Luis A. Vasquez-Sanchez Instructor Muyang Li 15 December 2015 Special Topics in Sociology of Culture Social Media: College Students and Our Role Are we becoming less human with the passing of each day? Have we become too dependent on technology, specifically social media? In this day and age, people have different views on social media. They question its true purpose and its effect on society as a whole. With that said, although there are many thoughts concerning the topic/trend of social media something that is undoubtedly true is that social media plays an active role in the lives of the majority of people. Whether in a positive or negative way, social media influences the lives of all people. However this paper focuses on the effect of social media on college students. It addresses both the positive and negative effects of social media on those in college; focusing on a student’s academic efficiency, social interactive skills, and overall productivity. Social media is defined as “websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.” However a more accurate definition of social media is as follows: “the relationships that exist between network of people” (Wiang, 3). Although social media traces back to before the 1800s, it is something that has become especially popular over the last two decades. What is interesting about this is that technology began going through a sense of both change and advancement of after
Does the name Mark Zuckerburg mean anything to you? If you are in higher education administration it should. When he attended Harvard University, he was a cunning college student who hacked into the universities computer system. He stole information about students who currently attended the university such as photos and ID information. As a result of his illegal endeavors, he created a website called Facemash and encouraged site visitors to rate people participating in the website as “hot or not.” This was his first effort at advancing the world in social media. His second effort was creating a study tool to upload images of Roman art, which allowed each student to write a commentary underneath. Both of these internet successes led to the creation of a known website called Facebook. This website privileges over half a billion users around the world. In higher education, social media is not a new phenomenon. When students use it correctly, there is evidence it can greatly enhance student learning, but social media can have serious cognitive effects on college students possibly even resulting in the decline of their GPA (Magolda, 2011).
College student and the social media, in many ways both good and bad a college student can be affected by the social media. It can be an opportunity to prove how you really are as a person and potentially be accepted to college, or you can be denied admittance and lose the opportunity to study at the college you have been hoping for.
If employers are looking for a particular segment like graduate students to be the face of their organization, they would need to considerate whether or not to use the social media because many college students goes on parties and they have fun while they are in school, but some of them don’t realize the impact a photo can make when they are looking for a job after they graduate.“College students sometimes post questionable photographs and provocative comments about their alcohol consumption, recreational drug use, and sexual exploits” (Weathington, & Bechtel, 2012, p.
College looking on social media to determine whether or not they want someone attending their university.
In an ever-changing world, technology has pervaded almost every aspect of the average person’s life. Along with advances in technology has emerged the rise of social media sites, where individuals can take pictures of events, update statuses, mark the places they have been, and the foods they have eaten. Young adults have been at the forefront of using these social networking sites to display their actions and aspects of their lives to the public world. While one may think these sites are intended to bring joy to others, and put people in connection with one another, the display of other’s lives may have a negative effect on the viewer. Among groups who may be negatively affected by these social networking sites are college students, who face a new environment, and commonly experience a “fear of missing out” from viewing the lives of others. While these social media sites may be fine in small amounts, the increased consumption of multiple social media sites may have a negative effect on the happiness of college students, which may produce a link to depressive symptoms.
Social media is the product of innovation and electronic progression: Social media are webpages and applications that enable the creation and distribution of information: Social media is the future. Since the beginning of time, humans have had the instinctual desire to communicate with one another. With impeccable capabilities to bring people together, the world uses social media to interact and stay connected. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. are some examples of the everyday media networks which people use to share thoughts, news, ideas, photos, and videos. Social media is heavily used for recreational uses; staying connected with friends and family at all times is a huge draw to social media. Social media, not limited to social purposes,
The internet, for instance, whose initial use was for the government and governmental operations, has turned out to be a tool for societal interaction as well as a way of making and finding numerous opportunities. It has been reported that the number of internet users doubles every year which shows an increased dependence on technology for the society. In addition to that, the use of technology is not only limited to opportunities and obtaining information but also on the ever increasing use of social media. In society today, the use of social media has become a platform for
October of this year, students of American University experienced a new sense of racial tension on campus and specifically online. The emergence of Yik Yak, an app specializing in anonymous, localized postings, created an unseen directness of extreme thought, in which Washington D.C’s American University encountered. Different “yaks” seen throughout this community alluded to sensitive topics such as the 3/5ths compromise and the KKK, all notoriously known wrongdoings of American people. I argue that these kinds of comments would not be made if the setting would be instead a face-to-face conversation or if it was, it would be distastefully received. The medium of social media allows for harsher and more blatantly offensive comments to be made without direct consequence or judgement. Susan Svrluga describes this cause of racial tensions through her article, Students Take Racist Comments and Spread Them All Over Campus. Media and technology allow for a barrier to be built between oneself and direct consequences or criticism in which may arise, thus fostering an environment that facilitates racist commentary and action. The concept of this barrier is demonstrated through the Yik Yak posts at American University as well as specific online dating websites, twitter posts and televised performances.
