A Term Paper

Presented to

Mrs. Simonette G. Castro

English Department

Quezon National High School

In Partial Fulfilment Of The Requirements For English 10

SY: 2019-2020

By:

Bernales, Fremy N.

Ibita, Joshua C.

Permejo, Mark

Parago, Jhouvel R.

Baes, John Troy

Grade 10 Bakawan

February 28 2020
Positive and Negative Effects of Social Media on the Academic Performance of the Students

Thesis Statement: This study aims to determine the positive and negative effects of social

media on the academic performance of the students

I. Introduction

A. History of social media

B. Background of social media

II. Positive Effects of Social Media on the Academic Performance of the Students

A. Socializing

B. Improved Literacy, Communication, and Reading Skills

C. sharing what they think or feel

III. Negative Effects of Social Media on the Academic Performance of the Students

A. Effect on mental health

B. Poor academic performance

C. Cyber bullying

D. Effect on family and friends

IV. Avoiding Social Media Use

V. Conclusion

It is without doubt that social media is and will remain an important tool in human life as far

communication is concerned. Today mankind is harvesting tremendously from its existence not

only in mere communication point of view but also in most scholarly activities. Different forms

of education including distance education has been widely patronized and facilitated to some

degree through these social media networks. Acquiring information both locally and

internationally from friends, lectures or experts is no longer a struggle as compared to the

olden days and the internet is the ultimate master behind this success. “Social media is a useful

servant but a dangerous master” and can also be “described as a two edge sword” and as such,

users especially students must be alert about its dangers and be prudent in its utilization.
 INTRODUCTION

The advent of the internet in the 1990s led to major developments in the world of

communication hence the introduction of social networking sites (SNSs). The coming into being

of these sites revolutionized the world of communication and today we celebrate its

improvements ranging from education to entertainment.

Social media exploded as a category of online discourse which enables people to create

contents, share them, bookmark them and network at a prodigious rate (Jha and Bhardwaj,

2012). This has breached the gab that existed in communication where people had to rely solely

on traditional methods such s letters and phone calls as a mode of getting in touch with friends

and relatives. Today, communication is as easy as walking into a neighbour’s residence to

deliver a piece of information or vice versa through the use of social media. Social media is fast

changing the public discourse in the society and is setting trends and agenda in topics that

ranges from the environment and politics to technology and the entertainment industry (Asur

and Huberman,2010).

The driving factors for adoption of social media are the progressively ubiquitous access,

convenience, functionality, and flexibility of social technologies (Brown, 2010; Schroeder,

Minocha and Schneider, 2010). These factors have made the adoption of social media very easy

and have tremendously improved mankind’s life by exposing him to different ways of creating

and sharing information. An additional benefit of social technologies provided on the internet is

that they are frequently free or require marginal investment, thereby eliminating a potential

barrier to adoption (Brown, 2010).

As we know, nothing interesting is ever completely one-sided, so it is for social media as it

comes with both positive and negative effects. There is a correlation between social media

usage and academic performance of students in universities. There have been various views

and opinions which recognize four major advantages of social media use in higher education.

These include; enhancing relationship, improving learning motivation, offering personalized

course material, and developing collaborative abilities (Wheeler, Yeomans and Wheeler,2008; ).

Also, Liccardi et al (2007), argued that students are socially connected with one another and
therefore share their daily learning experiences and do conversation on various topics through

social media whereas Kuppuswamy and Shankar (2010), reviewed that social network websites

grab students’ attention and then diverts it towards non educational and inappropriate actions

including useless chatting.

Wiley and Sisson (2006), for instance argue that previous studies have found that more than

90% percent of tertiary school students use social networks. It is also found out that, students

use social networking sites (SNSs) approximately thirty (30) minutes throughout the day as part

of their daily routine life (Nicole, Charles, and Cliff, 2007).This shows the level at which students

are patronizing these sites and this may bring along both positive and negative effects on

students as far as their academic performance is concerned.

II. Positive Effects of Social Media on the Academic Performance of the Students

A. Socializing

According to Festinger (1954), socialization is a process across the life span through which

individuals acquire and interact with values and social standards of a specific society and

culture. Media are considered a powerful agent of socialization, responsible for shaping an

individual’s socialization process. Major agents of socialization are the family, the school, peers,

media, religion, work, the ethnic background, or political climate. Agents of socialization shape

our norms and values regarding appropriate behavior and how we interact with others and

highly influence our views and perspective on our community, our country, and the world at

large. The amount of impact each agent has on an individual depends on the individual’s stage

of life personality, and experiences. Socialization is about becoming a member of society and is

characterized by milieus, psychosocial developmental tasks, society .(Festinger 1954,pg. 67)

Socialization is closely interconnected with sharing the norms, the values, and the language of a

specific culture. Culture can be defined as “the software of the mind” or “A collective

programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people

from others” (Hofstede, & Minkov, 2010, p. 6).

