SEARCY, Ar. (LP) — Social Media is now a part of everyone’s daily life. According to Pew Research Centre, 81% of teenagers are social media users.
High schoolers are attached to their phones and it brings negative results to performance in school. It may be affecting how they get their schoolwork done. For example, when they’re on their phone during school, they get distracted from the work they need to complete. Hope Butler, a sophomore at SHS, says, “About twenty students in each class get on their phones during class time.” When home, most kids will stay on social media and forget about their homework until later, causing more stress on them.
Middle Tennessee State University completed a study and asked students to look at a video on a computer. Some of the students were able to access social media tabs on the computer, while other students did not have access to social media tabs while viewing the video. The students were then tested on the contents of the video. Ones who had access to social media did worse on the exam than students who did not have access. The survey results suggested that the use of social media during professional or school times could lead to negative results. Sophia Nabours, a freshman at SHS states, “I don’t get on social media while doing homework, but I do listen to music to help me focus.”
Technostress is the stress associated with the use of technologies and their impact on the psychological level. It’s a modern disease of adaptation caused by an inability to cope with new computer technologies, in other words social media, in a healthy manner.
You can get too much information which is called information overload. When there’s too much information from technology, you will get into a state of alarm and stress. Physical symptoms that come with Technostress include, increased heart rate, muscle tension, pain, and insomnia. You may also get irritable, depressed, and have crying spells. Due to all these symptoms, students could miss school, causing them to miss important information putting them behind. Many students are always on their phone and feel like they need more friends. Hope Butler, a sophomore at SHS, says, “I keep streaks with multiple people, so I have more friends and people to talk to.” Along with the stress with school, many kids may get distant with their religious beliefs. They could feel lost without it, too. Without their religion, people believe they will fall behind in everything because they don’t have guidance. Students who feel this way will get stuck in the same place at school. A freshman at SHS, Sophia Nabours says, “I have taken a week off of social media because it was a challenge at church to take more time to focus on God than social media.”
Social media has multiple bad effects on students, and most of them are major issues. Do you think we all should open our eyes about this situation?
