Dikkers 1 Rebekah Dikkers Instructor: Malcolm Campbell English 1102 April 9th, 2012

What about the connections on social media are so appealing to college students?

We live in the twenty first century, the century of technology. I remember the days when I used to roller skate, ride bikes and just growing up spending spare time outside of my house hanging out with my friends not wanting to come home to eat dinner. From having a younger brother, who is seven years younger than I am, I could definitely see what technology has affected in newer generations and I am sure my parents feel the same way when they sees me. We fall asleep with technology and wake up with technology, and we are not noticing how it is affecting in us to our personality, school work, relationships and much more. Digital Native refers to the group of people who were born during or after the general introduction of digital technology, and Digital Immigrants refers to the group of people who was born before the existence of digital technology and adopted it to some extent later in life. Marc Prensky, who is international speaker and writer, has said: Todays students K through college represent the first generations to grow up with this new technology. They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age. Todays average college grads have

Dikkers 2 spent less than 5,000 hours of their lives reading, but over 10,000 hours playing video games (not to mention 20,000 hours watching TV). Computer games, email, the Internet, cell phones and instant messaging are integral parts of their lives. (1)

We, the college students, are called digital natives. We are the first one who was introduced in the world of the technology and we are the ones that are invading the world of the technology. What has made us to be the digital natives? We have found our own world and even have created our own languages and we are building a new relationship in our world. Ever since I have been into college, Ive never had time for myself, and even if I have a little spare time for myself, I usually get on social networking websites and spend my time instead of hanging out with my friends. It made me wonder how different my parents went through my ages. I already know that our generation spends more time on technologies but I hope to know the reason why we are spending so much time on technologies and how we have gotten to this point where we are the natives and our parents are immigrants on digital area. The 2011 Cisco Connected World Technology Report found that one in three college students and young professionals considers the Internet to be as important as air, water, food, and shelter. And the Report also found that more than half of respondents say they couldnt live without the Internet, describing it as an integral part of their lives. So integral, in fact, that some put it above owning a car, dating, and going to parties (Kirshner). What has the world come to? I thought air, water, food and shelter was the only things that we really need in our life in order to survive. But on the other hand, we cannot just say Facebook becoming the part of our life is not

Dikkers 3 helpful. If someone to told me to list ten facts that Facebok has affected in my life, I think I will be able to list them in ten minutes. When folks talk about social media is that you shouldnt spend too much time there. The problem with this statement, though, is that it works in two directions: your reality and others perception of the time you spend (Pincus).

The reality of us, college students, spending time on facebook is that it is easy to appear very active on Facebook or Twitter since we can link our blog update Facebook and Twitter and vise versa when the perception is that we do not do anything else but spending too many hours reading and commenting on blogs and end up having no time to work on anything else. Just like what article has explained, I also think the society overrates about how much we are on social media sites, because in reality, college students are not as active on social media sites as others may think. While society might think that college students just appear to be busy with social media sites instead of being busy with academic work. College students, however, just use a lot of multitasking and therefore are able to spend time on other things while being active on social media sites.

According to the Krasier study, those in the age between 10 and 25 spend more than seven and half hours a day with technologic devices. In comparison, five years ago, when the study was last conducted, it was less than six and a half hours. Because so many of the people are multitasking, they pack on average 11 hours of media content into those seven and a half hours. The society is slowly teaching us how to multitask. Our findings indicate that electronic media use is negatively associated with grades. We also find that about two-thirds of the students reported using electronic media while in class, studying, or doing homework (Jacobsen, & Forste,

Dikkers 4 2011). For example, cell phone, back then the cell phone was used only for the purpose of communicating each other on the phone but nowadays, cell phones are made with music player, games and easy internet access. How can we get over our temptation when we live with them temptation? I believe the multitasking is becoming the part of our life.

Much has been written about describing the characteristics of the Net Generation, but who are they and how do they differ from the former generations. Oblinger and Oblinger (2005) described that Net generation learners -- students who were born in the 1980s and later (p. 1.2). It should be emphasized that most of the claims about this generation are not based on empirical research. Instead, they are speculative in nature or based on anecdotal observations. Claims about the Net Generation can be sorted into two categories. One of them is describing their learning styles, and the other is focusing on their lifestyles. Both styles will affect the students ways of learning.

