Here I am at the College of St. Rose coming out of work and I see students buried into their cell phones as they are walking to wherever their destination lies. I then drive to school at UAlbany and I see a similar thing as I walk to my classes. What does this mean? A few years ago, we wouldn’t be seeing students as focused on their phones and texting. That’s because today we live the social media world.
What does this mean? It means that today, more and more students are talking less face to face and are relying on social websites and mobile devices to communicate. Facebook has over 100 million members and similar results can be seen with twitter.com. The number of mobile phone subscriptions worldwide has reached 4.6 billion and is expected to increase to five billion this year.
So what does this mean? It means that more people are spending their time online, most people live the “on-the-go” lifestyle and that most people are using social media as a means of communication. There are benefits to using social media online such as staying in touch with family and friends around the world. I have a pen pal in Italy that I’ve been friends for 3 years. We’ve met online at a penpal site and now we’ve moved on to Facebook.
But just as there are positives, there are some drawbacks. Social media can be a distraction in the classroom causing students to pay less attention to their studies. Parents who bring their work home because of social media and mobile devices focus less on their families and home activities. And finally, social media can be addictive. People tend to create a world unlike their real world on Facebook and can spend hours on Facebook. Finally, check out this South Park video that portrays Social Media very well.
