School Kids, Axe the Social Networking
For students, social networking sites have no educational value due to the inherently truncated, shallow nature of communication on them. Pro or con?
Pro: Facebook Isn’t a Learning Tool
The standardized hoops—such as Regents and SAT tests—through which today’s "successful" student must jump detract from time spent on meaningful learning and demand rote memorization. Children are encouraged to memorize poorly contextualized facts, instead of engaging deeply with texts, and to master "test-taking strategies," treating tests as games rather than as forums for the display of knowledge. Interestingly, the rising popularity of social networking sites among children mirrors and exacerbates these negative trends in public education.
Yes, Facebook could be used by children to share articles with educational and thought-provoking content. But the reality is that children are using Facebook to share homework and test answers, dropping their education through the cybercracks of a cheater’s paradise. Hence my agreement with the New Jersey middle school principal who recently made headlines when he decried the effects of Facebook on his students’ education and asked parents to forbid their children to use the social networking site.
Children are also using Facebook to exchange messages and play games with cyberfriends. As fourth grader Stan Boflovski explains on a recent episode of South Park, Facebook is great because "You can message your friends, play Yatzi …, even start your own virtual farm and have your friends visit it."
But Mafia Wars, online Yatzi, and other games played via Facebook have little to no educational value. Nor do idle messaging, texting, gossiping, and "cyber-bullying."
In the larger scheme of things, cyber-messaging threatens the maturation of real-life social skills. As a middle-schooler during the advent of the Internet, I myself experienced delusions of sociality, falsely believing that I was having meaningful interactions with friends online. In retrospect, these lacked the physical dynamics that breed healthy relationships.
Furthermore, virtual gaming robs children of developmentally important outdoor experiences. The obesity epidemic is only a gross manifestation of the more general need to get kids off chairs and couches and away from keyboards.
Con: Social Networking Breeds Sophisticated Skills
Is the content of social networking sites truncated? Of course. Shallow? Often. But human history is full of seminal tools that weren’t used to their fullest extent until they—and we—evolved. And we will evolve together as we learn to use these tools for a much greater good than they now seem capable of. The possibility of a few negative consequences to using the newest technology and innovation of today’s generation is not a reason to disregard its potential positive impact on the classroom.
Schools and teachers have always been expected to promote social skills among students, modeling how to collaborate, negotiate conflict, exchange information, and evaluate veracity. When used properly and developed with smart pedagogy, the principles of today’s social networking can be used to enhance and build on traditional classroom learning and develop 21st century skills that future employers and the world economy now consistently demand, such as technological proficiency, civic duty, communication, teamwork, cultural awareness, and financial literacy. Many of these skills can be taught and experienced through social networking and media, which can help teach students to challenge sloppy thinking in sharp but collaborative ways and reach conclusions quickly and without fuss in a hyperspeed workplace.
But just as we did when developing our children’s traditional social skills, educators and parents have an enhanced responsibility to monitor students’ use of these tools, setting guidelines and a model for proper behavior—and yes, even restricting use when it is abused. Just as we encouraged structured thinking and discouraged unproductive debate and bullying in face-to-face social networking, we now have to do the same in a virtual one. As we look for education resources and tools to help our country achieve Obama’s 2020 goals and develop a global workforce, we have to start taking advantage of social networking and stop ignoring it.