase in the loss of confidential information, defamation, misinformation, and most importantly employee solicitation. “Facebook is the most visited social media platform and the most-handy outlet to relieve stress. Out of the 62% of employees who accessed social media during working hours, nearly 83% of them spend significant time browsing on Facebook,” notified Sen.
Excessive use of Social media can cause students some health problems. A new study has found that teenagers who engage with social media during the night could be damaging their sleep and increasing their risk of anxiety and depression. Teenagers spoke about the pressure they felt to make themselves available 24/7, and the resulting anxiety if they did not respond immediately to texts or posts. Teens are so emotionally invested in social media that a fifth of secondary school pupils will wake up at night and log on, just to make sure they don’t miss out. Perhaps the worst thing about this is that teenagers need more sleep than adults do, so night-time social media use could be detrimental to their health. Research has shown that teenagers need 9.5 hours of sleep each night but on average only get 7.
5 hours. A lack of sleep can make teenagers tired, irritable, depressed and more likely to catch colds, flu, and gastroenteritis. And it seems that at school, most of my mates are exhausted too. During the summer holidays, I lost my phone. And for the week that I was phoneless, it felt like a disaster. I love my phone. It gives me quick access to information and allows me to be constantly looped in with my friends, to know exactly what is going on in their lives.
So when I didn’t have my phone for a week, I felt a slight sense of Fomo, or if you’re not up to speed with the lingo, fear of missing out. By the end of the week, I’d got used to not having a phone and I’d quite enjoyed the break from social media. But there was still a lingering sense of sadness at the back of my mind that there would be conversations I had missed, messages that had been sent, funny videos shared and night-time chats that I would probably never get to see.
A separate study by the National Citizen Service found that, rather than talking to their parents, girls seek comfort on social media when they are worried. The survey also suggests that girls are likely to experience stress more often than boys – an average of twice a week.Some people believe that social media can also be the way of informing about news and participating to improve our knowledge. The positive aspect of online communities is that youths can utilize them for academic assistance and support (Lusk, 2010). Due to the ability of social media to enhance connections by making them easily accessible, social media can yield many benefits for the young, including providing a virtual space for them to explore their interests or problems with similar individuals, academic support, while strengthening online communication skills and knowledge. “Students who may be reluctant to speak up in class are participating in book discussion blogs and writing for real audiences. There are new Web tools emerging all the time that are enhancing learning (Brydolf, 2007).” Thanks to social media, workgroup can be created, Youtube can be a great source of educational material.
Instructors can, among other things, ask students to film themselves as they deliver presentations on assigned topics. The students can then upload their videos to an approved channel where they can be viewed and graded by the instructors., Google can be helpful for students to connect with other students for group studying sessions can opt for a solution like Google Hangouts, Pinterest is a social media platform that instructors can use to create virtual boards containing resources for the students in their courses, and Twitter can be used in the classroom environment to connect students with one another and with their instructors, to get feedback, and to disseminate resources.Many students are spending countless hours immersed in social media for wasting their time. However, it also helps students to develop important knowledge and social skills and be active citizens who create and share content.
Social networking sites have their plus points too if they are used sensibly and safely, but remember, an excess of everything is bad, and you need to keep your family intact and your job safe, thus do not get too involved into social networking.Work citedMukherjee, Baishali. “This Is How Social Media Engagement Can Impact Your Work Culture.” Entrepreneur, 31 May 2018, www.entrepreneur.
com/article/314292.Press Trust of India. “Social Media Affecting Workplace Productivity, Says Study.” NDTV.com, 18 Oct.
2016, www.ndtv.com/world-news/social-media-affecting-workplace-productivity-says-study-1475746.Qingya Wang. “The Effects of Social Media on College Students”, MBA Student Scholarship, 2011, www.scholarsarchive.jwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.
cgi?article=1004Udorie, June Eric. “Social Media Is Harming the Mental Health of Teenagers. The State Has to Act | June Eric Udorie.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 16 Sept. 2015, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/16/social-media-mental-health-teenagers-government-pshe-lessons.
