by// Destiny Amig & Rhiannon Tackett
The Internet is whatever one makes it — connecting with people, communities, and countries around the world, giving access to do what one pleases on the Internet, positive or negative.
Ninety percent of teens who have seen social media bullying say they have ignored it. Eighty-four percent have seen others tell cyber bullies to stop, according to Do Something website.
Social media use isn’t all bad though; others find its ability to communicate instantaneously with selected users very convenient.
“While I was coaching football I used Twitter when we had a weightlifting event that got snowed out,” social studies teacher and football coach Charlie Fields said. “I had to get information out to 75 football players very very quickly. Unfortunately just like the Internet the lowest common denominator of humanity gets on [social media] and they use it to hide in their Mommy’s basement and insult people, that’s bad.”
Facebook has 1.23 billion monthly active users, according to statistas.com.
“I use social media very often,” sophomore Jason Meriwether said. “I use Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, and sometimes Facebook, but Snapchat is my favorite”
Nearly two-thirds of American adults use social networking sites, according to pewinternet.org. Teachers are no exception to this, many NAHS teachers have various social media accounts.
“I used to have three [social media] accounts when I first started out,” Earth Space teacher Geneva Fry said. “Now I have three Pinterests, one Facebook, one Linkedin, one Blogger, two Twitters, and one Snapchat account.”
There are more than five times as many Internet users now as there were in 2000, according to royal.pingdom.com. The Internet hasn’t just become larger, it’s also become more spread out, more global.
“I think [social media] used to be used to remain in contact with people but now I think it’s more used to bully and be mean to people,” math teacher Carmen Watkins said.
Access to the internet is very important to many students, but social networking sites can get in the way. Many times, students log into Facebook, Tumblr, or other social media sites to message a classmate of theirs to find out the homework, but then find themselves scrolling through the posts when they could be working on other homework, according to nycischool.org.
“Social media and technology affects [education] in a positive way because students can use it to learn, like the iPads,” Merriwether said. “We use them to learn, but at the same time it could be negative because it can take up a lot of our time, and we’ll think about that before we think about our learning.”
Any student who is thinking about making a social media account should take the time to evaluate all positive and negative aspects that come with having one.
“Think long and hard [before creating and/or using your accounts],” counselor Natalie McGarvey said. “Once you put it out there, it’s there forever. You don’t want a post you made when you were 15 to affect you when you’re 36 and building your career.”