Research Paper on Social Media Use: Global Increase in the Recent Past

Introduction

In the recent past, social media use has been on the increase across the globe, particularly among the young population aged between 15 to 35 years (Asur, & Huberman, 2010). Statistics have also indicated that social media users have increased by approximately 21% between the year 2005and 2007(Asur, & Huberman, 2010). This number has, however, continued to increase with the recent statistics recorded in the year 2014, indicating that there are approximately 2.8 billion social media users across the globe(Asur, & Huberman, 2010). Social media tends to be the application or website that is created to enable people to share different information contents quickly, efficiently and effectively across the globe. The use of social media to share opinions, photos, events and other key things has transformed the way in which people live and relate with other people within the society. People in the united states and around the globe tend to use social media for different reason and purposes. For instance, a study conducted on more than one thousand 13 to 17-year-old students in the united states found out that, approximately 28% of the study population indicated that they use social media since it makes them feel more outgoing(Abe & Jordan, 2013). While 29% of the study population indicated that social media makes them feel less shy when interacting with people within the community. Only approximately 8% of the study population indicated that social media made them feel more introverted and less outgoing (Abe & Jordan, 2013). On the other hand, when it comes to relationships, approximately 52% of the teens indicated that social media enabled them to improve their relationship (Moran, Seaman, & Tinti-Kane, 2011). The aim of this study is to asses the use of social media by students and its impact in classrooms.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Use of Social Media in Schools

The use and application of social media has continued to significantly influence the students' academic life across the country. Numerous Learning institutions in the united states have adopted social media technology in classes with the intention of improving or enhancing collaboration, critical thinking, and knowledge in various fields or platforms. Currently, social media has been fully accepted in almost all higher institutions such as colleges and universities in the United States thus making social media a platform where the students can connect with their lecturers, fellow students within the school and other higher authorities within the school (Abe & Jordan, 2013)l. The university and college student now have the freedom to spend most of their time in various social media platform socializing with whoever they wish to interact with. In most cases, the various social media platforms usually enable the students to express their view to other people, create new friendships, and even create new identities within the school setting. The most significant role that social media has played in the higher institutions is to enhance the students' performance level since they can now easily access any information they need effectively and efficiently. According to research, the students who frequently use social media tend to have better memory and are also considered to be more innovative, this mainly because the media technology usually exposes them to new research avenues that encourage the student to become more creative and innovative (Abe & Jordan, 2013).

Impact of Social Media in the Classroom

Helps the Student to Increase Their Knowledge in Classroom.

Social media tends to have the capability to enhance students' knowledge within very few seconds or minutes. The students only have to scroll through the news feeds provided in various media platforms in order to get regular and timely updates on the current events and news within the country and across the globe. The students can also immediately search for any crucial learning information from social media using the hashtag #news. Research on social media use found out that the percentage of students who uses various social media sites as a learning tool improved from approximately 33% in the year 2011 to 56% in the year 2015 (Duggan, Ellison, Lampe, Lenhart, & Madden, 2015). This research report confirmed that schools are allowing their students to use various social media platforms to increase their knowledge. In most schools, the teachers and other educational stakeholders have noticed that the use various social media platforms in the classroom tend to be an effective way of enhancing the students' knowledge on the current events within the country. However, in order to ensure that social media is used specifically for educational purposes, the teachers have to set rules on when the media sites can and cannot be used. This rules should strictly be implemented in school to avoid or prevent the students from using social media for other unethical purposes, particularly when in school.

It Enables the Students to Develop a Sense of Community

Most schools across the country have decided to use various media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to communicate with the entire community surrounding the school such as the parents, staffs and other students within the community. Most school heads have indicated that one of the main benefit of these media platforms in enabling the student to develop a sense of community in that they usually gave room or facilities real-time updates. For instance, the social media sites can be used to update the patents, students, and teachers on the examination dates, closing dates(Perrin, 2015). The media platforms can also be used to stream other informative things such as the educational talks from parents that can help to improve the student's awareness level. On the other hand, school teachers tend to appreciate the use of social media in class since they can easily communicate with the parent or the student when the need arises. Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter tends to make it easy to give and receive instant feedback from students when either in class or at home. Therefore social media tends to be an effective learning and interaction tool in class since it improves or promotes various things between the teachers, parents and the students; some of these things include communication, interaction, collaboration, and social and peer learning.

