Negative impacts of social media & digital technology on students One Set of Opinions Negative impacts of social media & digital technology on students

Social media & digital technologies have a huge influence on a student's education These 2 concepts may be beneficial at times but they can also negatively impact on a child’s education, health and communication skills.

Students have become victims of social media more than anyone else because they get attracted to these sites to kill boredom during studying Devices that are used most with social media include, cell phones, laptops, computers, tablets, etc Are you actually victims or just immature users of emerging technology?

Some negative effects of social media include....

1. Multitasking Once students become addicted to these sites they attempt to muti-task while studying. This reduces their academic performance and their ability to concentrate on a task because of distractions brought by social media. This is demonstrable and measureable and eventually will collapse the classroom (look around right now). Multi-tasking is not the same thing as synthesis!

2. Time Wastage Several students are spending too much unnecessary time on social sites rather than doing their homework They tend not be prepared for class. (not different than before) Instead of taking time and trying to deeper analyze the task they rush through it. (very much true)

3. Reduction in real life contact Student’s ability to communicate face to face has also been affected. Forget how to communicate with each other in person. They are not able to collaborate in discussions and this reduces their communication skills. But digital communication might evolve to be better  the mash-up world

Question: If social networking sites were permanently cut out from your life, how would you be affected? Would it be something negative that would hold you back or would you eventually get over it ?

A students learning and communication skills can also be affected by digital technologies.

Question #2 How often do you check your phone?

Some negative effects of digital gadgets include....

1. Reduced learning Many students are dependent on getting information off sites like Google. This has reduced their focus on learning and retaining information since they are reliant on the accessibility of information on social media.

2. Addiction and Distraction Many students have become addicted to these sites and digital gadgets and this results into many distractions while they are trying to study or prepare for a test. This has a negative impact on their academic performance. They start getting low grades in school due to the lack of studying and reduction in writing skills. There is no evidence that this is actually happening on average.

3. Poor grammar Many students writing skills have been affected. Rather than improving in their writing, they are doing worse in their spelling, grammar and communication skills due to the use of jargon and logo’s. Unclear if this is bad; what is important is communication and understanding. However, student’s ability to make a coherent, evidenced based argument is way down. No most writing is based on anecdotal evidence. This is a real problem.

4. Dependency on spell check features Digital technologies and social sites both have spell check and this reduces several students’ ability to write without relying on a spell check feature. Much evidence for this.

Summary Was the printing press disruptive? Was it ultimately positive or negative? What about Television? Didn’t that just encourage passivity and brainwashing and programmed society? What about Movies? Social media is just another emerging communications technology  maybe we will use it wisely or maybe we never will …