The development of new technologies that have emerged since the mid-1990s has led to Internetbased applications known as “social media” that enable people to interact and share information
According to writer David Reimherr who works for the Shweiki Media Company and do a research about which social media college students use most by letting 260 college students to do the survey. The result shows that the top 5 platforms college students use most are the Facebook, Twitter (95%), Instagram(73%), Snapchat(80%), Pinterest(48%)and LinkedIn(40%).(Remherr)As a result, if people walk in the university’s campus, they will see that almost students will hold on their phones to use the social media and searching for the information from the social media. It is amazing to see most of them holding their phones and don’t talk to each other. They focus on their phones and ignoring their others walk with them, which will damage the relation between the couple. The couple will communicate with another girl or boy in the social media, which easily broke up because of cheating with others. Also, it’s unsafe for college students to use the social media because of the security problem. As a result, there is the concern that should college students use the social media?
Is social media a hindrance to college students or is it an advantage to have on campus and in classes? This is a debate that has been on-going; ever since social media became a big part in the way college students communicate with each other in class and out. Yang and Brown propose that “social networking sites can be instrumental in maintaining existing relationships as well as establishing new social ties. Ellison et al. (2007,2011) found that it was common for college students to use Facebook to keep in touch with old friends and to learn more about classmates or people they met socially (404).” If we allow it, social media has the ability to positively affect the way we learn.
Defining social media is a tricky task to do because of its constant change (Tess, 2013). Ober and Wildman have explained that social media involve a vast range of PC and mobile platforms which continue to develop constantly, launched and re-launched, abandoned also ignored daily in countries all over the world that consist of various forms of communication (Ober & Wildman, 2013). Although Facebook is “dominant’ face of social media (Tess, 2013) and twitter is one of the popular micro-blogging website (Tess, 2013), however in recent times, various social networking sites, blogs, wikis, multimedia platforms, virtual game
College students and young adults are subject to the benefits of accessing the internet for information, communicating with their friends over social media, and the various entertainment properties one can find on their computers. Lack of it would cause them to rely on outdated methods of shopping, communication, and research. However, failure to minimize or regulate usage of communication technology can put college students in more danger than one might think Keum, Seon Hwang, Rosen, L.d, Ehrenberg, Alexandra, and Twenge, Jean M all suggest that overuse or improper use of social media can result in harmful outcomes such as personal disorder or a loss of social skills. Jeff R. Temple has a different view where he puts sexting ahead of the other harmful externalities caused by communication through technology. The consequences of communication through social media, text messaging, and email should be recognized. Monitoring and limiting the use of these forms of technological interaction can help to kids, college students and young adult’s innocence as well health firmly intact.
Defining social media is a tricky task to do because of its constant change (Tess, 2013). Social media involves a vast range of pc and mobile platforms which continue to develop constantly, launched and re-launched, abandoned also ignored daily in countries all over the world that consist of various forms of communication (Ober & Wildman,2013). Although Facebook is “dominant’ face of social media (Tess, 2013) and twitter is popular microblogging website (Tess, 2013), however in recent times, various social networking sites, blogs, wikis, multimedia platforms, virtual game worlds, and virtual social applications are added as social media (Barnes & Lescault, 2011; McEwan, 2012).
Despite the unhealthy impact of social media many students are spending most of their hours on social media sites which includes the most popular Facebook, Whats app, Twitter and Instagram. Social media has embedded a negative image upon many minds. Social media has equal positive or negative aspects but many students are using these sites on a regular basis. Over the years many studies have been conducted over the impact of social media on academic performance of students and it indicatea strong relationship between the two variables. Therefore, our research aims to study the relationship between the social media and students education’.