Just like any other technological advancement that came before it, social media has impacted the lives of students across the globe. Sites like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram have long since become a norm when it comes to everyday lives of young people, making sure that their apps are the first ones to be installed on new phones.

But why is that the case? How did social media become so predominant and often even deciding factors in social lives of young people? Moreover, it have impacted college life in unexpected ways and provides college help in many cases, not all of them are positive and paint a pretty picture.

The positives

Socializing

The most important aspect of using social media at any age is the ability to socialize. It’s easier than ever to find people with similar tastes and become friends over Facebook. But what are the side-effects of socializing over the internet?

Many young people fail to see that alienating themselves from real-life human interaction leads to far-reaching consequences. They become socially awkward, unable to hold a proper conversation or simply become loners who spend time with their phones. While not always the case, social media does provide a unique channel of communication for college students, making sure they can always get help with essay writing or simply hang out with their friends and colleagues.

Networking

While similar to socializing, networking is a different type of social interaction. Young people all over the world opt for contacting and communicating with their professors and mentors via the internet. Long gone are the days of going to college only to talk to the professor for a couple minutes before going home.

Networking also allows young people to create connections with future employers and business partners and allowing them to build the strong groundwork for their careers early on. Everyone needs networking, whether you are looking for essay help or a reference down the line. What matters is that social media has created such an option for youth across the globe and sites like LinkedIn and Behance are here just for that.

Research & Analysis

Believe it or not, social media has changed the way most college students go about their daily university work. Many students in fields of human resources, economics, social sciences or even writing and design use social media for their research. There are even those who use their research results to get the best essay done afterward by getting help with brainstorming, writing or editing.

There is no better way to gain fresh and relevant data than to use social media in order to conduct questionnaires and interviews with live subjects without bothering them face-to-face. Even though it may not be as hands on or provide concrete behavioral data, it’s still a great way to get raw and unaltered data for use in papers and projects.

The negatives

Shorter attention spans

Social media has impacted more than the way students interact with each other and write their papers. Due to the fact that everything is at their fingertips, many college students struggle with shorter attention spans. This results in them being nervous and often dissatisfied at activities or lectures that go on for hours.

While some of them look for the cheapest service to help them out with work, some take their disappointment to a new level. They are used to instant gratification and obvious rewards rather than invest time into an activity in order to get long-term benefits.

Many college students end up failing exams or outright dropping out of college because their attention spans have been drastically reduced. The result is a new generation of young people looking for different and unexplored career choices.

Lack of focus

Focusing on different subjects and working on papers sometimes just seems too boring. Given the fact that many of the papers that college students write can take days or weeks to finish, it’s no wonder that many of them get distracted.

The problem with most young people is that social media access is always at their fingertips. There is always that one friend or that one page that needs our attention no matter what we are doing. This results in a severe loss of focus and splits our attention down the middle.

Social media has often been described as one of the most useful educational tools for today’s youth, but that statement is a double-edged sword. The quality of work that college students do can drop drastically with every new distraction, and social media can provides distraction.

Anxiety & Stress

The most predominant issue that plagues social media users in college is the anxiety and stress that come with it. Students are busy enough with their lectures, projects, and papers. Not to mention all the extracurricular activities that they want to attend in order to make the most out of college.

Using social media in such a busy lifestyle doesn’t amount to a higher quality of experience. It often leads to stress and anxiety due to an overwhelming amount of information that students are exposed to. All the pages and news that they are following on a daily basis takes them away from the real issues of college such as writing and work that’s waiting for them. As such, they get lost in social media, going through page after page of mostly irrelevant information only to leave more stressed than they were before.

With the pros and cons put on paper, it’s easy to see why college students use social media on a regular basis and don’t plan to stop. The impact these platforms have made has become too big to comprehend or stop in its tracks.

All we can do is adjust our expectations and work ethics to accommodate for such changes. Social media can and will be used to boost productivity and success of future college students who are raised with social media.

Angela Baker is a freelance writer with Best Essay Education and at the beginner of her blogging career. She is always seeking to discover new ways for personal and professional growth and is convinced that it’s always important to broaden horizons. That`s why Angela develops and improves her skills throughout the writing process to help and inspire people.