Nowadays, the media plays a significant role in many aspects of our lives, in terms of education, entertainment, and politics. These days the advancements of technologies and media have changed people’s life and behavior as well as media have become an essential part of today’s younger generation which is considered as life determination, Not only children but adults are also influenced by media. For these reasons, It also has led to both negative and positive consequences. Therefore, people are supposed to carefully consume the media.

Why is social media useful for students?

Social media platforms can be a great source of information for students which can provide relevant pages and insights on various topics and stay updated on news, trends, and research in their field of study. Moreover, the student can learn something or find their interests as they want because, sometimes, the content in the school does not provide them as they require. Thus, social media allows everyone to use it for their purposes, and students are one of the people who consume it to find their desires.

How does the media change the lives of adolescents?

Firstly, Today’s youth spend less time with their families, friends and they tend to spend more time with strangers. That is because they spend most of their time with the media which can lead them to have less interaction with their families. Secondly, the media shape the attitudes and beliefs of adolescents by portraying certain ideas, lifestyles, and values. Lastly, Teenagers’ behavior can be influenced by the media by providing role models to imitate. For instance, drug or alcohol usage may be portrayed in the media as being socially acceptable or even desirable, which may encourage some teenagers to try these substances.

Since 2014-15, TikTok has arisen; Facebook usage has dropped; Instagram, Snapchat have grown

The share of teens using Facebook has declined sharply in the past decade. Today, 32% of teens report ever using Facebook, down 39 points since 2014-15, when 71% said they ever used the platform. Although today’s teens do not use Facebook as extensively as teens in previous years, the platform still enjoys widespread usage among adults, as seen in other recent Center studies.

Other social media platforms have also seen decreases in usage among teens since 2014-15. Some 23% of teens now say they ever use Twitter, compared with 33% in 2014-15. Tumblr has seen a similar decline. While 14% of teens in 2014-15 reported using Tumblr, just 5% of teens today say they use this platform.

The positive impact of social media on students 

1. Education advantage

It is widely believed that media is very crucial for education. Both teachers and students use the media as important tools for the teaching and learning process. Teachers can make the class more interesting by making presentations and utilizing various media like images or videos to engage students as well as help pupils to keep their attention and focus on the lesson. For example, during the covid-19 outbreaks, students have to change the approaches of study by using the devices to study at their home and teacher and student can get connected to each other to gain knowledge and information easily. 

2. Connect with peers

There are those people who do not see their friends for a long time. With the help of social media, students can easily connect with their peers, teachers, and family who live far away. Students can form a strong network and build relationships. They can start forming new contacts and getting to know plenty of new people through social media such as  Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and many others. By creating group chats used for chatting , planning events, or work discussion.

3.Providing information

Media can be a main source of information for students. In various platforms such as newspapers, television news, online news portals ,and podcasts. Students can widely access the information easier and quicker which can help students in their education to academic work as well as in their personal lives. In the past, students had to wait to meet the teacher and then clear their doubts, with social media it takes only a search and you can know the answer to any of your doubts. 

4. Improve skills 

Teenagers can develop many skills from using media such as critical thinking, creativity and problem-solving skills by analyzing facts, evaluating information and identifying bias. Along with this, children also engage in many exciting activities and competitions including Kahoot, Myquizz and Quizzes. Taking part in these activities aids in developing a variety of abilities, including communication, teamwork, networking, and building confidence. Children who play games also improve their skills too because some games are created to educate, while others are just for fun and engaging.

5. Entertain

Media can entertain students and children in many ways. As we know that media have various platforms including social media, video games, music, and television programs. Television can act as a teacher for the youth. There are many TV shows created specifically for kids and students that are both entertaining and educational. These shows may interfere with a variety of topics such as history, science ,and valuable life lessons in a fun and interesting way. In this case, students who feel stress from their studies or homework then watch movies from websites to reduce their stress and relax.

The negative impact of social media on students

1. Harmful effects 

Media can harm one’s health both physical and mental health.