Net Generation that could be sorted into two categories: learning styles and focusing on their lifestyles. The Net Generation learns from experimentation, visuals, group work, multitasking, and edutainment. Our life styles are always on connectivity as they prefer googling than going to the library, feel ease meeting strangers online, and make good use of free online resources and Ecommerce. As technology grows, the society gets affected a lot by it. In a good way, now students have more choices in their learning environment. At the same time though there are a lot of negative effects as well such as being too dependent on the technology. The article was written by many people hoping that readers would be informed about how society is changing by using objective opinions, such as giving examples of the changes of lifestyles and learning styles.

Dikkers 5 I came to realize that we need to be cautious about how we make use of the claims that have been made about this generation.

The relationships of social media and the academy has always been challenging to many students. Acording to a new study by doctoral candidate Aryn Karpinski of Ohio State University and her co-author, Adam Duberstein of Ohio Dominican University, college students who use the 500 million member social network have significantly lower grade-point averages (GPAs) than those who do not. Moreover, according to the studies that Whittemore School of Business and Economics have done, the study found no correlation between heavy social media usage and grades. There was no significant difference in grades between those considered to be heavy users of social media and those considered to be light users. Often people think social media is affecting a lot of students in their academic work; therefore a majority of college students deactivate their social media during the exam period. For example, almost the same number of heavy and light users of both Facebook and YouTube received the same percentage high and low grades.

Most college students would prefer to use social media and therefore spent vast hours checking social media sites. Out of all social media sites, Facebook is very popular among college students. Ninety percent of students spent their time on entertainment; there were not too many college students who preferred using social 9 media to deal with their homework. Eighty percent of the sample admitted that they posted or responded while completing homework. It has definitely affected their grades in school, but many people have also found that social media have changed their personality in positive ways. For the people who are afraid of speaking out and standing up front of other people and the people who are so insure about themselves has

Dikkers 6 found social media the best way to approach people because online, no one really cared about their appearance, which that explains the sadness of reality that people judge each other. From the movie we have watched in the class, the girl was famous model in MySpace when no one else in her school knew that she was model. From the complements that people wrote in her page encouraged her to achieve her dream, and it helped her to stand up front of people.

People often say, attending the college is the start of the real life. We slowly realize the meaning of life, family and true friendship; moreover, it is also very important time in our lifetime to decide our career. Our research indicated that most college students would prefer to use social media and spend efficiencies as well as their grades. Healthy lifestyle writer Andrews said:

However, if the student is using Facebook to propel his or her knowledge, for example, by participating in a Facebook group created by a professor for students of a particular class, than the social network may have a positive influence on education and spark the students interest in learning certain subject matter. An important benefit seen in the statistics above is the ability of Facebook to make college students feel socially connected, with a greater sense of community. This can be beneficial in boosting students self-esteem. Past studies have shown that students who are active on Facebook are more likely to participate in extracurricular activities.

What about the connections on social media are so appealing to college students? Knowing that we belong somewhere, knowing that we could build relationships without people judging about

Dikkers 7 the appearance and knowing that we, the college students are socially connected with the community.

Dikkers 8 Work Cited

"How Much Time Do You Spend Consuming MediaEvery Day?" The Learning Network Blog. Web. 09 Apr. 2012. <http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/how-muchtime-do-you-spend-consuming-media-every-day/>.

"Is Facebook Good Or Bad For Students? Debate Roils On." AllFacebook. Web. 09 Apr. 2012. <http://www.allfacebook.com/is-facebook-good-or-bad-for-students-debate-roils-on2011-04>.

Lytle, Ryan. "Social Media Means More Than Salary to Some College Students." US News. U.S.News & World Report, 06 Dec. 2011. Web. 09 Apr. 2012. <http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2011/12/06/social-mediameans-more-than-salary-to-some-college-students> Prensky, Marc. Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. Marcprensky.com. Web. 5 Oct. 2011. Pincus, Greg. Do You Spend Too Much Time On Social Media? Do You Spend Too Much Time On Social Media? Web. 21 Feb. 2012. <http://www.thehappyaccident.net/do-youspend-too-much-time-on-social-media/> Schulten, Katherine. How Much Time Do You Spend Consuming Media Every Day? The Learning Network Blog. Web 22 Feb. 2012. <http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/how-much-time-do-you-spendconsuming-media-every-day/>.

Dikkers 9 Web 2.0 and Emerging Learning Technologies/ Next Generation.-Wikibooks, Open Books for an Open World. Web 27 Feb. 2012. <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Web_2.0_and_Emerging_Learning_Technologies/Next_G eneration>.