Download 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 mashup 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 …