Role of Social Media (Advantages and Disadvantages)

            

            Role of Social Media
( Advantages and Disadvantages)

            Social media is the interactions among people in which they create, share, and exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. By the use of social media, we help ourselves to be sociable. We can communicate to others by the use of social media. It can help the students more creative in their own way and most people associate social media with positive outcomes because of some advantages of this social media. Learning through social media is very important on us but we need to be sure that this can't be a hindrance in our daily lives. It provides many opportunities for us in terms of living and different social communication. Many people can benefit in social media. This can be an entertainment, use to find jobs, games, etc. but some abuse this especially to the students. They are fun of gaming through social media and they become addicted with it. Some people are become irresponsible because of depending on using the social media. Maybe, social media is very helpful to us but we don't need to abuse it because when we depend on social media, we become irresponsible.

According to Brandon Alconcel, Ernesto Luna and William Wiesse, the advantages of the role of social media in education are the following:

1. Social media tools and networking sites encourage students to interact with each other, share ideas and to express their creativity.

2. Social media helps to establish enduring relationships with real people. A few examples are:
• Facebook can help students overcome isolation that otherwise might lead them to leave school.
• Twitter can provide shy students with information about events that facilitates face-to-face encounters with other students. Such personal interactions can create and sustain a sense of belonging.

3. These relationships created over social media can be fostered on the community level too.

4. " The Internet and social media train our brains to skim and scan" (Connelly, 2011). Due too the large amount of information available on social media sites, students learn to discern easily between what is useful for them and what is not.

5. Because it is easy to use, and accessible from virtually everywhere and at any time, social media improves communication among students and teachers.

6. Social media helps prepare students for successful employment. Students entering the workforce can use social networking sites like LinkedIn to network and find employment.

While the disadvantages are the  following:

1. Being connected and searching for information on Facebook, Google, and other web services simultaneously, seizes and fragments our attention. Although students can develop “scanning and skimming” skills, they could also get used to not paying enough attention to what is important.

2. They can subvert higher-order reasoning processes, “including the kind of focus, concentration, and persistence necessary for critical thinking and intellectual development” (Lederer, 2012).

3. Some researchers have correlated heavy Internet use with greater impulsivity, less patience, less tenacity, and weaker critical thinking skills (Connelly, 2011).
4. Prolonged Internet use exposes students to interactive, repetitive, and addictive stimuli that produce permanent changes in brain structure and function damaging their learning skills (Connelly, 2011).

5. While it is true that the more one uses the Internet and social media, the better the brain can skim and scan, research suggests that these gains degrade the capacity for concentration.

           Since social media has advantages and disadvantages, it depends on you on what you will going to consider first. We need to balance the advantages and disadvantages because not all the time we can use social media.Somehow, it is very important for us because it is one way for us to communicate with our friends, family and even those that we don’t know…or don’t yet know. This social media could be used to channel communication and help engage students with course work and learning topic sand online media offers a potentially engaging channel for course communication and engagement.