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Bassam Alharbi

Professor Malcolm Campbell

UWRT 1104

8 November 2017

Is Social Media Beneficial or Harmful for College Students?

Once upon a time, I had a research class that required a presentation for the midterm

project. The students had been divided into 4 groups, the members of my group and I wanted to

talk about the effect of climate change in the future, and the other three groups talked about the

negative impact of social media on college students. The problem was that they only critiqued

social media without providing the other side of social media which is the positive impact.

Moreover, they did not even provide solutions in their presentations about how each one of us

could reduce the negative impact, so I asked them where are the solutions for the issues that you

have provided in the presentations, all of them said to me there are no solutions, you have to

reduce your use of social media wait, what? I said There are always solutions for every issue,

why cannot be for this one? They said we did not find any solutions for this issue I got it,

actually, you did not search and read enough to find the solutions so that we can get the best of

social media, therefore, I would like to know the possible solutions that could reduce the

negative impact of social media, and help college students to get the best of social media during

their college life.

Social media has helped everyone to become better in terms of communication, in the

past, people used to communicate with each other face to face or by sending letters, there was no

phones or websites that could help to reach to the other person. However, now social media has
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made the communication much easier, you can communicate with anyone from all around the

world while you are sitting at your home. The impact that social media made on our lives is

huge, whether you agree or disagree, but lets put into the consideration that social media started

to have more negative impact than the past, thats true because as much as the number of people

who use social media increases the negative impact increases as well.

Whos affected?

Nowadays, the teenagers have more access to social media than it was in the past, the

new generation knows how to use technology more whether at home or outside especially

through their smartphones which makes the process much easier for them. The teenagers use

social media to address their needs by approaching many things through social media such as

making new friends, following their idols, and following sports news. However, the negative

impact that they would have from spending a lot of time on social media could ruin their future

lives, because it might change their personality, their attitude, and more importantly their

academic performance.

According to Teen Safe website, which is an organization that cares about teenagers

lives, said in their article Should Parents Monitor their Childrens Social Media they found that

as a parent you cannot stop your kid from accessing the social media, because kids have more

knowledge about using technology than their parents. Also, you cannot ignore what they are

doing in social media, which would be the wrong to do. What they said is parents should educate

their kids, develop their trust, and show them that you count on them, in that case, kids would

understand why their parents are concern about their technology freedom which they are

getting from their parents. Then they would behave much better while they are using social

media.
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The other group that has gotten a huge impact from social media is college students, who

spend 9 hours on social media daily more than on their school material, according to a study

made by Pew Research Center (2017) about social media facts, 86% of college students are

having at least one account in social media. Furthermore, 60% of college students have

admitted that they might be addicted to their cellphones. (Jim Roberts). in fact, social media has

taken many hours from students that they could use it for other purposes such as developing their

own habits, spending time on studying, and having a real social life.

In addition, I have made a survey that had been published for college students through

their emails which had two questions, first one was does social media has a negative impact on

students academic performance? Then, if you answered yes to the previous question, explain

what kind of negative impact that you have gotten from social media? 29 students have

participated in the survey, 52% they think that social media has a negative impact on them,

especially on their academic performance, the rest of the students said that social media has no

impact at all neither positive nor negative on their academic performance. The significant answer

of those who said yes in the first question that all of them has agreed about one answer which

was social media has wasted their time, this answer leads to what called time management, its

known as one of the hardest tasks that students face during their college life. However, it should

not be a problem for those who are in their second or third year in college because by the time

they spend in college they should be able to figure how to manage their own time, but for

freshman students its something hard to learn, therefore. US News website, had made a list of

tips that could help freshmen to manage their own time. For example, manage your academic

and personal life, this is the first thing that students should know is how to manage them

separately, balance your courses on each semester, students should balance the difficulty of their
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classes each semester, dont take all the difficult classes in one semester and leave the easy ones

on the other semester, and make a schedule for your work, then stick with it.

Many studies have talked about the impact of social media on college students and how

social media reflects their own academic performance. A study made by Wilfred Lau Effect of

Social Media Usage and Social Media Multitasking on the Academic Performance of University

Studies to examine the relationship between social media and students academic performance.

