Social media has come a long way since the Bulletin Board System, a forum where users un-coded files, games and messages in the 1970s. Teenagers today probably wouldn’t recognize the likes of the BBS or America Online (AOL), an original model of modern social media that included direct and immediate interactions through instant messaging.
With the rapid growth of a social networking culture, it’s become the primary interaction for web-active, smart phone-owning teens. Some local high school students say it’s a difficult task to balance schoolwork knowing Facebook or Twitter will provide them real-time updates with the click of a button.
“It distracts me, personally, from schoolwork,” said Shadecia Ingram, a Kinston High School senior. “Sometimes things can happen during the school day and you may not hear it from somebody because you’re in class.”
The “things” to which she was referring include gossip, general peer happenings and sometimes updates from other schools in the area.
Her classmate, Erin Steward, said she knew about the recent lockdown at South Lenoir High School before watching the news.
“It’s really easy to find out what’s going on,” the Kinston High junior said about social networks, highlighting Twitter. “You don’t have to wait to find things out in the news; you can just do it through social media.”
Steward said while there are many advantages to staying up-to-date via Facebook, Twitter and other sites, they can also be a major distraction from school.
She said it’s hard to regain concentration on other things once you’ve logged onto one of the sites through a computer or a smart phone application.
“I think the more boring the school day is, the less battery I have on my phone by the time I get home,” she admitted. “I think my phone battery tells it all. That shows how much it really takes over. Once you’re on it, it’s really hard to get back motivated again. Once you get on Twitter, there’s no hope from you.
“There’s no hope for you.”
A group of Arendell Parrott Academy students all recognized that social media can be addictive and distracting and agreed students need to find ways to just log off.
“I think it just requires self discipline,” said Parrott junior Ridge Mazingo. “There’s certain potential for (social networking) to be a distraction, but you can’t let it be, just like you can’t go hang out with your friends instead of doing homework. It just takes will power.”
The distraction
Kinston High English and journalism teacher Michael Moon said today’s teenagers were raised in a world of advancing technology, so they’re naturally attached to social media.
“They don’t really remember a time where they weren’t connected and couldn’t contact anyone at anytime, anywhere, pretty much, on the planet,” he said.
Ingram said if a school mate can’t let her know something face-to-face, they will likely post it immediately to Twitter. Even if she’s in class, she can check the site to see what’s going on. Using cell phones in her classes are not permitted during instructional time and can be a distraction from her work.
When Ingram is doing school work, especially off campus, she sets aside time for a break — which she uses to get on Twitter or Instagram, a photo-sharing site.
“I literally have to force myself to get off,” she said.
Classmate Steward says such an approach will not personally work for her. Once she logs in, there is pretty much no way back until social networking sites simmer down, which can be as late as midnight.
“I like doing homework at that time because there’s nothing that’s really distracting me,” she said, noting she knows when the Twitter scene is active and sometimes gets work done immediately afterschool before her peers start tweeting.
A Common Sense Media poll found that 22 percent of American teenagers log onto their favorite social media site at least 10 times a day and 75 percent of them have a cell phone.
Steward pulled out her iPhone in the school hallway last week to show The Free Press which site she was currently logged into, which was a video and voice sharing app called Vine.
“I’m on Vine now because Twitter got boring,” Steward said. “Once I’m done with Vine I’ll go to Instagram, and then by the time I get through with all those, Twitter will have something new.
“It’s like a never-ending circle.”
She said while cell phone use isn’t allowed during class time, some students who are “dedicated” to social media have developed methods around the classroom ban.
Although students may or may not use social media while on campus, the school administrators can’t control their participation at home.
Gil Respess,principal of North Lenoir High School, said the school has experienced situations that started online and off campus but were brought into the school doors.
“We have to deal with the decisions they make (with social media) outside of school,” he said. “That’s definitely a distraction when students have social media interaction off campus in the evening and bring it face-to-face to school the next day.”
