The Impact of Social Media Technologies on Students: The Double Edged Sword

 

When considering educational technologies today it's important not to ignore social media. McCrindle's 2023 Gen Z inforgraphic reveals that, when asked what they use daily to learn new skills, the Gen Z (born 1995-2009) respondents cited TikTok, Instagram and YouTube as their most reliable sources

Image Source: McCrindle's GenZ research

Similarly, in Project Tomorrow's Speak Up Report from 2023, What Do K-12 students say about their digital learning experiences today?, 72% of middle schoolers and 73% of of high schoolers cite online videos as their second most used digital learning tool. In anecdotal conversations with the students I see, who are Generation Alpha (born 2010-2020), social media retains a powerful pull on them as well. Clearly, there is a feeling that Generations Z and Alpha are chronically online and using social media to learn new things and understand the world. The question is--is this phenomenon net positive or negative? And for educators--how does this and should this affect our teaching?

The Double Edged Sword

Image Source: Shutterstock

It is perhaps not surprising that, according to Common Sense Media's 2024 report, A Double Edged Sword: How Diverse Communities of Young People Think about the Multifaceted Relationship between Social Media and Mental Health, participating in social media has both benefits and costs for young people's well being. This study is exceptionally valuable because it was co-created with young contributors. They cite the benefits of social media to be emotional support, connection, awareness, community building, and simply decompressing/having fun. The other side of the sword are the negatives including seeing stressful content, hurtful comments about body image, homophobia, and racism, the envy and fear of missing out that social media can inspire, and the difficulty in setting boundaries that can lead to lack of sleep. Preteens and teens say they find it hard to turn away: they use social media platforms almost constantly and some prefer these over in-person interactions.

Another key finding of this report is that social media's dark side can more seriously affect teens of color, those who are part of the LGBTQIA+ community, and those who have experienced depressive symptoms. It's a very mixed bag: many teens from these groups step away and take a 'cleanse' from platforms such as YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, but at the same time they can find in these platforms community and support. It appears that it is too simplistic to conclude that using social media is a net positive or a net negative experience.

Social Media and Being a Teen Today

Is being a teen today harder or easier than in the past, and what role does social media play in this? According to the Pew Research Center, parents and teens say yes at different rates and for different reasons. 69% of parents think it is harder to be a teen today, whereas 44% of students think is is harder. What I found surprising is the perceived reasons why the two groups think it is harder to be a teen. For parents, the number one reason they cite is Technology/Social Media (41%), followed after that by Technology in General (26%). In contrast, teens cite More Pressure/Expectations (31%) as their number one reason why it's harder to be a teen now, with social media following second (25%).

When I began to read this study I thought to myself, as a parent, "Yes, it is harder to be a young person now." But what surprised me were the reasons most cited by parents. My answer was that kids have more pressure surrounding expectations, especially when it relates to academic achievement and college acceptance. This (along with things like gun violence in schools), is what I first think of when I consider what makes it harder to be a teen today. So I was surprised by parents in this study citing social media and technology in general as their first culprits making their children's lives difficult.

I was not surprised to see teens citing more pressure and expectations as their main explanations of why things are harder now than when their parents were teens. What is really interesting is that their second most cited culprit is social media, yet when the question is flipped and they discuss what makes life easier, they say technology actually is a positive force:

Image Source: Pew Research Center

So both the Common Sense Media and Pew Research Center's studies highlight the double edged sword of the chronically online generation. But what does that mean for educators?

Implications for Educators

As an aspiring school librarian, I need to understand my patrons. Studies about Gens Alpha and Z work together with what I'm observing with my own children and with those young people I see at school to paint a more detailed picture. Both sources point to social media as being a tool that has mixed implications. Current and future social media apps are, and likely will continue to be, ubiquitous and pervasive in the lives of most students. To condemn social media without participating in it or understanding its place in teens' lives is to condemn educators, especially in a space like a library, to obsolescence. 

For example, keeping a presence on social media (while protecting the privacy of students' and others' images) could increase the outreach potential of a school library. Librarians could post BookTok-style content in which they do rapid fire reviews of new titles or new technologies. We can let parents and students know when we are open before and after school or what programs we are running. 

Furthermore, it's important that we seek to understand the mental health challenges facing our students. Media literacy, in which we directly address social media, is one way we can open up conversations about their potential dark side. This blog from the University of San Diego gives some other tips and insights into how educators can be savvy about this double edged sword. 

