The Effect of Social Media in Education

Social media and the internet is one of the most widely used resources in today’s society

and every year it is further integrated into the education system as a tool for teaching and

learning. It gives educators the tools to efficiently teach but it can also come with some severe

drawbacks for students. I would like to tackle the issue of censorship of social media and the

internet and why it is necessary, to an extent, in the world of education. In doing so, I am going

to take a look at some of the negative effects of social media and the internet on students such as

depression, lack of attention, and false information and how it can hinder their ability to be

taught and to learn.

The first thing I want to address is depression caused by social media and how it presents

difficulty in the classroom. It can be a very serious detriment to anyone's life but especially to

college students like yourselves. It can cause such a lack of performance and focus in your

everyday lives. As a student myself I don't suffer from depression in this form, but I do in others

such as seasonal depression and the effects are the same. It is becoming more and more common

among teens who use sites such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or Snapchat to develop

depression. Have you ever felt diminished by these sites when people don’t follow you back or

like your posts? Have you ever felt personally targeted or bullied while using social media? A lot

of teens and college students feel this way quite often due to extensive use and their search for

validation through these sites. “Researchers have proposed a new phenomenon called ‘Facebook

depression,’ defined as depression that develops when preteens and teens spend a great deal of

time on social media sites, such as Facebook, and then begin to exhibit classic symptoms of

depression. Acceptance by and contact with peers is an important element of adolescent life. The

intensity of the online world is thought to be a factor that may trigger depression in some
adolescents,” (O’Keeffe, 3). Sites like these feed off of the need to always gain attention and can

trigger self esteem issues in young adults and teenagers that can lead to depression. When

teenagers develop these symptoms and bring them into the classroom, it can cause numerous

problems in their academic performance that educators have to teach around. “Individuals with

depression may be unable to complete tasks that require high-motor and cognitive skills. They

may feel confused, scatterbrained, overwhelmed or easily frustrated. Even basic everyday tasks

become difficult,” (How Depression Affects Learning). When faced with this many problems it

can make educators hit roadblocks when trying to teach their students the curriculum necessary

to be successful in an academic setting. Implementing ways in which we limit the access or

possibly the amount of time students and teenagers spend on these sites can decrease depression

and self esteem issues among teens and students and make their daily academic performance

better, while making it easier for educators to teach without having to address these symptoms of

depression.

Another aspect that can hinder your learning as a student and make teaching more

difficult is the effect social media and the internet has on our attention. “Lady Greenfield, an

Oxford professor of synaptic pharmacology, argues that social media risks ‘infantilising’ the

human mind. Brain development, in a world of fast and transient action, might be accustomed to

operate over short timescales. Then, in response to tasks with greater longevity – for example

book reading or paying attention in classes – attention is in relative deficit,” (Valentine). This

shows that the more time students spend using social media and moving at a fast pace on their

phones can actually shorten their attention span due to the speed at which they move and change

activities on social media. “A study conducted in 2013 by an American research group found that

4 year old children’s attention spans significantly predict their maths and reading skills in later
life, even up to their early twenties. Children with higher attention span scores were even found

to be more likely to have completed a university degree by the age of 25 than their lower scoring

counterparts,” (Valentine). This can pose challenges for educators ranging from K-12, and can

cause a domino effect within student learning because their limited attention spans may keep

them from attaining critical curriculum that builds up throughout the years of learning. When

students do not have as strong of foundations in their learning it can make it difficult for

educators to teach more complex concepts in students’ later years of learning. From this, we can

see that it would be more effective to implement the censorship of social media usage from an

earlier age so we can maximize the development of the children's attention span and set them up

for success when they enter their academic years.

The last aspect I would like to touch on is fake news/information on the internet and

social media. “Individuals are able to access and spread false information by tapping a phone

screen or clicking a mouse. This presence of false information on social media platforms

provides another off-ramp for students to take toward unreliable information,” (Thompson). This

can lead to students forming false preconceived ideas before entering the classroom which adds

extra steps in the teaching process for educators because they must help the student unlearn the

false information and then teach the correct ideas. “Students trek year by year through the

American educational system, gaining essential life skills, knowledge, and understandings, to

eventually graduate with minimal knowledge of how the media affects their daily lives and

thought processes. Students receive information from a variety of sources, but are not equipped

with the mental tools necessary to determine the validity of what the sources deliver,” (Golding).