Respess said interactions between students may be taken out of context over social media sites because they can’t see each others’ response in person.
“Even though they’re not doing it at school, they’re bringing it to school with them,” he said. “A lot of students come to school some days thinking about what was written about them on Facebook.”
Facebook, while distracting in some cases, is a tool North Lenoir and other schools use to keep students and parents updated.
But for most teens, there’s still a fascination of constant and immediate interaction through the networks.
“It’s another way to communicate,” said Bert Bright, Parrott Academy assistant headmaster. “It’s another form of interaction for the kids, and teenagers love to interact. They love to be in connection with each other, that’s why I think Facebook is so popular.”
In 2012, 448 million Facebook users regularly used the mobile application, with 23 percent of users checking their accounts more than five times daily, according to a Huffington Post statistics sheet.
Students said participating on the various sites allows them to always be in the know about what others’ are doing, which, to some, is becoming normalized.
“For teenagers,” Parrott Junior Victoria Oakley said, “everything we do revolves around social media. … I don’t necessarily think it’s important, I think that it’s just growing more common to know everyone’s business and keep up with them.”
At Parrott Academy in particular — which doesn’t allow any cell phone use during school hours, students from Kinston, Greenville and New Bern attend and use social media to stay connected while not on campus.
“You can keep up with people,” said Logan Beyer, a Parrott senior. “Instead of seeing (people from different counties) outside of school, we can tweet them or go on Facebook or Snapchat. I love Snapchat.”
Snapchat is a photo-messaging social network that allows users to post and set a time limit of up to 10 seconds for recipients to view them. The ghost symbol associated with Snapchat is an indication of its unique feature — the photo or video sent “deletes” when the time is up.
But with the technology of screen capturing, for example, the image may not end up where the sender intended.
Maximizing use
According to Huffington Post, in 2012, about 250 million photos are uploaded to Facebook every day; more than 5 million on Instagram and 175 million daily tweets, with 11 accounts being created per second.
Kinston High senior Jaquan White said there are risks associated with posting personal information or pictures.
“We can delete a tweet or delete a picture, but in a sense it’s always going to be there in some way,” he said. “There’s always going to be a way a job …. can find out about something you did through social media websites.”
Beyersaid teens have to be mindful of what they post for everyone to see, because, just that: Everyone can see.
“If you do send a snap chat, someone can take screen shots and it can be on Twitter in five minutes,” she said. “You might not necessarily want everyone seeing that picture of you. You have to think before you put anything on the Internet.”
She added, though, “There are a lot of benefits because you can communicate with people, keep in touch and you can be informed.”
White said many of his teachers at Kinston High have Twitter accounts used to update him on test dates and assignments.
“(Twitter) keeps you updated with more than just social news,” he said. “An advantage would be getting updates for class, but at the same time, students aren’t going to focus on getting a Twitter or Instagram account for educational purposes.”
Moon said instructors should embrace and accept social media as a part of everyday life, especially for teenagers.
“Social media is definitely a great benefit when you use it the right way in the classroom,” said Moon, who, like some other teachers, use social media tools specific for classroom instruction. “It’s second nature to the kids. It’s attached to them all the time, they love it, but sometimes it does get in the way of instructional time.”
Moon thinks using the power of social media correctly can benefit education, although teachers may be skeptical about integrating it directly into classrooms. North Carolina adopted the Common Core Curriculum standards this school year, which includes 21st Century learning based around technology use, which may call for an easier mixture of the two.
“I think if you’re going to use social media in the class, you have to accept that you’re going to surrender a little bit of control, and that can be scary for an educator,” Moon said. “As long as, I think, you have clear expectations and the kids understand there’s a sense of accountability, a lot of times they’ll surprise you, rise to the occasion and do what’s right.”
Jessika Morgancan be reached at 252-559-1078 or at jessika.morgan@kinston.com. Follow her on Twitter @JessikaMorgan