A recent survey conducted by an Australian company revealed that social media and online social networking is becoming detrimental to the education of high school students. The students involved in the survey reported that when they intend to spend only a few minutes on a social networking site, they end up being on the site for an hour or two. This takes out a lot of time from their homework schedules. Majority of them admitted that they spend more time blogging or chatting with friends than doing school work.
Many of my teenage relatives who are my friends on Facebook regularly post and are very active on the site. The attraction of these social networking platforms is that you can express your feelings and write or share almost anything without your lecturer checking out your spelling or grammar. The downside is nobody will have the heart to correct you of your mistakes. There seems to be a general culture of tolerance and people just want to take away the good and fun side of the social site.
Office workers also get into the social networking sites even during office hours to break the monotony of their daily routines. These sites also help you to get in touch with your long lost friends all over the world. Connecting regularly with your relatives and friends makes you feel close to them and can add some fun and excitement to your otherwise dull moments.
So, is social media a help or a distraction to our daily lives?
Well, here are some reasons why social media is a great help:
- it provides us an avenue to get some loving words of comfort from our family and friends
- it keeps us posted on the whereabouts of our friends
- it allows us to share our interests and beliefs with the special people in our lives
- it allows us to share photos of our magic moments
When is it a distraction?
- when it takes us away from our urgent and important tasks, such as doing homework or doing our real work
- when we lose some of our sleeping time just so we can post our latest photos
- when you have other chores to do and these get neglected due to a change in priority, i.e. checking facebook before doing your tasks
The important thing to remember, in order to avoid the social media and online networking sites to distract us from our important tasks and activities, is to be disciplined with our time. As we all know, time is gold and once you lose it, you can never get it back. The good news is, you have control as to how you want these sites to work for you: either a help or a distraction.
All he best!
Ros
Tags: Blog, Blogging, online social networking, Social Media
You got it! It’s a slippery slope. I have to do social networking for my online business BUT if I’m not careful, I get really distracted. Apparently, we are a world of “talkers!” Who knew?? Great post!
What a tangled web we weave, Roslyn!
Wonderful insight into the hazy, crazy world of social networking!
My twin daughters, age 18, have everybody beat – they have music playing and their Facebook pages opened as they send text messages to their friends … while they’re doing their homework!!
I get dizzy and distracted just watching them in action.
Thanks Melanie for dropping by. Indeed, there is no way of going back and away from this web!
Ros