B. Improved Literacy, Communication, and Reading Skills

According to Bhamare (2010) , “Communication is constantly evolving, some people are used

to seeing their friend’s online avatar as if the face”. There is a greater desire to share with other

people you barely know, than actually hanging out with friends and making memories. At the

end of the day, nothing can replace face-to-face conversation and interaction. Despite the

explosion of online endorsements and social media dialogue between individuals and brands,

researchers have found word-of-mouth exchanges and in-depth conversations are still most

influential. (Bhamare, 2010 pg. 65)

According to the International Reading Association, “The Internet and other forms of

information and communication technologies (ICTs) are redefining the nature of reading,

writing, and communication. These ICTs will continue to change in the years ahead, requiring
continuously new literacies to successfully exploit their potentials” (2009, p. 1). Due to the

increase of multimodal text (audio, video, symbols and web-texts), students must now develop

skills in all areas of literacy, both new and old. At the same time, students are engaged with

these new literacy practices more than ever through their personal use of social media—just

not academically. As Alvermann & Harrison suggest, on average, students are now spending

more time immersed in media than any other thing while awake (2016). With the students’

wide swept interest in social media, I seek to find perspectives of the overall impact this is

having on students’ literacy development, as well as if and how this interest in social media can

be used to promote and increase adolescent literacy development.

C. Sharing what they think or feel

A central conversation surrounding social media and young people is the impact these

platforms may be having on the emotional well-being of teens. A majority of teens believe

social media has had a positive impact on various aspects of their lives, the survey finds. Fully

81% of teens say social media makes them feel more connected to what’s going on in their

friends’ lives, with 37% saying it makes them feel “a lot” more connected. Similarly, about

seven-in-ten teens say these sites make them feel more in touch with their friends’ feelings

(69%), that they have people who will support them through tough times (68%), or that they

have a place to show their creative side (71%). ( Boyt, 2010)

According to Genner (2017), although sizable shares of teens encounter positive experiences on

social media, some report encountering drama or feeling pressure to present themselves in a

certain way. Some 45% of teens say they feel overwhelmed by all the drama on social media,

while roughly four-in-ten say they feel pressure to only post content that makes them look

good to others or that will get lots of comments or likes. Others believe social media has had a

negative impact on their self-esteem: 26% of teens say these sites make them feel worse about

their own life. Still, just 4% of teens indicate these platforms make them feel “a lot” worse

about their life. (Genner, 2017, pg. 145)

III. Negative Effects of Social Media on the Academic Performance of the Students

A. Effect on mental health

According to Osharie (2015), the unnecessary use of these sites has an effect on the mental as

well as physical health. Students do not take their meals on time and take proper rest. The

abuse of these destinations once a day has many adverse impacts on the physical and

psychological wellness of students making them lazy and unmotivated to make contact with the

general population face to face. The guardians should check and adjust on their kids when they

utilize the web. They ought to be suspicious whether they are utilizing it for fitting time period

or not.[The companions and educators ought to likewise enable understudies to make them

mindful of the negative impacts and clarify what they are losing in reality by adhering to these

long range interpersonal communication locales. (Osharie, 2015).

B. Poor academic performance

According to Paul, Baker and Cochran (2012), the time spent on social media was dependent

on the attention span of the students. Attention span is the amount of time for which students

can concentrate on their study without getting distracted. They found out that, higher the

attention span, lower is the time spent by students on social media. As per Junco (2012), time

spent on Facebook was very strongly negatively related to the overall GPA of the students.

Kirschner and Karpinski (2010) found out that, over indulgence with social media can affect

students’ academic performance negatively. Many students use social media solely for social

networking, chatting and just whiling away their time. This wastes their study time and thus

they are not able to complete their homework, assignments or projects on time. This affects

their studies which eventually hampers their GPA. Also, while studying, students keep checking

their social media accounts for new updates and notifications.

Also, there are many students who only take part in online class or group discussions on social

media and do not prefer to have face-to-face communication with their classmates or even

professors. As a result, they may not develop good communication skills and might even lack

confidence to interact with their peers or lecturers in the class or in person. As hey will not be
able to share their viewpoints with others in class or group discussions, they might end up

getting lower grades.

C. Cyber bullying

Modern technology is continuously evolving, and in recent times, it has manifested itself in a

very serious social problem, namely cyber bullying. Modern technology is like a double-edged

sword; on one hand it gives us connectivity, on the other it increases emotional stress (Michel,

2011). As such, young internet users, including students, may be at the mercy of cyber bullies.

