The Impact of Social Media on College Students

The Impact of Social Media on College Students

Introduction

In the recent past, the application of social media has risen rapidly in most sectors of life including the education system. The invention and advancement of technology has increased the use of social media, which has facilitated the exchange of ideas, personal details, and feelings, among others. According to Gonzales & Hancock (2011), social media refers to the relationship that is created between a network of people. The availability of technological gadgets has made it possible for students to use social media sites such as Myspace, LinkedIn, Twitter, Sim City, and Facebook, among others. Although social media is often considered destructive to students, social networking enables learners to increase their creativity through the creation and sharing of content. While most researchers are concerned about the effect of social sites on the learner’s efficiency and creativity, it is clear that social media is an influential part of the equation that determines the student’s academic success. Social media has a positive influence on college students in terms of their academic performance, well-being, peer connection, and development of identity.

Role of Social Media on Students

In college, most students own multiple technological devices, which are often used for personal and academic reasons. Most of them own laptops, smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers that increase their connection on social media. However, not all college students have similar technological proficiency and ownership due to differences in race, gender, and income, among other factors. Nevertheless, social media enables users to communicate through the use of private messages, comments, and pictures, among others. Research by Henry (2012) shows that Facebook is the most widespread media among other sites including Twitter, Instagram, and Whatsapp. The study reveals that constant use of Facebook enhances psychosocial outcomes, while Twitter increases an individual’s academic performance. According to Gonzales & Hancock (2011), Twitter is used in classroom more due to its nature of social networking and microblogging that enables users to post at least 140-characters updates that are intended to support a healthy culture.

Well-Being

Effective use of social networking affects an individual’s well-being positively. Henry (2012) conducted an exploratory study on approximately 900 students to examine the effect of technology on psychosocial wellness. The researcher found out that technological activities on social media, such as interaction contributed positively to the comfort and psychosocial wellbeing of the users. However, solitary activities on social media such as watching videos and computer games recorded lower scores on an individual’s sense of belonging in the community and psychosocial well-being. Schachter and Galliher (2018) agree that students who use technology as a means of seeking support for personal problems often report high chances of seclusion, anxiety, and sadness. Such individuals are often affected negatively in regards to their self-confidence and self-efficacy. Students who waste time on technology and are fond of procrastinating have high degrees of social anxiety and loneliness. Gonzales and Hancock (2011) explain that an individual’s exposure on social media sites, such as Facebook and Instagram can influence their self-confidence positively.

Social Capital

Social capital refers to benefits that one receives from interactions and social relationships due to exposure to new information, diverse ideas, as well as emotional support. According to Kim & Kim (2019), social capital can be in the form of bridging or bonding. Bonding entails, the creation of strong ties with close friends and family while bridging entails the creation and maintenance of loose connections between people. Research shows that the use of social sites by college students often contributes positively to social capital, which is related to various aspects of psychological wellness, such as enhanced confidence and personal fulfilment with life (Henry, 2012). According to 2019, increased social capital contributes positively to an individual’s ability to benefit from resources and networks where they belong. A college learner may benefit from useful information, the ability to organize groups, and benefit from personal relationships. For instance, most college students often use Facebook to benefit from increased degrees of social capital by connecting with old friends, intensified relationships, and making new relationships.

According to Ellison, Vitak, Gray, & Lampe (2014), social media engagement is connected to increased social capital in that it provides internet users with enhanced interactions on networking sites. Individuals who are registered on such sites often benefit from the creation of a professional and personal relationship that tend to prove relevant in most ways. Messaging sites (Chat, IM, and address book), content sharing sites (Youtube and Flickr), and social booking sites Digg and Delicious) are known to bring together like-minded people. Sharing of information on these sites results in desirable social outcomes and awareness on issues such as financial markets, religion, technology, and social disorders, among others. This interaction also increases an individual’s probability to benefit from collective actions rather than social evils. Although there is a high probability of using social media negatively, Lahiry, Choudhury, Chatterjee, and Hazra, (2019) explain that social media sites amongst college students facilitate the sharing of similar ideas, the establishment and maintenance of relationships with other people. Social media results in bonding or bridging ties, which all contribute positively to awareness in the advancement of politics, technology and social disorders, among others. Although social sites such as Facebook facilitates the sharing of personal information which leads to privacy issues, social networking amongst the college students makes it easy for individuals to connect and gather information about one another.

Identity Development

Identity development entails the formation of a stable identity of self through the creation of an inner sameness as that recognized by society. As Schachter and Galliher (2018) explain, identity formation amongst college students is often preoccupied more with how other people see them and not how they feel. Social media sites often offer platforms for college students to develop their identity through self-presentation using personal details, photos, and witty comments. Davis and Weinstein (2017), explain that social media often provides a method through which individuals can showcase their identity virtually by posting to walls, making comments, and updating status. The use of social media enables students to build a student-parent relationship through constant communication. However, Evans, Forney, Guido, Patton, and Renn (2009), explain that frequent interaction between college students and their parents inhibits the development of an autonomous self. Although social media plays a critical role in self-identity, individuals who have not developed a stable relationship with themselves often suffer from low self-esteem and are likely to suffer negatively from the use of social media. According to Ellison et al., (2014), social media amongst this group of individuals could contribute to depression, sleeping problems, emotional difficulties, and social isolation.