It Helps To Improve Student's Participation

One of the greatest or most important impacts of social media use in the classroom is that it encourages students to participate effectively. Reports indicate that in a classroom setting, there are some students who tend to find it hard to verbally talk or respond to questions (Perrin, 2015). To ensure that such students are actively involved in classwork and discussions, the school allows them to use the social media sites where they tend to find it easy to express themselves. A study aimed at assessing the student response and active involvement in class found out that approximately 10 % of the total students in a class usually have a hard time engaging in verbal talks in class (Duggan et al., 2015). This study also found out these less active students in class tend to be very engaging and active in various social media sites whereby they give strong opinions and contributions on various issues. Therefore, application or use of social media in class may help students to become confidents when speaking out their opinions without fear. Social media also promotes collaboration within the class; for instance, the students can engage in-group discussions on various social media sites when either in class or at home. By doing so, they are able to share their opinions and reason out as a group, thus enabling them to excel in their schoolwork.

It Enables the Students to Get Help From Other People.

Social media sites tend to be useful to students, particularly in a class setting since it enables them to seek help or clarifications from their peer or other relevant experts such as teachers. For instance, a student may not have understood a particular point or theory; therefore, he or she takes the initiative of using various Media sites such as Twitter or Facebook to engage the instructor to get a more a clear explanation to the information or theory that he or she did not understand. Using social media for such purposes in class tends to enhance the child's performance since the child can get clarifications at any particular moment. The social media sites tend to have a feature that enables the students to private their messages to the teacher or the specific person they wish to get clarification from. This feature enables the student to confidently open up when seeking help without fearing that other students or teachers will see what he or she is seeking clarification for or who she or he is communicating with. The social media platforms also enable the students to interact with other students either from school or home, particularly when working on group projects or assignments. Social media tends to make it easy to share ideas and analyze the ideas on the group project or assignment.

Helps the Student to Build a Strong Relationship or Bond With the Relevant Stakeholders

All stakeholders in education, such as teachers and parents, tend to have a skin in the game, whether in terms of finances, time, and engagement. All the stakeholders have placed some value in investing on the student's education like it is the case in other business or investments. The social media tends to enlighten the relevant stakeholders on how they can invest further in the child's education through posting the student achievements on various social media sites. For instance, the students can post the progress of a particular educational project that is meant to boost their performance. The posts can be made in form of images or videos that show the student taking part in the respective project or activity. For example, the student may post a video of themselves working on a garden project such as vegetable farming. Posting such a video may motivate one of the parents to offer financial donations to the students to enable them to improve or expand their farming project. Using social media to build the strong bond tends to be effective since it helps to increase the student's success level or performance. Recent reports indicated that approximately 60 per cent of the schools in the united states use this strategy to encourage the relevant stakeholders to make their contribution towards the project to enhance the child chances of success(Moran et al., 2011).

Conclusion

The use of social media has been on the increase in the United States and across the globe, particularly among the young population. The use of various social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook to share opinions, photos, events and other key things has transformed the way in which people live and relate with other people within the society. Social media tends to be used for various reasons or purposes across the country, for instance, some people use it since it makes them more outgoing while others use it since it enables them to become less shy when talking to people. in the recent past, Social media use has been adopted in various schools and higher learning institutions in the united states. The adoption of these media platforms has brought about significant changes in how students, teachers and parents interact, collaborate on various issues involving education and also improved the students' performance level. Some of the key impacts of social media use in classrooms include; first,it helps the student to build a strong relationship or bond with the relevant stakeholde...