Effects of Digital Media on Students Environment
All individuals are social beings and like to socialize with each other. Digital media are electronic instruments that empower individuals to make and offer data, thoughts, interests, and numerous different things by developing online social networks and communities. The introduction of the internet occurred in the 1990s, since then, the internet has contributed to the development of major expansions in the communication sector throughout the world. The existence of the communication platforms brought up by the internet has transformed communications techniques ranging from entertainment to education. Digital media associate’s individuals in manners at no other time conceivable, empowering clients to keep up kinships across time and separation. It empowers the individuals who are socially separated or some way or another set apart from their prompt physical network to associate with similarly invested or like-arranged individuals. Additionally, digital media encourages association across social, monetary, social, political, cultural, and ideological boundaries, taking into account upgraded understanding. In terms of education, digital media has contributed positively to the academic performance of the students. For instance, it permits the children to have access to more useful information, join learning groups, communicate, and find opportunities. However, despite the positive attributes associated with digital media, the excessive presence of digital media amongst the students tends to have some negative effects. In accordance with various research projects, the presence of excessive digital media in a student’s environment could negatively impact their performance.
Youths are believed to be the most active users of digital media throughout the world. A large portion of the students tend to engage in digital media every day; they cannot spend a day without accessing their digital media platforms; they can never imagine how to live would be without the existence of the digital media in their lives. Research denotes that four students out of ten students tend to check their digital media platforms for more than ten times per day. Some of the students tend to experience fear attacks whenever they don’t have a chance to check out their digital media platforms (Tolga, p. 174). In total, most of the studies have concluded that a huge number of the students tend to spend an average of six hours per day while checking their digital media platforms (for instance, viewing the posts and chatting with friends). Most students tend to often check the updates on their digital platforms during breaks and even during the lessons. Despite the digital media being a precious basis for education, digital media tend to distract most of the students from their real life, actual goals, and even studies (Tolga, p. 175). However, some of the researchers have postulated that digital media helps facilitate student performance through availing a wide range of research material educational videos and interactive software, it disadvantages tend to outweigh its advantages. Thus, digital media tend to retard student’s performance in the school rather than facilitate their academic achievement.
To begin with, most research indicates that there exists a positive correlation between digital media and the reduction of the student’s overall performance. Students who spend a lot of their time on the digital media tend to exhibit little focus on their studies; this leads to poor results and poor performance of the academic-related activities (Douglas, p. 14). Whenever a student gets more involved in digital media, it tends to hurt his/her overall academic performance. Most of the students tend to use digital media only for chatting, social networking and visiting irrelevant sites (for instance, pornographic sites). The use of digital media by the students for other reasons other than the academic-related activities makes them waste a lot of time, which they could have been using to study or do other academic research-related activities (Douglas, p. 14). The wastage of the time by the students that happens through constant usage of the digital media tends to affect their final results in the exam. For instance, students are not able to submit their assignments on time, projects, and homework. This tends to significantly retard their academic performance, which in turn leads to poor grades. Also, while studying, students tend to encounter massive disruption from the digital media while checking up their accounts and updates, the disruption lowers their degree of concentration (McCoy & Bernard, p. 14). Low concentration in the class leads to poor performance. Hence, the use of digital media by the students tends to hurt their overall performance.
Besides, researchers have found out that students tend to use digital media devices even when the lecture is going on (Fox et al., p. 52). They don’t focus on what is being told and taught in the class and rather talk with their companions on digital media or sit around reading some superfluous stuff via web-based networking media. Therefore, they may miss some important data being partaken in the class identified with study, assignments, and tests (Fox et al., p. 52). This, in turn, tend to affect their grades adversely. Digital media has hampered understudies composing aptitudes such that they will, in general, utilize short types of words or expressions all over the place. For instance, using abbreviations such as “coz” instead of because “k” instead of “okay.” Students get used to using such abbreviations; they even translate the abbreviation while writing their exams. The usage of such abbreviations in the exams is not appropriate and may lead to poor performance in various subjects. Thus, it makes the students fetch very low aggregate grades at the end of the course. Hence, digital media hurts the student’s performance and can lead to poor performance in their exams and tests.
