Introduction to Social Networking and the Impact on College Life Research Paper

Introduction to Social Networking and the Impact on College Life - Research Paper Example The social network is a wonderful place to be for every individual in the world today because it provides updates from near and dear ones, assists in communicating with people living far away in remote areas of the world and also helps people to entertain themselves and keep busy. However, the social network has begun to have an adverse effect on the lives of students as well as professionals at the workplace because it has been eating into their work time. Many teachers argue that their students fail to finish their work on time because of being hooked onto the internet and on social network sites like Face book and Twitter. Social media websites have been thus affecting school and college students’ grades because students end up spending more time on websites rather than studying. Most students, when asked how they spend their day, reply by stating that they spend their hours after school or college in front of the computer, on websites like Twitter and Face book. These websites take up all their time because the new generation is obsessed with documenting their every thought on the internet. Moreover, they like checking into places on their Face book, updating their status and spend hours on a single photograph that someone would have tagged them on, commenting. All these activities eat up into their study time and they fail to get good grades or concentrate in the classroom due to being so hooked on to these websites all the time. The focus of this paper is on college students because school children can still be controlled by their parents and are under the regulation of their parent’s watchful eye. Once in college, a student is on his own, leading his own life and seldom listens to what the parents say, especially if he lives away from home. Such fr eedom tends to override the child’s life, leading him into spending his time in the most non productive and enjoyable manner possible. The internet may be very productive however using social networking websites may hinder productivity. By this I mean to say that the internet can be a very productive place to be as it has so many websites full of information and learning; one can enrich himself by reading the news as well, however college students seldom tend to do that, unless the news presents itself in the form of a Face book update. Almost 96% of college students are on Face book all the time and even if they study, they tend to keep checking their Face book page for updates every half an hour, if not lesser. This hinders work because it reduced the concentration span of the student. (Akhtar, Shabbir) â€Å"As social media websites, such as Face book, YouTube and Twitter gain popularity, they are also are becoming increasingly dangerous as they create modes to procrastin ate while trying to complete homework. Hence, in a survey of 102 students, 57% stated that social media has made them less productive.† Moreover, the student always has something else on his or her mind, or he keeps waiting for a particular notification to come, which makes him lose his attention from his college assignment completely. Obviously, being on the internet can exhaust a person because of all the browsing and the mental work that is being done, without even knowing it. So after browsing the Face book for even two hours, students tend to tire out easily, and thus delay doing their college work at all, again leading to bad grades in class the next day. Another aspect that hinders their work and brings them bad grades is that their smart phones are synchronized to their