Physical health– there are lots of negative impacts of children and adults who regularly use the media. Using devices can cause health problems because While people are using tablets or mobile phones, the blue light emanating from devices affects our bodies which can cause eye strain, headache and dry eyes. Also, using social media on mobile devices often involves looking down at the screen for a long time. This can lead to neck and shoulder pain, headaches, and poor posture.

Mental health- Excessive social media usage can create feelings of dissatisfaction, depression, isolation, inadequacy, social comparison, body image issues, FOMO (fear of missing out). by the spreading of information into the media that also create an social standard, for example Beauty standard, it currently set the beauty standard for the majority of the teenager which may negatively impact to some of the people who are not fit in a certain beauty standard, and be ashamed of their physical appearance that lead to lower the self-esteem of people or even depression. 

2. Mimic behavior

Children are highly influenced by what they see on social media and other forms of media, including violence, sexuality, and smoking scenes. This can lead children to be aggressive, particularly in the boy. Furthermore, young children have not yet fully developed the ability to discriminate between reality and fantasy. When they see violence on social media, they might not realize it is not real, so they could try to act it out in real life which can be dangerous.

According to the news, Northern Mexico private school, An 11-year-old male student shot two guns at the teacher and students, one female teacher was killed and six others were injured. The violence motive has been caused by children imitating the violence in a shooting video game called “Natural Selection” and at the time of the shooting. He was wearing a T-shirt with the name of the shooting game.

3. Shape children opinion

Many children are influenced by their friend’s perspective as well as the opinion of celebrities and stars that they follow on social media. Some youth consume the content which is inappropriate or violent and almost all the people who consume that probably are the same, so it becomes an echo chamber of thought that will shape children’s opinions. More importantly, the media also particularly shape children’s opinion especially about political and social issues. In addition, student protests, most TV stations are censored by the government because they want to show only the bright side. These days the mass media was seriously taken over by the state power, so Thai people were concealed to know any facts , news and information from the mass media. 

4. Cyberbullying

With increased access to technology, one of the negative impacts nowadays cyberbullying commonly occurs on the site of social media. According to research, approximately 60% of teens have experienced cyberbullying or harassment through social media platforms by receiving harmful or offensive texts, posting, photos, or videos. This impacts a teen’s mental health and decreases their self-esteem. So, parents should advise their child to reject messages from strangers and teach them to not put their personal information publicly on social network sites.

6.Privacy concerns

Many of the youth may unintentionally share personal information like their photo, place, phone number, through social sites which they do not know that put their privacy and security at risk. Teenagers believe that they feel safe to publish their personal information like they usually check in a place where they go and post it on facebook or instagram. There are people who take photos of teenagers to publish illegally and use It as a profile of their account to disturb others while the owner of that account did not know what had happened. These actions may increase rates of cyber crime and many teens especially girls have been a victim.

6. Addiction

Media can be addictive, some people may find themselves spending an amount of time on these platforms and it can lead to addiction-like symptoms such as withdrawal,  depression ,and anxiety when they are unable to utilize them. This can lead to poor time management and poor sleep habits. To illustrate, students who are addicted to playing online games and they do not do their assignments which can cause them to miss deadlines and lower grades.

 “If someone tends to spend too much time on social media and starts to feel frustrated, lonely, sad, or dissatisfied, then it might be time to decrease screen time and find a healthier way to engage.”  by Talkspace therapist Bisma Anwar, LMHC

Conclusion

To conclude, social media has become one of the biggest platforms which people use around the world in the present day and these days children tend to use social media more than in the past because it is easy to access and quick. Thus, Social media is a valuable tool for students to stay connected with their friends and family, source of entertainment and information, shape children’s opinions, and improve skills. However, using media has both positive and negative effects. It’s important for pupils and youth to use social media responsibly and to be aware of potential risks such as harmful effects on physical and mental health, cyberbullying, privacy concerns, and mimic behavior.