Also, some of the students opt to conduct their discussion forums through online platforms, and never want to engage in face-to-face communication with their classmates and their professors or tutors. Lack of direct communication between the students and the teachers or between the students themselves tend to pose an adverse effect on the development of communications skills (Fox et al., p. 52). Students who are never willing to engage in a face to face communication with their fellow students or even with the tutors tend to develop poor communication skills. Also, the lack of direct communication skills triggered by the digital media might lead to a reduction of the confidence amongst the victims of the situation (Orzech & Kathryn, p. 44). Lack of confidence means that the students will never be able to express themselves before a group of people while in the school or even after the completion of his/her course (McCoy & Bernard, p. 14). Since poor communication skills mean the students will not be able to interact well with the fellow students of the tutors, this might lead to the attainment of poor grades in the exams; this is because students are unable to consult various topics or study-related issues.
Furthermore, research has indicated that excessive usage of digital media could hurt the health condition of the students. The various health complications caused by excessive use of the digital media involves back pain, owing to the use of digital media for a longer period in the wrong posture, mood swings, continuous strain, sleep pattern, and the mental stress (Jacobsen & Renata Forste, p. 276). The health complications caused by excessive use of digital media tend to have a negative impact on the academic performance of the victims. Poor health means that the students will not be able to concentrate in the class, and will waste a lot of time visiting the doctor often even during the time that he/she was supposed to be in the classroom (Bellur, p. 66). Also, some of the medication prescribed to them could cause dizziness in the classroom; feeling of dizziness will disrupt the degree of student’s concentration. Hence it will lead to poor performance and poor performance in their exams. The health complications derived from the excessive use of digital media could lead to the development of mental related issues amongst the students who are victims (Jacobsen & Renata Forste, p. 276). For instance, it could lead to isolation from the current world, depression, and anxiety, amongst many other psychological disorders. Consequently, the mental disorder cold makes the students encounter disruption of the learning patterns in the future, the situation cold worsens and makes the student quit their studies completely. Thus, excessive use of digital media is a bad habit for the students since it could result in related mental disorders, thus leading to a reduction in the overall performance of the students affected.
In addition to the depression, mental stress, and mood swings, excessive usage of digital media could lead to more health complications amongst the students. Excessive usage of digital media can lead to physical and mental health effects amongst the students. Students who are used to using digital media tend to skip their meals most of the time and do not have sufficient time to take proper rest. Students used to excessive social media tend to take the excessive volume of tea and coffee to remain focused and active, the excessive use of the caffeine is harmful to the health of the victims (Orzech & Kathryn, p. 44). The physical and mental conditions caused by excessive media tend to make students unmotivated and lethargic to establish contact with other students in the school. Poor mental and physical health tends to hurt the student’s performance; it makes the students realize low grades in their exams. The teachers and parents should try to enlighten the students regarding the negative impacts of excessive use of digital media and the way students can refrain from excessive use of digital media.
Henceforth, various studies support the fact that excessive digital media tends to cause depression amongst most of the students. The higher the level of digital usage by the students, the higher the chances of suffering from depression and other mental related issues (Al-Menayes, p. 88). A simple regression carried out by researchers regarding the impact of the excessive use of digital media amongst the university students in the Khost province indicated that depression is commonly caused by the excessive use of the digital media amongst the students (Lau, p. 288). Various studies indicate that digital media platforms acted as a cause of mental disorder and can, in turn, leads to suicidal actions such as murder (Lau, p. 288). The mental disorder caused by digital media tends to have a significant impact on low academic performance amongst the students. Hence, it is true mental effects amongst the students, which in turn leads to poor performance in the academic tests.