College students are in a continuous identity development process through the formation of a stable self-beliefs that are externally validated and internally consistent. Active participation in social media enables learners to try diverse aspects of their uniqueness through self-representation on networking sites. Due to online freedom, college students often get the impression that social sites are safe places to seek the understanding of those in the social environment contexts. By receiving instant feedback about their self-representation, they are likely to make instant adjustments about how they feel and see themselves. According to Jacobsen and Forste (2011), social media can enable students to progress towards consistency in the self-identity by allowing them to express their identity publicly while taking the recognition of others into consideration. Although social media is known to have negative effects on individuals who are not aware of themselves, it has proven to have positive effects on the formation of image and self-confidence amongst most college students.

Peer Relationships

Social media sites and technology helps to facilitate most social interactions for students rather than replacing them. Most of the time, students are often engaged in multi-tasking activities in social media while spending time with their friends. Social media plays an active role in people’s ability to connect through hook-up culture (Davis & Weinstein, 2017). For instance, the use of Facebook to view photos and ignite old relationships by conducting surveillance can influence peer relationships positively or negatively. According to Jacobsen and Forste (2011), constant surveillance is associated with great distress about negative feelings, breakups, sexual desires and the longing for lost relationships which can have adverse effects on a relationship. While most sites serve to connect people, it provides an opening for students to bully others through technology. Most students in college often report being cyber-bullied due to the fact that social media allows people to adopt different personals and anonymity.

Social media amplifies peer demands and experiences by increasing their scale and intensity. Additionally, social media alters the qualitative nature of most peer connections through the provision of interactions that are ranked at a higher or lower level according to an individual interpretation of positive or negative qualities (Gasser, Cortesi, Malik, & Lee, 2012). Nesi, Choukas-Bradley, and Prinstein (2018) share similar ideas in that they explain that most features of social media can transform the experiences of adolescents by changing their immediacy or frequency while altering their qualitative aspects and amplifying their demands. According to the authors’ transformational framework, social networks can provide an individual with prospects for a novel or compensatory behaviours in a manner that transforms individual peer experiences (Nesi, Choukas-Bradley, & Prinstein, 2018). Social media increases the frequency and immediacy of peer victimization and provides increased discriminant associations. It also affects one’s publicness through increased access to information in a large audience and enhances one’s permanence due to heightened accessibility of content that has been shared on social media. Such activities allow for heightened peer monitoring and surveillance, which can facilitate permanent influence over time. However, the use of social sites increases the aspect of asynchronicity in that; it has the element of the time lapse that denies the perpetrators from seeing the immediate effects of one’s actions on the victims.

Impact on Academics

Social media has had a significant impact on the learner’s ability through the provision of contents and material that is not found in textbooks. Social network provides an abundance of data which enables the behavior of college students to become modelled and quantified objectively. Technology has facilitated the availability of data and information in a manner that has affected education in a myriad of ways. Social media has brought a world of possibilities close to the students and facilitated the individualization of education. Lahiry, Choudhury, Chatterjee, and Hazra (2019) postulate that the application of social media and technology in education has facilitated collaborative learning through the integration of learners who are not in the same location. For instance, students can connect and answer questions through Facebook and can search for content that is not related to studies, an aspect that contributes positively to their intellectual growth. According to Porter (2019), social media enables college students to advance their learning through improved communication through cell phones and e-mails.

A research conducted by Lahiry et al., (2019) revealed that approximately 88.58% of learners use social sites for academic reasons in that they believe that interaction on social media influences their academic prowess positively. The study showed that the application of networking sites is high amongst college students, most of whom are conscious of its negative and positive effects on their interpersonal relations. The study concluded a positive correlation (r = 0.833, P < 0.05) between the usage of social networks and academic progress on college students (Lahiry et al. 2019). However, Porter (2019) explains that the application of social media for academic has a positive influence on the individuals who believe that the usage of media has a positive impact on their education. Those who believe that social media is destructive are likely to become enslaved by social media and suffer high degrees of inattentiveness. This explains why the availability of data on social media sites increases the likelihood of absenteeism and affects the student’s attitude towards education.

Conclusion

Social media has a positive influence on college students in terms of their academic performance, well-being, peer connection, and development of identity. The application of social media by college students has proven to have positive effects on their academic performance especially for those who are aware of its importance. Those who view social media as a source of entertainment are likely to report high levels of anxiety, depression, and decreased performance. Additionally, social networking facilitates positive identity development, social capital, and influences positive peer relationships when used appropriately.

References

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