Post Script: a tiny sample

I found the Pew Research study about whether it is harder to be a young person today than in the past so interesting that I asked my spouse and kids and here is some of what they said:

spouse: "I think...it is better to be a young person now than in the past. The world is in many ways kinder and more accepting...if you are in a developing country, there is vastly more opportunity and for a transformationally better standard of living than their parents."

son, age 23: "It is easier to be a young person now.  In the past: drafted into wars, Great Depression...now: way better living conditions."

daughter, age 21: "It's hard to compare...I think it's hard to be a young person now. We are bombarded with so much information, stimuli, complicated ideas at a young age that can be overwhelming. With so much access to information, our generation is nihilistic about the world, climate change, the economy...some things have improved like health, equality, and open mindedness. Social dynamics are maybe less brutal...there are more opportunities but there is more competition, young people are more invested in politics but also less optimistic. Much easier to be lgbt. But pressure, social media, access to global information = overwhelming."

Sources

Administrator. (2024, June 4). Social Media in Education: 13 ideas for the classroom. University of San Diego - Professional & Continuing Education. https://pce.sandiego.edu/social-media-in-education/ 

Faverio, M. (2024, August 27). Why many parents and teens think it’s harder being a teen today. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/feature/why-many-parents-and-teens-think-its-harder-being-a-teen-today/ 

Fenwick, J., Davis, M. A., Jancer, M., Caramela, S., Cooper, D., Hume, T., Hendy, E., & Thompson, N. (2024, August 9). We’re all chronically online now. VICE. https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgybvk/were-all-chronically-online-now/ 

The Generations Defined Report. McCrindle. (2024, June 6). https://mccrindle.com.au/resource/report/the-generations-defined-report/ 

Movie & TV reviews for parents. (n.d.). A double-edged sword: How diverse communities of young people think about the multifaceted relationship between social media and mental health. Common Sense Media. https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/double-edged-sword-how-diverse-communities-of-young-people-think-about-social-media-and-mental-health 

Picture This: Using Pictionary and other Games to Help Students Actively Learn

Image Source: Shutterstock

I need to see and do things to remember them; another way of saying I am a visual and kinesthetic learner. You can talk at me all you want, and I may remember your point. However, if you show me a picture, map, or any sort of visual example, I'm right there with you. And if I participate in some kind of physical activity, this further carves a groove into my brain and activates a pretty solid memory. For example: in 5th grade we memorized the U.S. states and their capitals. The teacher lined us up in two groups, she called out a capital, we had to rush to the front and place a pin on the state whose capital it was, competing against the kid doing the same in the other line. I have never forgotten the capitals.

Thus I have a lot of empathy for the book club students who face me in the library classroom, some groups sleepy after lunch, some hungry right before, no one really wanting a lecture. Starting in September they come once or twice a week, gearing up for a Chicago Public School-wide Battle of the Books competition in the spring. They do most of their work outside of our meetings--each person must read at least 5 of 20 books. How, then, to help them remember characters, plot, setting, vocabulary words, and other details? How to go beyond memorizing and glean deeper lessons and meanings from the books?

Enter: active learning. I never knew it was called that, I only knew I wanted to step outside the box and use our 45 minutes per meeting in a fun, energizing way that would also help them get ready for competition. According to the article "What is Active Learning? Benefits & How to Apply It", active learning "involves students in doing things and thinking about the things they are doing." Kids go from listening to and observing the teacher to actively engaging with the material. Besides this being a more energizing way to teach, how does it benefit students? According to Nicole Zumpano's 2020 Prezi, students will both remember more and be able to analyze better if they participate actively in lessons:

Image Source: Zumpano Prezi 2020

This is pretty compelling. As the pyramid shows, students are likely to remember 70% of what they say and write and a whopping 90% of what they do! Moreover, by saying, writing, or doing students cross into those higher order ways of thinking--into analysis and critical thinking.

I practice active learning with my book club students primarily through games. One game I use is a version of Pictionary. In our version, we divide into teams of two, grouped around the white board at the front. One student either draws a card with concepts, plot points, setting, or characters from the books we are reading or they come up with their own ideas from the books. Each team takes turns sending a teammate up to draw the concept (which only he or she has seen) and the team which presses the buzzer first (they love buzzers), gets to guess what the person is drawing. It's fun, loud, and memorable! To make it even more tactile, I forgo the white board and have the kids create characters and items from the books out of play dough; something the middle school students especially like (enjoying the nostalgia).

