In today's digital landscape, social media has become part and parcel of our daily lives. Numerous studies by the National Library of Medicine have highlighted the role played by social media in the field of education as an Open Learning (OL) tool. According to sentiment.io, over 93% of students turn to social media daily, and over 70% of them have a social media addiction.
Unlike popular belief, social media applications have quite a positive influence on the academic progress of a university-going bunch of people. It sharpens the diverse skills of students and enables them to better adapt to the digital world. This article will examine 12 positive impacts of social media on university students’ academics.
Let’s dive deeper into the details.
How Does Social Media Influence the Academic Performance of University Students? Top 12 Positive Impacts
If you use them effectively, both social media and education can complement each other. Social media has several positive effects on the overall development of educational possibilities for students. Now, it is regarded as a learning platform which enhances the engagement of students in the classroom. You can rely on such platforms to boost your skills if you are lagging behind in your studies.
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Let’s analyse the positive impacts of social media on university student's academics now.
1. Making a Favourable Learning Environment
Textbooks can become so dry at times in the classroom that students lose all interest in them because those books do not spark the fire of curiosity. The good news is that students can always use social media to improve their learning environment overall.
According to Varthana, here is what you can do using social media platforms:
- Show the research findings with your team in real-life
- Edit the academic documents and dissertations collaboratively
- Brainstorm different kinds of ideas together regardless of the distance between the team
- Gamification and digitisation of study material can make the learning environment further interesting for students
However, you will have to be super-choosy about the educational channels that you follow. Not all the information is created equal; hence, it is your job to use only trusted news sources and follow only expert-verified accounts. This will drastically improve the nature of your educational experience.
2. Enhancing the Academic Performance of Students
When used in the right manner, different social media platforms can improve the academic performance of students. When they are interested enough to pay attention to the subjects being taught at university, they have the potential to retain all the necessary information.
As per a report titled Analysing the Impact of Social Media on Students’ Academic Performance: A Comparative Study of Extraversion and Introversion Personality, the fun side of social media enabled the learners to stay connected with their peers and teachers to get all the relevant information. It makes students interact with each other more than usual.
When university students conduct surveys using different social media and other online platforms, they enhance their chances for success. It also increases their engagement in their studies and boosts their academic performance by a great ratio. Social media can be used as a booster for improving the overall academic health of university students.
3. Continued Connectivity
One of the main positive impacts of social media on university students' academics is the continued connectivity that it offers to students. However, the same thing can become quite harmful as it is a source of continued distraction for people. The constant notification and the temptation to check the phone are not resistible for many students.
A report by Emerald shows that students who never used social media platforms had poor grades as compared to those who were occasional users. It suggested that when used correctly, social media can be a powerful tool for learning, and continued connectivity is not a bad thing.
In today’s world, digital tools are considered an important element for university students. The continued connectivity is seen as more of a bliss, and students can positively be impacted by it. They get to know about the trends of the dynamic world faster than a researcher who is closed up in a lab conducting tests on various things.
4. Assistance in Studies
Even though social media apps and platforms can cause some problems, overall, they can help students harness their academic potential. For example, university students can share online information and learn from each other. This can also develop teamwork and effective communication skills, which are further helpful in professional life.
According to the British School of Barcelona, the impact of digital applications on the field of education cannot be denied. Not only has it changed how students process their learning, they can now achieve their learning objectives quicker than before. However, it also poses certain challenges, so it’s important to use social media wisely.
Again, the non-stop connectivity also fosters independent thinking in them and helps students explore niche subjects. This enables students to cater to different individual learning styles, and it further encourages self-directed learning opportunities. These platforms also equip students with valuable skills and knowledge and provide them with enough skills for the classroom.
5. Career Opportunities
Using social media platforms online, students can connect and expand their professional networks by a great deal. They can also share their expertise with other people around them. Furthermore, these platforms allow students to connect with other classmates and exchange different kinds of ideas.
Depending on the grasp of their content via different discussion forums, students can also find many career opportunities around themselves. Active networking also allows them to find various career opportunities for themselves. The school institute should encourage students to join different groups that are relevant to academics. They should also contribute to the educational & scholarly discussions.
Working together on class assignments on social media also creates a sense of collaboration between students. According to CNBC, 92% of the major companies used social media networks to hire people for jobs. This shows how the digital presence of university students can easily help them access career and growth opportunities.
6. Active Role in Skill Development
Social media applications encourage the creativity, skill development and improvement of university learners. According to K.R. Mangalam, one of the positive impacts of social media on the academics of university learners is that it encourages creativity and skill development. Many students learn new skills from platforms like YouTube and other Coursera.
It helps them connect with others who have similar interests and share their creations with like-minded people. As per a report by People Management, 62% of people are learning workplace skills using different social media applications. AI also helps them polish their skills, such as by making a classroom behaviour plan.
This way, university students gather new skills. Once they have graduated and are in the professional world, they can apply these skills to get their desired results. Hence, social media has been effective enough for students to develop usable skills suited to the requirements of the current world.
7. Sharing of Helpful Resources
While many adults may think of social media as a diversion for university students, it also enables them to access different educational resources. Furthermore, they can interact with scholarly and educational material quite easily. Because of the increased use of digital social platforms, students can easily use a lot of educational media.
By interacting with credible educational accounts, students can actively participate in the academic information. By doing this, they can also assess the pedagogical effect of social media while also keeping their usage time under control. Several educational institutions, academics and professors offer relevant academic thoughts and materials to the learners.
