Impact of Social Networking sites on students

The popularity of the social networking sites increased rapidly in the last decade. This is probably due to the reason that college and university students as well as teens used it extensively to get global access. These social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook have become a raging craze for everyone nowadays.

The negative effects of these social networking sites overweigh the positive ones. These sites have caused some potential harm to society. The students become victims of social networks more often than anyone else. This is because of the reason that when they are studying or searching their course material online, they get attracted to these sites to kill the boredom in their study time, diverting their attention from their work. Other negative side effects of social networking websites include the following:

Reduced learning and research capabilities

Students have started relying more on the information accessible easily on these social networking sites and the web. This reduces their learning and research capabilities.

Multitasking

Students who get involved in activities on social media sites while studying result in reduction in their focus of attention. This causes reduction in their academic performance, and concentration to study well.

Reduction in real human contact

The more time the students spend on these social media sites, the less time they will spend socializing in person with others. This diminishes their communication skills. They will not be able to communicate and socialize effectively in person with others. The employers are getting more and more unsatisfied with the communication skills of the fresh graduates due to this reason. The effective communication skills are key to success in the real world.

Reduces command over language use age and creative writing skills

Students mostly use slang words or shortened forms of words on social networking sites. They start relying on the computer grammar and spelling check features. This reduces their command over the language and their creative writing skills.

Loss of motivation in students

The student’s motivational level reduces due to the use of these social networking sites. They rely on the virtual environment instead of gaining practical knowledge from the real world.

The overuse of these sites on a daily basis has many negative effects on the physical and mental health of students making them lethargic and unmotivated to create contact with the people in person. The parents should check and balance on their children when they use the internet. They should be on guard whether they are using it for appropriate time period or not. The peers and teachers should also help students make them aware of the negative effects and explain what they are losing in the real world by sticking to these social networking sites.