Another game we play is "Guess Who?".  I take the actual board game, complete with 2 sets of flip-up  characters and cards, and customize it, creating character images to suit the books we are reading. The teams guess which character card the other team has drawn through a series of filtering questions. The flip board looks like this:

Image Source: author's

In the front slot is the character card the red team has drawn: in this case, Raymond from the book How to Stay Invisible by Maggie C. Rudd (2023).  The blue team will ask questions like, "Is the character human?" or "Does the character identify as non-binary?" and flip down those characters who do not fit the answers the red team gives until they've narrowed it down close enough to make a good guess. Here are some of my varsity (8th grade) students playing this game last winter:

Image Source: author's

In addition to Pictionary and Guess Who, we play online games such as Kahoot and Jeopardy, also great for review. While online games are popular, I really like to get the students moving and participating in hands-on, active games like the two above and also a version of "Pass the Chalk" as described in  Iowa State University's (ISU) 226 Active Learning Techniques.  When we play it, rather than a piece of chalk we use a stuffed animal or a beach ball. Students throw it to each other and have to answer a question about the books when they get the ball or toy. I call it Popcorn or Hot Potato, and, like Pictionary, it can be loud, crazy and, I hope, memorable.

I cannot wait to try some of the techniques suggested by ISU and the other sources we explored this week including role playing simulations, experiential learning, and beach ball bingo. Getting students up and out of their seats, playing games with a purpose, and just being loud and having fun--these are my goals as a coach this year, with the added benefit of learning thrown in for good measure.

Resources

226 active learning techniques | celt. (n.d.-a). https://www.celt.iastate.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/CELT226activelearningtechniques.pdf

4 types of learners in Education. Teaching Channel. (2023, August 10). https://blog.advancementcourses.com/articles/4-types-of-learners-in-education/

How can you incorporate active learning into your classroom? (n.d.-b). https://crlt.umich.edu/sites/default/files/resource_files/02_Active%20Learning%20Continuum.pdf

Rudd, M. (2024). How to stay invisible. Square Fish/Farrar Straus Giroux.

To learn, students need to do something. Cult of Pedagogy. (2022, March 17). https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/do-something/

What is active learning: Benefits and how to apply it. SC Training. (2024, June 26). https://training.safetyculture.com/blog/benefits-of-active-learning/

 

Just Visiting?

Midnight rolls along, and I'm scrolling through TikTok. I am, however, not posting on TikTok. While most of the scrolling gives me glimpses into adorable dogs, pop culture icons, and the angst of being American today (along with exhaustion the next morning),  The Contoured Librarian gives me tips on how to repair books, the_snarky_librarian suggests titles for fifth & sixth graders, and A bee in the Library convinces me that shelving by genre (instead of Dewey Decimal) has merit. Am I, then, according to David White, largely a "visitor" when it comes to my digital engagement?

Just visiting...?

White breaks down the continuum of how we engage online between those who visit sites, looking for information or entertainment, and those who reside in sites, contributing to a conversation or creating something of value that other visitors can see and use. Details of the break down look like this:

Image Source: EDU776 Module 3

While I am not an active poster on any social media sites, I hesitate to say I am strictly a visitor to the internet. I do "regularly explore new websites and set up digital profiles to access services," especially if they benefit my school and professional interests. I do bank and shop online. I do not post my opinions on news sites such as the Washington Post, however I do read what others have posted. 

My Digital Space

In addition to the visitor/resident continuum of digital engagement, people engage with the internet personally and professionally. Keeping all of this in mind, I paid attention where I was heading on my phone or computer over the weekend and during the week, and came up with my own map of my digital space:

Image Source: author's via Canvas

Social Media

I visit TikTok for entertainment but also to glean useful ideas for my library. That's why its icon hovers between the personal and professional. Lately, I've spent very little time on Instagram although I do have an account that I haven't posted on since the spring of 2024. So I was a resident, but have transitioned to  little use, and when I do, I am a visitor. Good Reads is an app I am starting to visit more often, and was quite an active poster a couple years ago. I hover it between personal and professional since my visits recently have been for book recommendations for my course work and my students. The remaining icons in the personal/resident quadrants are Gmail which I use largely for family and friends, and WhatsApp which I use mainly with family in India where it is popular.

Professional: School & Library

Since becoming a Masters of Library & Information Science (MLIS) graduate student at Dominican University, I visit the sites of The Chinese American Librarians' Association (CALA), The American Association for School Librarians (AASL), and the Association of Illinois School Library Educators (AISLE). AISLE's logo hovers between visitor and resident since I have started to participate in and contribute to that organization.

Sites I engage with professionally as more of a resident than a visitor are the usual suspects for educators and students: Canvas, Google Classroom, Outlook & Blogger. Kahoot is one that is seasonal, becoming a place I visit and post in more as the Battle of the Books competition season heats up.

