Rich Adriel L.

De Guzman March 6, 2019

DEVC 40 C-3R Prof. Centeno
Could You Survive University Without Social Media?

Reflection and Synthesis on Social Media Usage in the University

There was a time when social media didn’t even exist in the first place yet university
students got through it with flying colors. So, the question wouldn’t be that hard to answer. It
just so happens that students nowadays have grown in a society and culture wherein social
media has been embedded in every individual’s lives. Social media has become one of the basic
platforms in communicating and in this case as part of education.
In today’s digital age, social media has partaken a large role and contribution in shaping
society in general. In the case of education, traditional methods of educating students have
shifted with the trends of technology and the World Wide Web. Classrooms have shifted to
online classrooms and Facebook groups, various syllabi are now uploaded into online modules,
and student-teacher and peer evaluations are now done through online forms. Teachers are
now following the trend where there are students who spend most of their time on the
internet, wherein professors now start to engage their students online to utilize their time not
just on socializing and passing by the time, but also on learning new stuff through online reads,
educational videos, and even interactive educational games. Students have also resorted from
published literature to online literature for their references in their academic and scholarly
writings that are usual requirements in school. This made research much more quick,
convenient and reliable due to the vast and diverse storage of scholarly literatures that the
internet has.
Social media also has its disadvantages to the academic performance of students. This
platform with its effects on the student’s performance still shows that some students tend to
get distracted from focusing well on their academics. It sometimes makes some students a bit
lazier and uncooperative to work with others on group activities when it is conducted online,
since there wouldn’t be a physical meet-up that the students would need to attend to. There
are also cases wherein students don’t have the capabilities of acquiring a stable internet
connection or a convenient and accessible technology to use social media and the internet. This
causes a divide between students and teachers because there are cases when students cannot
comply specific requirements when it is needed to pass through an online platform. In
connection to that, there are also situations where students get late beyond the deadline on
passing requirements because of a delay due to internet and technical problems. And since
students have more accessibility to articles, journals, and online references, students are more
prone to plagiarism because students can easily copy and paste readings from online sources.

So, I can clearly say that students won’t need to use social media during their stay in the
university and they can live and survive without it. Students can still excel academically because
there are a lot of published literatures to rely on when needed for research and data gathering.
In terms of communicating, students can use traditional ways by texting or calling other
students even without social media. I guess I can say that I can survive university without social
media. Even though I’ll definitely miss out on a lot of stuff inside the university, I can easily
focus on my academics because I don’t have to deal with the stressful social life of social media.