Social Media as a Tool for Good

     This entry is two-fold, but together they draw on the Badgy, Dennen, Rutledge, Rowlett & Brunick (2018) article. Warning: It’s a long one.

      As a teacher, I’ve always tried to incorporate social media or technology into my lessons. Not only do I think it’s more captivating for my students, I also think it helps them relate to the material better and keeps me from having to police the room all period. I have seen how portable technology like cell phones have changed the classroom, so I figured rather than fight it, I would try to incorporate it. Though many of my students wanted to be “friends” on social media, I told them I could not add them until after I left for FSU. I kept my promise and now I still follow many of them. I first noticed that many of them had bitmojis that did not “match” what they looked like, though this was the case with my friends of all different ages. I started thinking more about this and wondered if in some cases, it might be an indication of body confidence issues. Some bitmojis have larger breasts, smaller waists, lighter skin, darker skin, etc than their real-life counterpart. I also noticed a lot of the things that my former students posted were rather bleak for their age. Many of them were posting memes about not finding love, how everyone around them were less than decent people, how much “life sucks” and even going as far as to say they wanted to die. Whether they meant it or not, I found it very alarming. I myself went through some things that affected my mental health and I found myself following a lot of social media accounts that lamented about the negative side of life. However, I was very surprised that such young kids and that so many of them were sharing these memes. It wasn’t just teenagers, but almost everyone! I couldn’t understand why this culture was so popular, why everyone was so miserable and why everyone could relate. 

     Until recently, I was never around anyone that was affected by suicide. However, about one month ago, a college roommate of mine, Jeanne, from my undergraduate university did take her life. Before this, my only experience with suicide was through media, high school health class, my mother and the textbook I used as a high school physical education and health teacher. My mother never actually used the term suicide, but she reminded me that when life got hard, I could always call her and that there was another way out. I kept that message with me and though I’ve reached some low points in my life, I always go back to her words of wisdom and remember that whatever I’m going through is not worth my life. I have always felt confusion and anger, but mostly sadness when I would hear of someone taking their life. When Jeanne passed away, some of my college friends and I exchanged messages. We all shared how sad we felt knowing that Jeanne felt that there was no way out, but also that we all saw many signs of her deep sadness when we lived with her 10 years ago. My teaching experience coupled with the suicide rate increase to 25% since 1999 (CDC, 2018) has always had me thinking about mental health. 

      

     To tie back into the article, I have always thought that social media had positive effects. Not only was it successful in the learning environment for me, I also thought it gave me some insight to my students’ personal lives, which in my opinion helped me understand them better as students. I enjoyed reading the perspective of the students and how the authors presented the benefits of social media from their direct point of view. I think that social media can also be a positive tool for teachers and parents. I understand it is hard to monitor teenagers’ internet usage, but if it was incorporated into the classroom lessons, maybe teachers would pick up on some of the signs through their social media posts and to offer support to students before it’s too late. If parents were trained in some of the warning signs of depression and other mental health disorders, they might be able to recognize them in their own children through the memes, videos and posts they like, post and comment on. This could be a way to sort of monitor students without them knowing, with the goal of understanding their true emotional state, not the one they tell you when asked, “How are you?” I don’t mean to say teachers should secretly spy on their students. One finding offered in the article is that students do not even realize they “were using social media to support self-directed learning” (Bagdy et al., 2018). I think the same may be apply to what they post on social media. They may be sharing items on their social media without the purposeful intention of reaching out for help, but trained teachers and parents may notice these subconscious requests.