The victims, under great emotional stress, are unable to concentrate on their studies, and thus

their academic progress is adversely affected (Juliana, 2010). Unfortunately little attention is

given to this global problem by institutions of higher learning, teachers, parents and emergency

service providers. The depressive effect of cyber bullying prevents students from excelling in

their studies (Lauren, 2011).

The Internet has created a new paradigm shift in communication. Today our youth are addicted

to using electronic communication tools. It is an undeniable fact that electronic-based

communication has transformed our lives tremendously, but unfortunately, there is a dark side

to this technological advancement. Cyberspace is a potential site for violence, victimization and

oppression (Faye, 2011).

According to Olweus (1993), “a student is being bullied or victimized when he or she is

exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more other

students.” Hence, bullying is showing aggressive behavior to a person without any prior

provocation with the intention of causing harm.

D. Effect on family and friends

Social media has become an international source of enjoyment and time pass. It generally is

hitting people’s minds and negatively influencing their behavior without being noticed. People

have become addicted to attractive gadgets. We see so many people in our routine life that

have the power to influence one’s behavior so easily but I must say that the strong role that
social media is performing is totally above our thinking and for sure, it is more influential.

(Gonzales, 2014, pg. 60)

According to Maya (2015), people that use social media try to avoid conversation with their

family members as they don’t consider them to be important to talk. They do not want to share

their thoughts and hear the opinion of others. They think that it is more interesting to have a

snap chat with the friend than having a conversation with their guardians. It can also be said

that it happens where people think that their Facebook friends are more intelligent and well

known of the modernization than that of their parents.

It has been observed that this habit of using mobile phones has become developed in our

parents as well. This is quite shocking but the fact is that few parents can’t stop themselves also

to operate social media channels. New dress designs, events decoration, party meals, cooking

shows, and makeup trends have now diverted the attention of mothers. They enjoy spending

their time watching missed drama serials or old movies etc. On the other hand, fathers on social

media are now in search of different talk shows, political debates, and speeches, etc. They are

interested in sharing multiple posts with their friends. But no one thinks about the disturbance

that is created in the homes due to this addiction. It directly affects the children’s mind as they

do not get sufficient time from their guardians. They get confused about making an important

decision. (Maya, 2015)

IV. Avoiding Social Media Use

With the constant availability, persistent cues, and variable reward mechanisms, SNS use might

challenge and redefine humans’ self-control abilities (Turel and Bechari, 2016), that is, one’s

capacity to promote his or her abstract and distal goals (e.g., health, wellbeing and

work/academic performance) when threatened by competing concrete and proximal goals

(e.g., using SNS sites while driving, instead of studying, or during meetings) that produce strong

immediate rewards or expected rewards, and are hence difficult to overcome ( Fujita, 2011).

Self-control has often been referred to as a process that enables reactive inhibition of

maladaptive impulses (Baumeister & Tangney et al., 2004). For instance, Baumeister’s
influential strength-model advances that self-control restraint relies on a limited resource

equated with a muscle (Baumeister et al., 1998, 2007). As such, Baumeister’s model posits that

engaging in self-control quickly consumes one’s limited resource or energy leaving him or her in

a state of “ego-depletion”.

Accordingly, Duckworth and collaborators (2016) showed that high-school students manage

more efficiently daily-life self-control challenges (e.g., interpersonal conflicts, get academic

work done, eat healthfully) when using situational “proactive” self-control strategies (i.e.,

situation selection, situation modification) rather than cognitive “reactive” ones (i.e., attention

deployment, cognitive/thinking change, response modulation). These authors also highlighted

that students rated situational strategies as more effective than cognitive strategies in order to

resist temptation and achieve long-term goal (Duckworth et al., 2016).

V. Conclusion

It is without doubt that social media is and will remain an important tool in human life as far

communication is concerned. Today mankind is harvesting tremendously from its existence not

only in mere communication point of view but also in most scholarly activities. Different forms

of education including distance education has been widely patronized and facilitated to some

degree through these social media networks. Acquiring information both locally and

internationally from friends, lectures or experts is no longer a struggle as compared to the

olden days and the internet is the ultimate master behind this success. “Social media is a useful

servant but a dangerous master” and can also be “described as a two edge sword” and as such,

users especially students must be alert about its dangers and be prudent in its utilization.

The nature of social media as a useful servant but a dangerous master” and a two edge sword

has been revealed in the findings of the study that, despite the benefits that students can

harness from social media networks such as sharing of information, building relationship,

partaking in group discussions from near and far among others, there is to some extent

addiction and distraction of attention caused by the use of social media which could have

serious consequences on the academic life of students.

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