Social Media and Students
By: Abby Grande
Is social media causing a decrease in school and out of school for teens?
Social media causes much decrease from books, athletics, and suspensions from bad choices.
Distraction from books
Students would much rather decide to be on their cellphones on social media than to sit in class or even at home to do school work. Stated in the article, "Is Twitter Distracting School Kids From Their Books?" it says, "Schoolchildren are significantly more likely to be exposed to computer and smartphones in their homes than novels" This piece of text shows that teenagers out there have more technology around them than their actually schoolwork like books and novels. Teens would much rather go on social networking, gossip, talk, and post pictures, than actually do whats best for them, and that would be school. Without books, they are left with what satisfies them the best. Also studied by the "National Literacy Trust" (in the article), it says "Surveyed more than 18,000 children ages eight to 17 with smartphones, technology and computers in their homes." Therefore, with all this technology around this teenagers and children, there's no way they can actually put school work over social media.
Athletes
Athletes are special in many different ways, their confidence, school work, and responsibilities. An athletes number 1 priority should be their school work most importantly, but that is changing for many athletes. As stated in the article, "Social Media: What a Student-Athlete Post Online Matters More Than You Think" it says, "Social media is a woven into the fabric and culture of American life. But it also poses potential pitfalls to a high school student-athlete already trying to balance books and the ball." What this is saying, is that student athletes put their most important thing in life in danger. With social media growing and growing, more students and athletes are getting attached to it. Its more of a bad thing compared to good. If a student athlete is at a party, and say they got into a picture with alcohol in their hands or in the background, that can easily get accessed to their coaches. There are big consequences that come along with that. It doesn't matter if you might be the best softball player or best quarterback at your school, you can get kicked off the team easily for one mistake in a picture. That also can easily ruin a scholarship for that person for college. Coaches don't care if they ruin your college career, what matters to them is, they don't want bad influences on their team. Student athletes don't take their school work as serious because they would much rather focus and depend on their social media to make them feel satisfied. Therefore, student athletes need to always watch what they put on the internet because there's many bad consequences that will come along with that, especially for the best of the best athletes.
Suspensions in school
Everybody make bad choices and mistakes, but we learn from them in someway right? Students make mistakes at putting the wrong kind of stuff on social media like twitter. As said in the article, "Inappropriate Tweets Prompt Suspensions at Granite City High", it says, "A sexually inappropriate tweet about a teacher started it, but by the time administrators at Granite City High sourced the recent social media activity of students, at least 10 were suspended, unleashing an explosion of criticisms online. School administrators said they had no choice but to act because students violated school rules." This is punishing students for what they said and did outside of school, it does not matter if it was inside or out of school, it revolves around the school involving a teacher so it must get handled the correct way. These students had no idea such a thing outside of school would react out of proportion inside school like this. Students learn their mistakes by getting a suspension and they learn it the correct way to never do such a thing ever again. Making a tweet about a teacher leads to so many consequences. 1, you still have to possibly have that teacher as your teacher which makes things awkward. 2, most teachers and students have lost respect for you. For a teenager to post cruel things on twitter, Facebook, etc; it makes that person look so awful in many ways. So as a teenager, try to make good decisions on what you put on the social media because it will never go away and can always come back and haunt you.
Conclusion
Students have to always watch what they put on social media and what happens when wrong things are put out there. Teenagers really don't realize how social media can affect them with studies and even sports. Social media is trending, and with that happening, students are getting put in danger from the consequences of that.
Works Cited
Cambria, Nancy. "Inappropriate Tweets Prompt Suspensions at Granite City High." St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 27 Oct. 2012: A.1. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 03 Feb. 2014.
Dungan, Lauren. "Is Twitter Distracting School Kids From Their Books?" - AllTwitter. The Unofficial Twitter Use, 24 Aug. 2011. Web. 04 Feb. 2014.