Influence of Social Media on Students’ Performance

Social media catches a lot of flak simply for existing. Some parents and guardians see it as an unprogressive platform that doesn’t do much for the education of their school-going children, while others are opposed to the influence the youth may get when they interact through it with strangers. These views are valid since many of these social spaces are not for academic research, but they have some benefits.

So, is social media any good for a college or university student? Will it show you how to study math successfully in new ways? Let’s see.

Benefits of Social Media in Studies

A case for social media and studies.

Study Buddies

Social media could help you link up with like-minded people so you can all work and play together. Say you have math problems that you have tried solving by yourself for a while unsuccessfully. Depending on your strengths, you could give or ask for math homework answers online through your group of peers, then later, you can link up for student-friendly parties. Forming a group to help with algebra makes finding each algebra solution much faster and more enjoyable since you would be doing it with people with similar interests.

Here, we note that this interaction with peers is diverse and does not really mean you have to be at the same school. This platform traverses geographical boundaries, so you interact and work with people from all places globally. Apart from math, students could benefit from other areas of education such as science, history, and geography.

Better Collaboration

We often think of Facebook, Twitter, IG, Snapchat, and TikTok when social media is mentioned, but LinkedIn and some messaging apps can be considered as such too. They are ideal for teachers to reach out to their students in the course of the week for homework and other needs. Messaging apps are also great for groups that want to collaborate when working on coursework to get helped with the areas they may be struggling with while studying.

Access to Experts

Studying with buddies and people at your level of knowledge is good, but it gets better when you reach out to experts. Nothing stops you from gaining more knowledge on a topic after a lesson, and the internet makes this possible because said experts also have an online presence. If a student uses social media for this form of development, even their parents or guardians will applaud them for time well spent. You can reach out to a person on education, future career prospects, or life in general.

The Cons

Lower Concentration Rates

When one takes too many breaks to check their IG, they end up being unproductive. You want to use these platforms for rewards after accomplishing something worth celebrating, such as your assignment. Students who spend too much time on social platforms are likely to get fewer hours of sleep due to pre-sleep hyperarousal that comes from exposure to the light from mobile devices. You may just become your own hero for shutting down that phone and maybe picking up a book instead right before you sleep.

Overreliance on the Internet

You still need to go to the library for some old-fashioned reading to expand your knowledge as all the information online may not be sufficient. Today, students have become a little too reliant on the internet, which affects their reading abilities. When you can fact-check something with a quick internet search, you are likely to become lazy where all other forms of research are concerned. You could even suffer lower retention rates since there is no motivation to understand anything that you can countercheck whenever you want.

Might Affect Writing Skills and Abilities

Students and the youth, in general, become so used to short-hand that they cannot write a proper story, thanks to the influences of these social platforms. They can counter this by either using complete words when writing anything on social media or taking breaks to do proper writing on other platforms.

Conclusion

The cons and pros of studying math by social media – or any other subject – may cancel out when you think about it deeply, but it helps to know young people will always be attracted to these platforms. No matter what one is told, they will still choose whether to use social media for good or not. From the research we have presented, you can use it to make your studies more enjoyable and improve your performance at school, and you can also choose to make it unproductive. It works as an educational platform that you can also use for entertainment to achieve some balance.