Personal: Entertainment/Life Management

I check news throughout the day; we are a family pretty passionate about politics and current events. I am daily on Hoopla or Apple Audiobooks because of my commute and because I find listening to books relaxing. I use my local library, as well as the Chicago Public Library's, apps frequently.

Surprises?

I was surprised by how much I engage with the digital world, especially professionally. I hadn't thought about how Google Classroom, Kahoot, and Canvas count. I was not surprised by my lack of posting my own content. I never joined Facebook and took a break from Instagram for personal reasons. It's fair to say I am pretty private with a little bit of reluctance to put myself out there, especially given that posts are forever. However, I can see the benefit of a Professional Learning Network and I understand how sharing ideas on some venue can foster community. I am not yet sure what that will look like for me.

Trends in Educational Technology: Promoting Diversity through TeachingBooks.net

 

Image Source: TeachingBooks.net website 

Remember the pandemic? One of the many stressors of that time was the sudden switch to remote teaching and learning. According to the International Society for Technology in Education's (ISTE) 2023 blog post, "Trends in Educational Technology," the switch to remote learning exposed the inequalities between richer schools with access to the latest teaching tools and the training to implement them, and poorer schools where both the teacher's technology, along with the students' home situations, often led to a rocky switch to distance learning. The 2020 murder of George Floyd further exposed the need for educators to acknowledge and combat inequalities and racism in America. For school librarians, that has meant a commitment to making the library's collection more welcoming to all and more willing to raise tough topics, as argued by Bogan in "Developing a Library that's Really for Everyone (202l)". One tool that supports ISTE's trend toward developing diverse, equitable, and inclusive educational technologies is TeachingBooks.net.

How does a rather straight-forward database like TeachingBooks.net promote a more diverse library? I consider this question, and provide more guidance on why and how to use this tool, in the following video:

Teachingbooks.net supports ISTE's hot topic #8: Equity and Inclusion in Educational Technology. Teachers and students can use this site to search for books across a range of fields such as: race, ethnicity and country of origin of authors and/or characters; immigration status, neuro-diversity, parental incarceration, LGBTQIA+ families, and other areas of interest. Resources can also be filtered by reading level, genre, language, and award winners like the Coretta Scott King award:

Image Source: TeachingBooks.net

Moreover, Teachingbooks.net has analytical tools that allow school librarians to link their collections to the website which will evaluate them to see whether they are up to date and diverse. Any gaps that might exist are addressed through lists of suggestions. Since I work in a school library whose books came overwhelmingly through second hand donations, our collection is both too old and too uniform to be appealing to our student body. We are working hard to change this, and the analytical tools in Teachingbooks.net could help.

However, this brings up the key weakness of this technology: it is costly. There are temporary free memberships and more reasonable personal memberships. These do not give access to the full potential of TeachingBooks.net. Most disappointingly, the feature that evaluates a library's collection requires a School or District membership which are over $600. We are advocating with our school and foundation boards to get this cost included in the library's annual budget.

On balance, TeachingBooks.net is a good tool for teacher librarians and their students to get access to a comprehensive group of resources. Students can watch book previews and author interviews. They can play games associated with certain books and get homework help. Teachers and librarians can access lesson plans about special topics or particular books. And all can filter their searches to find the latest or classic books that reflect the wonderful multiplicity of the world's people. 

AASL announces 2024 Best Digital Tools for Teaching & Learning. ALA. (2024, August 19). https://www.ala.org/news/2024/05/aasl-announces-2024-best-digital-tools-teaching-learning 

Bennett, M. (2023, May 26). Culturally diverse collections. American Libraries Magazine. https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2023/06/01/culturally-diverse-collections/ 

Bogan, K. (2022, August 28). Developing a library that’s really for everyone. Don’t Shush Me! https://dontyoushushme.com/2021/03/02/__trashed/ 

Edtech’s hottest topics for 2023. ISTE. (n.d.). https://iste.org/blog/edtechs-hottest-topics-for-2023 

An engaging collection of resources that brings books to life. TeachingBooks. (n.d.). https://www.teachingbooks.net/ 

Mouhanna, A. (2022, January 21). Teachingbooks named a 2021 common sense selection for learning. OverDrive. https://company.overdrive.com/2022/01/21/teachingbooks-named-a-2021-common-sense-selection-for-learning/ 

Teachingbooks.net review for teachers. Common Sense Education. (n.d.). https://www.commonsense.org/education/reviews/teachingbooksnet 

YouTube. (n.d.). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyKHFNyUxuM 

Diving In: Where I Fall in the SAMR Model of Tech Integration

Image source: shutterstock.com

When I started my MLIS 2 years ago, I was not worried about keeping up with the work load or whether I had chosen the right field. I was worried about technology. I have a city planning degree already, having submitted my dissertation & graduated in 2001. I had already left Berkeley and moved to Los Angles to complete my field work and write, while juggling my first job in higher education and a new baby. To submit I had to fly up to the Bay Area, physically visit my professors at their homes to get their signatures (it was a campus holiday), and camp out at the copy center to shepherd through multiple copies of the final dissertation that needed to go to the Graduate Student office by 5pm. Jump forward 21 years to when I began the library science degree and you can imagine...a lot has changed. 

