A lot of students (and some teachers) have difficulties with overusing social media. They either spend too much time on it, become involved in arguments in the comments section or simply waste the day just looking at pictures on Instagram.
There is a variety of advice on how to use social media. However, it revolves around how people engage with what they see, for example how to spot fake news or deepfakes online. But what if there was a different way? What if there was a way of avoiding those situations entirely?
‘Home’ or ‘Following’
So, let’s start with the first step, a student opens their profile on X or Instagram or Facebook (If you are a teacher you are probably using Facebook) and they land on their home feed. This is a collection of all the actions on all the pages they are following. On most platforms this is called ‘home’ or ‘following’ so looking at this is fine, because the student is usually following these people (although sometimes pages a user isn’t following may appear here).
‘For You’ or ‘Recommended’
Then there are the ‘for you’ or ‘recommended’ buttons, which lead to activity that the algorithm of the app thinks the user might be interested in. While it can contain accounts the student is following it also contains other accounts. If posts are from accounts the student doesn’t follow, the student could try to ignore these posts or not navigate to those sections.
‘Explore’ or ‘Trending’
This is usually a series of hot topics leading to a collection of posts or threads about certain issues, such as political events, actions, or sometimes sports. Students should ask themselves if they went online to look at these topics. If they have an interest in a topic, they can type it into the ‘search’ bar instead.
‘News’ or ‘Comments’
No matter who a student is following, eventually they will come across someone who posts or reposts something about the news or some other issue they may not agree with. The student must ask themselves if they already had an opinion before seeing that comment or post or if they are suddenly being triggered by what they are reading? Also, if a celebrity is arguing with another celebrity, another comment or post is hardly going to change the outcome of a feud that is usually initiated for the sake of publicity.
If someone is legitimately interested in politics, the best thing to do is to contact a local branch of a cause or party and get involved directly with the official activities of the party. As for fans of celebrities, they have the option of joining an official fan club to support their idols.
Ads and Offers
There are a lot of scam offers on the internet. Sometimes scammers will even have a fake page to back up a fake post. However, the solution is very simple. Just check out the actual webpage (not Facebook page) of the offer. Type in the actual website into a browser and see if the offer is still there, then just click on the offer on the main webpage. This should bypass most scams. Another point to not getting scammed: don’t send any money, to anyone on social media, ever. Only send it to shops you know, but never send money in reply to posts with offers that seem too good to be true or people you do not know. Also, there are many shops locally that may have similar products.
Romance
As for online romance, there are lots of fake profiles out there. The long running show ‘Catfish’ (about fake dating profiles) on MTV is testament to that. So, basically, do what the show does. Search the pictures to see where they are from, check their friends and don’t send anything private until you know they are real. Facetime or Zoom chat with them. This will get rid of most catfish, although some advanced scams use deepfake video chats now. Don’t send strangers personal pictures or personal information. Only send them to people you know, in the real world and remember you have friends in school too.
Social media is a great tool for socializing and keeping in touch with friends, family, celebrities, causes and sports. If students just keep to the people they are actually following and ignore all the noise, this should help them put the ‘social’ back into their social media.
Note: This is an opinion/personal experience article.
Read more articles related to personal development on our Zealousness blog.
About the Author:
Dr. John Jennings is an educational theorist from Galway, he has a PhD in TESOL with research in Social-Media and Education. He has researched the perceptions that students have of Social-Media in Education and how it affects their interaction with the academic world. He is also an avid virtual runner.
Dr Jennings, John. Linktree (2024) https://linktr.ee/dr.johnjennings
