5 Reasons Why Social Media is "Meh" for Students

Oh social media, how you influence the lives of those you touch. The range of users of social media is ever increasing. From my brother in high school to my 90-year-old grandmother, these electronic forms of communication touch an amazing amount of people in today’s world.

That being so, there are a lot of mixed feelings over whether using social media is for better or for worse. As students, social media has a lot of potential to end up on either side of this spectrum, either being beneficial through organizing study sessions and keeping up to date, or causing issues through distracting the student.

So how can we get an overall consensus? Well, a website called Education Database Online recently compiled data from various studies concerning social media. I’ve broken it down into a number of different categories that orbit the life of a student, with findings about each so you can decide for yourself if using social media is really worth it in the long run.

Grades

This category is by far the one most people point their fingers at as being the main concern for students. We’re in college to graduate, and you can’t do that without the grades. So how does social media influence a student’s grades?

The Good: Classes that use Twitter as a means of participating in the classroom (such as answering questions in real time when asked by the teacher in class) increased students’ average scores in that class by a half a grade point? Yes that’s the difference between getting a B+ and an A- (or a 3.3 vs. a 3.7). Success!

The Bad: It just so happens that studying while Facebooking lead to a 20% decrease in grades (even if it’s just in the background). It turns out that seeing a notification pop up is just impossible to not click on, which then disrupts your study groove.

The scariest part? A whopping 79% of students refuse to acknowledge this connection exists. You can’t fix what you don’t admit!

Extra Curricular Activities

Does social media enhance or reduce extra curricular activities? Well it depends what you’re looking for.

The Good: If you use Facebook at least a moderate amount, you will be two times as likely to get involved in campus activities (woo hoo!).

The Bad: Only 15% of moderate Facebook users work more than 5 hours a week at a job while 80% of those who don’t use Facebook (keep in mind 96% of students do use Facebook) ended up working more than 16 hours a week. This means more cash and job experience (on average) for those who keep their social media use to a minimum.

Coming from the idea that social media is, well, social, it makes sense that those on Facebook get more involved with things happening on campus. These students are kept up to date in real time and are then able to attend various campus activities instead of using that time to find and work at a job.

Emotions

Does social media affect the way its users feel? It just so happens that it does!

The Good: 20% of students feel a greater connection to their university through engaging in social media. These students are also twice as likely to feel popular compared to their non-social media using counterparts.

Yet the emotional effects of social media are not all rainbows and butterflies.

The Bad: 48% of students who use Facebook believe that they are “sadder” than the rest of their friends, with a full 25% of students demonstrating serious depression in their status updates alone.

Addiction

Part of the study asked a number of University of Maryland students to not use social media for 24 hours. Would anybody like to guess how these students reacted?

Well if you guessed anxious, antsy, miserable, jittery, and crazy then you are correct! To hammer a nail in the coffin, the term “Facebook addiction” is searched on the Internet an average of 350 times more than “cigarette addiction”.

Self Esteem

Finally let’s take a look at how social media plays into the way a student feels about his or herself. Unfortunately, this one’s a double-edged sword.

The Good: Apparently updating one’s Facebook status is a major boost to his or her self-esteem. Yep, it’s as easy as that!

The Bad: On the other hand, the more a student spends on Facebook, the more narcissistic that student became.

So there you have it. Five realms of a student’s life and the ways social media can influence each of them. Notice that there is no single section that has either just a “good” or a “bad” list, so making the decision for yourself whether to participate in social media or be the other 4% who doesn’t can be pretty important.

I’d vouch for moderation being your safest bet, but what the heck do I know anyways? I wrote this article with Facebook running in the background.