The study found that social media has a negatively impact on students grade point average. The

significant point that was found in this study was the idea of multitasking between social media

and studying. Students attend to multitasking because they think it could help them while they

are stressed, but the study shows that has a significantly negative effect on their academic

performance because of wasting the time and not focusing on the material.

However, the positive side of social media is strongly related to academic purposes.

According to Bruce Hopkins article Impact of Social Media on Education published by

Academic Apps. Says that the positive impact of social media has been found for students, but it

does not cancel the negative impact. As education has been developed, using technology is

essential thing for students to pass their academic classes. As a result, they found the positive

side that could help students in so many things such as finding more reliable sources, which all

the professors require, and being a college student you should be able to find those reliable

sources. Also, find online classes which could possibly help you with some of the difficult

classes, and it helps a team project to communicate with each other.

The previous studies showed that the main difference between the negative and positive

impact is where actually they impact. The negative side effects everything around a college

students, their social life, lack of sleeping, lack of time management, and wasting time. On the
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other hand the positive side effects only the academic purposes such as finding online courses,

getting help from other to help you with assignments, and finding more updated sources.

What can students do to reduce the negative impact?

First of all, it is impossible to stop college students from using social media, but what you

can do is teaching college students how to deal with social media with minimizing the negative

impact. One of the most efficient ways to reduce the negative impact is to believe that there is a

negative impact you are getting from social media, then work on your weakness. Firstly, make a

calendar for your daily work, and how much achievement you have to reach daily, then follow

that calendar which slightly would help you to reduce the wasting time problem. Secondly, give

yourself the amount of time daily to check social media, in this case, you control the time of

using social media and focusing on your school material. Thirdly, always remember why you

came to college, setting goals could help to know what the right thing to do, study or being on

social media? Aiming yourself toward your goals could help students to reduce the use of social

media and the negative impact that comes with it.

In conclusion, Social media has become the most important thing in many people lives,

companies now are doing commercials on social media, not on TV anymore. Also, the way to

approach social media is becoming easier than ever, you only need a smartphone at least to be on

social media. However, the impact of social media is what becoming the issue, whether positive

or negative impact. The tons of studies that have been written on this subject are still concerned

about what might happen in the future, every day a new app comes to be popular on social media

that could make a different impact on our lives and more importantly on teenagers lives. The

impact of social media is not a theory its a fact, but what people need to learn is how they can

use social media with minimum possible impact, eliminated social media is not a solution and it
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will never be. College students need social media to make their education much better, they only

need to be learned how to use it.

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Works Cited:

Hopkins, Bruce. Impact of Social Media on Education. Academia Apps,

https://www.academiaapps.com/impact-social-media-education/ Accessed 1 November 2017.

Jacobs, Lynn F and Hyman, Jeremy S. Top 12 Time-Management Tips. U.S. News, 14 October 2009,

https://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/professors-guide/2009/10/14/top-12-time-

management-tips Accessed 31 October 2017.

Lau, Wilfred. Effects of Social Media Usage and Social Media Multitasking on the Academic

Performance of University Students. Computers in Human Behavior, Vol. 68, 2017, pp. 286-291

http://www.sciencedirect.com.librarylink.uncc.edu/science/article/pii/S0747563216307841?_rd

oc=1&_fmt=high&_origin=gateway&_docanchor=&md5=b8429449ccfc9c30159a5f9aeaa92ffb

Accessed 10 October 2017

Percentage of U.S. Population with a Social Media Profile from 2008 to 2017. Statista. 2017,

https://www.statista.com/statistics/273476/percentage-of-us-population-with-a-social-

network-profile/Accessed 31 October 2017

Roberts, Jim. Cellphone Addiction is an Increasingly Realistic Possibility, Baylor Study of College

students Reveals. Baylor University, 27 August. 2014,

https://www.baylor.edu/mediacommunications/news.php?action=story&story=145864

Accessed 30 October 2017

Should Parents Monitor Their Childrens Social Media. TeenSafe, 15 May. 2017,

https://www.teensafe.com/blog/parents-monitor-childrens-social-media/ Accessed 1

November 2017.
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Social Media Facts. Pew Research Center, 12 January 2017, http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-

sheet/social-media/ Accessed 30 October 2017.