ALYSSA BROWN

CARIBBEAN STUDIES

SBA 2019

DRAFT ONE (1)

Research topic

Identity and Social Formation

Research Question

How has social media affected the student’s academic performance at the Black River

High School?
 Introduction

In this research it has been assumed that the student to student relationships can be

affected through a school or learning environment. This research has come too prove if this

effect has been good or bad. Whether students draw more to their peers or stray further away

from them. To the readers of this research I do hope it will expand your knowledge in this aspect.
Table of contents
 Literature Review

According to the technicianonline website; today’s website is a global village. Everyone

is connected to one another in this vast network generated by the internet. As said by Marshall

McLuchan, a philosopher of communication theory. “The new electronic independence recreates

the world in the image of a global village”. This electronic interference is inherently dependent

upon the Internet. It illuminates the knowledge internationally, thereby making us global

citizens.

In the past, the communication and free sharing of thoughts and emotions among people

were restricted by long distance, rationality and/or religion. But now, even these barriers cannot

stop the flow of information and knowledge. The new world of social networking allows free

sharing of thoughts. People share thoughts and feels among each through various mean such as

social networking sites. Humans are seen as social animals. They always like to remain in some

form of group or another and will eventually to do what this group does. All traditions and

cultures are the product of a group oriented facets of human nature. Abraham Maslow mentioned

this is his “Theory of motivation” that the social need of human beings is the third most

important requirement after our physical and safety needs; the third tier in his hierarchy of needs.

Even self-esteem comes after this social dependence. This is the main reason billions of people

use social networking to stay connected, make new friends and satisfy their social needs.

Statistics show that as of 2015, the largest social networking company, Facebook, has

1.49 billion active users, and the number of users is increasing every year. One of the most

interesting things to look at is the increasing number of student use on social networking sites.

As per the survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, 72 percent of high school and 78
percent of college students spend their time on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc.

These numbers indicates how much the student community is involved in this virtual world of

social networking.

Actually, many reasons exist that explain why students love to spend time socializing.

Firstly, social networking provides them the freedom to do whatever they want; to upload what

they want and talk to whom they please. They like to make new friends or to talk to the ones they

see every day with more confidence, comment on the social lives of friends and families.

Students can create other online identities that the real world does not allow. The freedom it

gives to act just by sitting front of a computer enthralls them, and they them demand for more

freedom .Never before has it so easy for young minds to create a digital image of their actions

through such a spontaneous medium. But this has a rather dark side that has gained the attention

of parents and teachers alike, even eminent psychologist, all over the world. One of the biggest

problems is the identity crisis constant social networking produces.

As with everything else we humans use, social media is not wholly good, or bad. It’s

merely a platform that lets us project our thoughts and values to a much larger audience than

ever before. Since people by their very natures are flawed and capable of inflicting great harm to

one another, social media has produced trolls (people who post inflammatory remarks and

comments), and even worse, cyberbullies. When using social media, there is always a thin layer

of glass separating us from one another. This allows us to occasionally dehumanize the person on

the other side, and that’s when abuse can occur. Typing in a hurtful comment is much, much

easier than saying one face to face. This glass wall has also given rise to the popular notion that
internet relationships are meaningless and hold none of the power that relationships do IRL (in

real life). Whether that is true or not is a question of great debate in both the Internet and non-

internet worlds.

However, constant talk of cyberbullying and of teenagers ‘wasting’ their time on the

Internet has made us ignore the fact that the glass wall is often a very good thing.

Communication no longer has any limits in terms of geography or the number of people who can

communicate through it at once. It allows global communities to form, brought together by a

shared love of almost anything; from hockey, to books, to Doctor Who fanfiction. These

communities can be massive, sprawling things with the capacity to induct real social change.

Social media can influence our lives in many ways. It can influence what we buy, what

we eat and even what we desire to look like. As time goes on, more people than ever are finding

themselves getting hooked up in it. Social media affects the relationships between people in both

positive and negative ways. Due to social media, it’s hard to have privacy. Someone can find out

a lot of information about you with just the click of a button. I find that you are also pressured to

stay in tune with the things that are taking place on social media and you more less have to be on

it 24/7 to stay up to date with all of it. I can speak for myself when I say that social media is a

huge distraction for teens who are trying to get school work done. Yes, there is a negative side to

it, but it’s important to keep in mind that social media has its positive side. It makes meeting and

connecting with people a lot simpler and it makes planning events a way easier task than it

would be without the help of social media. People also use social media to keep up with their

friends and family who are far away. It can even help with businesses that need people’s

opinions because they can get feedback on what people think of their product or service they
want to sell. We all know that social media affects the relationships we have with each other and

whether the effects are positive or negative, it's important to have in our society.

In school, the use of online platforms such as school website will give students the right

access to quality information about the school environment, departments, faculties, rules, and

regulations. It has been observed that social media has a wider and faster means of circulating

information not only to the students of an institution but also to the generality of the public.

Students must use all available online platforms effectively and they must be conscious of social

media positive and negative effects. They should try as much as possible to create a balance so as

not to get carried away while learning. Students can get to know each other better through social

media networks. It helps to bring together two or more people, where they can share their

problem, which it can get solve by their fellow colleagues. If a student’s finds out that he or she

is having a problem in a particular course, he or she can open up through chat and finds a genius

who can provide a solution to the problem.

Questionnaire

1. What gender are you?

Female Male

2. Are you on any social media sites?

Yes No

3. How many social media sites are you currently registered on?

1-2 3-4 other

4. Do you use social media to communicate with only your peer?

Yes No

5. How long do you usually spend on a social media site per day?

5 minutes to 30 minutes 1 hour to 3 hours 4 hours and over

6. Have you or anyone have been bullied because of social media status?

Yes no

7. Do you like and/or comment under any of your peers photos or videos?

Yes no

8.