Following the professional accounts of several academic institutes can also be really helpful for students. According to Voltedu, here are the top 10 higher education social media accounts to follow for students:
- All social media accounts of Arizona State University
- All social media accounts of Stanford University
- The Instagram handle of the University of Iowa
- Tok-tok account of Louisiana State University
- The Instagram handle of Colorado State University
- Tok-tok account of Boston University
- Twitter account of Texas A &M University
- Twitter account of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville
- YouTube channel of Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- YouTube channel of New York University
8. Personalised Learning Opportunities
Since social media algorithms show personalised data to students, they can get custom learning opportunities from these platforms. According to Smart Social, the online platform can act as a catalyst for motivating students that they can accomplish great things. Following different inspirational pages can help people quicken their learning progress.
Media has always been considered a powerful tool for shaping the values and beliefs of people, and engaging with motivational content can effectively teach students how to believe in their potential and grow their academic grades in the best possible way. The learning practices can also be tailored to the individual needs of students.
These practices let students develop deep critical thinking skills, and they can distinguish right from wrong. To make the experience even better for university students, the department and supervisors can instruct students on what content to consume and what to avoid when using social media platforms.
9. Digital Literacy Education
According to Cvodis, different social media platforms can facilitate the evaluation of distinct data for users and improve their enhanced comprehension for them. As per a study by the same source, the positive impacts of social media on university students' academics could be seen in the cases of students' discernment of information and comprehension.
By actively using social media platforms, students can adjust their educational privacy settings, avoid sharing risky information and spot fake messages. It makes them smarter and safer than ever before. Also, students can get a basic yet detailed understanding of how different platforms work.
Social media expertise takes things a step further and lets the users know the technical aspects of the platforms they are using. Hence, university students become able to effectively use certain software and tools to create, edit and optimise content per their educational needs.
10. Improving the Creative Element
The social media platforms empower students to express their creativity in several ways. Whether they are just an amateur artist showing off their work or an inexperienced writer working on short poems, they can share everything with a global audience and get valuable feedback on their work.
Per a report titled Social Media Improves Students' Academic Performance, students can exchange their ideas and work plans effectively with the users. Online publishing user groups can bring information to the knowledge of a wider global audience. Hence, social media promotes interactions between subject specialists, teachers, major communities and students.
Apart from having multiple learning benefits, it also allows students to gain fame and sell their work to the audience. Connecting with the worldwide audience also helps students gain more recognition. Similarly, when they get reviews and critiques of their work from a diverse range of strangers online, it improves their work greatly.
11. Staying Updated on Current Events
One of the best impacts of social media on university learners’ academics is that these platforms can keep you updated on global and current issues. Following different educational news outlets and thought leaders can also spark the interest of students in the different cultures of the world. This can make students even better at achieving the requirements of their dissertations and other academic papers.
Today, information can travel quickly on social media. You can be sitting in one corner of the world and know what’s happening on the other end. It also lets you keep a tab on all information without any kind of disruptions. University students taking competitive exams can benefit a lot from such settings, and they can stay updated on all kinds of current events.
So, the next time you log into the social media channels you use, keep in mind that it can act as a valuable asset in your educational journey. Students can transform their learning process from just being a passive activity into an engaging and interactive experience.
12. Easy to Publish
Students can easily share their ideas with the world using their social media handles and platforms. It’s truly one of the fastest ways to establish your name out there. The social media platforms are easy to use, and anything can be posted online at any time. If you want to gather an online audience for any cause, you can get them with little effort.
This makes it the most favourable platform for media and marketing students. In today’s world, anyone can upload online data to digital platforms and websites even when they do not have enough technical knowledge.
Achieving widely accessible publication often requires students to navigate specific repositories of data and helps university students fulfil the formatting requirements. This improves their digital literacy rate and makes them aware of the current social media trends online.
Are There Any Academic Benefits of Using Social Media for Students?
There are several academic advantages of using social media for studying purposes. It can significantly improve the communication between instructors and students and can also assist the learners with course materials after class. Different academic platforms such as Edmodo and Google Classroom can allow students to work on different academic assignments and projects in real time.
- It allows students to share different kinds of multimedia content.
- It can let students develop several critical thinking skills with the help of data analysis.
- Students can also develop basic digital skills that can be useful for both professional and academic lives.
- They can also promote positive learning attitudes within themselves.
- It also encourages students to seriously consider their learning activities.
- Furthermore, as per the National Institutes of Health, students can also maximise their social capital through different virtual communications.
However, there are also some great risks associated with the usage of social media. It includes the media's multi-tasking, which has a negative impact on the academic performance of students. Students should know how they can respect the privacy of people present online. Furthermore, parents and schools should work together to prevent social media addiction.
How Does Social Media Affect Students in a Good Way?
Social media can positively impact students by facilitating communication with peers and other educators. It provides students with access to a lot of learning materials and has a good impact on their overall studies. It mostly makes their papers better than before in the following ways:
- It facilitates the communication of students with other educators.
- It helps promote a collaborative culture on different projects.
- You can use it to foster awareness of current events.
- You can create different networking opportunities with the professionals of a field.
- It also encourages creativity through feedback and sharing of one’s work.
Engaging with social media applications can assist students in developing essential digital literacy skills such as information evaluation, online communication, and critical thinking. This also gives students easier access to several types of educational resources and serves as a platform for skill development.
Conclusion
That was all about the positive impacts of social media on university students' academics. It has now become a vital part of their social life, offering them opportunities to connect, access research, and stay in touch with each other.
Lastly, the regulated usage of social media is ultimately up to the university students themselves. If they want to benefit from it, they should set a dedicated schedule for using social media applications. There must be a time limit on the usage of all such applications; otherwise, students will end up wasting valuable time.
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