Also, excessive usage of digital media tends to disrupt the student’s attention span. Attention span denotes the total time that a student can be able to concentrate on their studies without being getting disrupted by other things in the surrounding. Most of the past research denoted that the higher the attention span, the lower the student time students spend on digital media. Excessive use of digital media tends to have a significant negative effect on the attention span (Lau, p. 288). Disruption of the attention span by digital media affects the academic performance of the students. Poor concentration in the academic activities results in a poor grade amongst the affected students. Hence excessive use of digital media hurts the academic performance of the students by disrupting their attention span.
To mitigate the negative impact of digital media, colleges and schools need to educate their students regarding the negative effects caused by the excessive use of digital media in their school performance (Al-Menayes, p. 88). They need to make the students realize the future implications of social media, for instance, poor communication skills, inability to establish logical and critical thinking skills, poor confidence, and the development of psychological disorders. Educational institutions need to encourage their students to try and use the digital media towards establishing positive activities such as knowledge, learning, educational videos instead of just using the digital media for chatting, social networking and entertainment purposes (Al-Menayes, p. 88). This involves establishing online groups on the digital media platforms to enhance the discussion of the assignments and conduct extra research regarding various topics taught in the classroom.
In conclusion, some of the research argues that digital media has a positive impact on student performance. For instance, it enhances the search of information and enables the students to conduct their research regarding particular topics taught in the class. However, other studies refute the notion and instead argue that digital media has more detrimental impacts on the academic performance of the students. Digital media disadvantages outweigh its advantages; the forum tends to impose detrimental impacts on the academic performance of the students in the classroom. Excessive use of the digital media amongst the students tends to disrupt (for instance, reduction of the concentration span) them from having full focus in their academics. Also, digital media tend to reduce the development of communication skills amongst most of the students who excessively use the platforms. Also, research indicates that excessive use of digital media tends to cause health complications amongst the students. Some of the health issues brought by the social include depression, mental health-related conditions, and straining of the eyes. The various health complications tend to lower the average performance of the students in various areas. Hence, the parents and teachers need to team up and help enlighten the student’s dangers of excessive use of digital media in their academic performance. Teachers should encourage the students to use digital media to carry out academic activities rather than spending a lot of time chatting and viewing posts and comments.
Work Cited
Al-Menayes, Jamal J. “Social media use, engagement and addiction as predictors of academic performance.” International Journal of Psychological Studies, 7.4 (2015): 86-94.
Bellur, Saraswathi, Kristine L. Nowak, and Kyle S. Hull. “Make it our time: In class, multitaskers have lower academic performance.” Computers in Human Behavior 53 (2015): 63-70.
Douglas, Duncan, Hoekstra Angel, and Wilcox Bethany. “Digital devices, distraction, and student performance: Does in-class cell phone use reduce learning?” Astronomy education review (2012).
Fox, Annie Beth, Jonathan Rosen, and Mary Crawford. “Distractions, distractions: Does instant messaging affect college students’ performance on a concurrent reading comprehension task?” CyberPsychology & Behavior 12.1 (2009): 51-53.
Jacobsen, Wade C., and Renata Forste. “The wired generation: Academic and social outcomes of electronic media use among university students.” Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 14.5 (2011): 275-280.
Lau, Wilfred WF. “Effects of social media usage and social media multitasking on the academic performance of university students.” Computers in human behavior 68 (2017): 286-291.
McCoy, Bernard R. “Digital distractions in the classroom phase II: Student classroom use of digital devices for non-class related purposes.” (2016).
Orzech, Kathryn M., et al. “Digital media use in the two h before bedtime is associated with sleep variables in university students.” Computers in human behavior 55 (2016): 43-50.
Tolga, G. Ö. K. “THE POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES ON STUDENTS’LEARNING.” The Eurasia Proceedings of Educational & Social Sciences 2 (2015): 173-177.