If we can further build upon the censorship of social media and the internet and not only filter

information form the internet to students but also teach them how to spot false information and
how to find strong factual sources, we can make sure our students come into the classroom with

a strong grasp on concepts that teachers can help build upon to create strongly rooted academics.

So looking back, I believe it would be beneficial to combat the effects of depression, lack

of attention and false information on students by implementing a system of censorship for social

media and the internet early on in your life as a student.. By continuing censorship throughout

your academic career, we can build upon the positives of censorship by teaching strong media

literacy to increase academic performance and to make teaching for educators an easier and

smoother process.
 Works Cited

AMLE - Association for Middle Level Education. “Fact or Fiction: Fake News and Its Impact

on Education.” AMLE,

www.amle.org/BrowsebyTopic/WhatsNew/WNDet/TabId/270/ArtMID/888/ArticleID/848

/Fact-or-Fiction-Fake-News-and-its-Impact-on-Education.aspx.

“How Depression Affects Learning.” Dual Diagnosis, dualdiagnosis.org/how-depression-

affects-learning/.

O'Keeffe, Gwenn Schurgin, et al. “The Impact of Social Media on Children, Adolescents, and

Families.” American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Pediatrics, 1 Apr.

2011, pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/127/4/800?source=post_page-----

3f89a46ab400----------------------.

“The Goldfish Effect: Social Media Shortens Our Attention Span.” The Goldfish Effect Why

Social Media Shortens Our Attention Span Comments, 9 Apr. 2019,

www.mytutor.co.uk/blog/attention-span-social-media/.

Thompson, Sean. “Identifying and Avoiding False Information: A Matter of Comprehension

in the Classroom.” Iowa Reading Research Center,

iowareadingresearch.org/blog/identifying-false-information.
Zak,

Thank you for your essay and I enjoyed hearing from your perspective from the education

system. It is very interesting to see how the internet impacts students growing up and how that
shorter attention spans impacts the student. The information that you were able to bring in
about different types of issues is very good because it is informative to the reader. Like how
children may come into school with false information that they have already seen online but
did not do their own research. It does make it harder for teachers to be able to teach their
students when they have shorter attention spans and have false information already.

The quotes that you have used are good, but I think that there may be a few too many
quotes. To me it seems like you are just quoting the articles more than really stating a
position. I do understand your position and what you are trying to get at, but the quotes take
up too much space in the essay. You can talk about what the quotes say, so we can see more
of your writing more than other authors. You could also talk about how some media could be
used in the classroom setting because there are positives that come with social media. I
understand that it is hard to really state your position and have a good bit of information in
less than 1000 words, but taking away some quotes that are not the most important to the
essay would be able to give you more of an opportunity to influence your readers what you
are trying to get at. Overall, I liked how you were able to share your thoughts on this.

-Matthew Becker

Zak,

I really enjoyed reading your essay and found it to be very interesting throughout. It was

very enlightening to read about how social media impacts students and their education. This is

a great topic because readers of the Appalachian State community are all students and most of

them interact with social media or fake news on a daily basis. I think that your introduction is

amazing and I wouldn’t change a thing about that. Addressing exactly what you are going to

discuss in your paper with a thesis statement at the end gives the reader a clear understanding

of what the paper is going to be about.

As far as the body paragraphs are concerned, I think they are all very informative and contain

proper sources and background information. I appreciate that you added the study about

children’s lack of focus due to social media and I believe this adds a great piece to your

writing. However, I would like to see more of your opinions in this paper. You have great

information but it is from scholarly sources and not your own thoughts. It would be great if

you could take your quotes and information, and expand on that. Overall, I think you did a

good job and I enjoyed reading your paper. Just try to add a few more of your own thoughts

in here and I can’t wait to read it again!

-Maddy