Did we exist before social media? Today, it seems impossible to imagine a world without Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and all of the other sites we seem to visit daily. We are constantly connected and being updated of the activities of friends and family. And, we are able to send out blasts of hellos like your picture or post some other random comment. College life can seem inundated with a steady stream of information and social media has become the platform to facilitate this medium.
However, the real question is how useful is this information to our well-being and is it really necessary for a college student to be turned on and tuned in 24 hours a day with social media. According to Psychology Today, social media has “revolutionized the way we communicate,” and “we human beings have won the communication lottery since the days of rotary phones and dial up internet.”
Personal Contact and Connections?
But, have we? Is our constant connection to social media to our benefit or do we lose a connection for every “friend” we make on Facebook? Users estimate they can spend upwards of hours a day on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to connect and communicate. This is a lot of time, so it begs the question, what did we do before social media? Where did we spend our hours before we were so plugged in and making connections? Were we simply staring at the wall, waiting for the phone to ring? I don’t think so.
Which leads me to an interesting experiment about the role social media plays in a college student’s life. What would happen to college students if they were suddenly disconnected from social media? One top university set out to answer just this question.
Rejoining the Real World
The Harrisburg University of Science and Technology in Pennsylvania conducted a study where they blocked access to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other similar sites to see how students would respond to a forced disconnection of social media.
Initially, the blackout was viewed with contempt by faculty and students alike. It took almost a week for there to be a general acceptance of the situation. Some students were very angry with the blackout and some faculty from neighboring universities voiced their disgust with university’s decision to even block the sites in the first place. Neighboring Professor Reynol Junco stated, “It’s ridiculous for an institution” to block access to social media sites. Ouch!
It seems everyone had an opinion. But, the good thing about this experiment is it started a dialogue about how social media impacts college students, both the good and bad. This little experiment shows how ingrained social media has become to our state of being. College students have come of age during the social media revolution and feel a strong affinity with these platforms. However, we must examine the role social media plays in our life.
Keeping Social Media and Social Networking in Check
Not all technology is to our advantage and we must see that we do not let our social life become impacted by the isolation of social media. Now, I know this sounds odd to use the word isolation since we are so connected with social media, but we cannot forget to establish human connections in our pursuit of being plugged in.
College students can be vulnerable to the effects of social media and, like anything, we must take the good with the bad.
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