So when looking at the SAMR (Substitution/Augmentation/Modification/Redefinition) model my initial thought was:  "I must be at the most basic level: substitution." I am not a teacher librarian yet although that is my dream. I am a volunteer at a school library and co-coach the 4th/5th/6th graders' (junior varsity) book  club and head coach the 7th/8th graders' (varsity) team. We meet weekly and over the past 2 years I am pleased to realize that not only have I become more comfortable with technology in my own graduate studies, I am quicker to incorporate it into my coaching. 

Swimming Laps

When it comes to evaluating where I fall on the SAMR spectrum as a coach, I resonate with the swimming pool metaphor presented by Jaclyn B. Stevens in "Erasing the Line." In that video, she argues that the 4 steps of the SAMR model originally were presented like different depths of a swimming pool with Substitution and Augmentation at the more shallow end, then that bobbing rope that separates shallow from deep, then Modification and Redefinition at the deep end. The goal, she says has been to leave behind the shallows and, like Lady Gaga in A Star is Born, dive into the deep end.

Video from YouTube 

However, Stevens says we need to get rid of that bobbing pool safety rope and realize educators swim across all levels of the technology pool, depending on the particular lesson of the day. Yes, it is exhilarating and beneficial to fundamentally transform how we teach, reaching the deepest end of the pool and the Redefinition end of the model. But as is explained in "A Practical Guide for K-12 Classroom Technology Integration with SAMR",

"...don’t fall into that ever-present trap of thinking that Redefinition is the goal or the best approach in all cases. Remember: SAMR is a spectrum. Substitution can be your best option for a particular setting."

For example, when I started coaching we required students to give short book talks on the texts they read (the goal of Battle of the Books is for teams to read, over the course of the year, a total of 20 books. Then they compete with other teams from other schools to see who knows the most about the books. While some keen students read all or almost all the books, most students read about 5 and share their knowledge with their teammates). They presented their book talks at team meetings and submitted them using Google Docs--an example of Substitution (Erickson, 2019). This year, the students will post their book talks onto Google Classroom, possibly using Google Slides, an example of the Modification step of the SAMR. After reading Erickson's article, I am intrigued by the possibility of having team mates leap to the Redefinition stage with their book talks and:  

 ..."use Animoto to create a 30–60 second book trailer. Working with the library media specialist in the school, the students turn the URL of their book trailer into a QR code, and then put their QR code into the book jacket for any student to scan and access the trailer."

I think using Animoto, or a similar app, could be fun and might get the students more excited about submitting their book talks. This way, team members who might have missed their classmates' presentations or failed to see them in Google Classroom (gasp!) could link to them instantly when they check out the book. Overall, this Redefinition of the book talk could be more engaging, and in the end more memorable, than the original approach of presenting in meetings.

Throwing Squishmallows

On the other end of tech spectrum, when our Varsity team was getting ready for City finals, I brought in a Squishmallow mushroom whom we tossed around, asking each other questions about the books they had read (author, name, plot points, etc) kind of like the game "popcorn" but with questions instead of clapping. This completely no-tech activity was a brain break that was fun, got the students out of their chairs, and helped them recall key facts. 

Image: author's
Our Mushroom Mascot on the way to City Finals

Where do I fall on the SAMR spectrum then? I'm swimming laps back and forth, sampling all depth levels, and so far, keeping my head above the water.

Erasing the line: Samr Model. jaclyn b. stevens. (n.d.). http://www.jaclynbstevens.com/erasing-the-line--samr-model.html 

Erickson, L. (n.d.). See how SAMR works in real classrooms. https://blog.mimio.com/see-how-samr-works-in-real-classroomsand-in-your-lessons 

Powerschool.com. (n.d.). SAMR Model: A Practical Guide for K-12 Technology Integration. https://www.powerschool.com/resources/blog/samr-model-a-practical-guide-for-k-12-classroom-technology-integration/ 

Terada, Y. (2020, May 4). A powerful model for understanding good tech integration. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/powerful-model-understanding-good-tech-integration/