Mindful Social Media at SVP?

Mindful Social Media?

Grade 8 Student Survey

Inquiry question: How can social media wreck and enrich our lives?

As part of the humanities course over the past year, grade 8 students (73) surveyed the use of social media (including all interconnected on-screen technologies); to help us understand the practice and behaviour of students using social media - before reflecting on how social media can enrich or wreck lives. After our initial research we reached an understanding that the level of social media activity, could be defined as an ‘addiction’. With most students readily admitting to feeling ‘addicted’ and fearful of ever being unable to use social media for more than a few hours (or even minutes) at a time.

What follows are some samples and interpretations of the research data based on group discussions and analysis. Table 1. shows the average hours per day students use social media.

How many hours per day do you use social media?

Table 1.

Grade 8 Class	Mean ave. hrs per student per day
ARC	4.7
ATL	5.2
PAC	6
Mean	5.3

The bar chart 1 confirms that the mean average for the whole of grade 8 is 5.3 hours each per day. That is 5 hours and 18 minutes to be exact.

What is the most popular day of the week?

The pie chart 1 shows that the weekends provide longer hours for social media access.  

From this we could conclude that without the intervention of school, where students are restricted to some extent, the mean ave. per day would be far higher and therefore this ‘addiction’ could be much worse.

What time of the day do you use social media?

This is one of the most concerning statistics as far as education is concerned. There is a lot of evidence to suggest screen time before sleep has a negative impact on sleep quality and quantity. Sleep deprivation or poor quality sleep has a very negative impact on the level of students’ academic achievement - particularly for young people, due to the growth of the brain.

The majority of students claim that they manage to achieve 6-8 hours sleep, which means that almost a third of their waking hours are spent using social media.

What could students be doing during these long hours? And how much of it is positive or negative?

Grade 8 Students as a whole say that 55% of the social media interaction is positive and 45% is negative.

Positive or negative social media interaction?	Positive	Negative
ARC	53%	47%
ATL	57%	43%
PAC	54%	46%
Overall	55%	45%

If 45% of the social media interaction is negative ; this equates to the average daily hours of 2.6 hours a day, per student (on average).

That is equivalent to 949 hours, or 39.5 days, or almost 6 weeks - per year. Assuming that this habit remains fairly constant (as evidence suggests) over the period of the four middle school years (grades 7-10); that is 158 days/22.5 weeks or 5 full months lost to ‘negative’ interactions.

It appears that grade 8 students spend the most time on social media. According to surveys I did last year, grade 11 students report a slight decrease in daily average social media usage to a mean average of approximately 4.2.

What has biggest influence on my behaviour and beliefs?

When asked to rank what had the biggest influence on their behaviour and beliefs, social media was the 3rd highest ranked answer - out of a possible 7. Students with a high average of daily usage, stated that the main reason for this was ‘boredom’ (or lack of real-world activities and contact with family and friends).

What has biggest influence on my behaviour and beliefs	Ranked 1st	Ranked 2nd
Peers	23	12
Parents & family	23	16
Social media	13	9
Religion	12	20

So looking at 1st and 2nd ranked answers as a whole, it could be inferred that students do not believe they are influenced by social media as much as peers, family and religion. But as the survey figures reveal ; students spend more time exposed to social media than any other influence listed. And while they say they are influenced mostly by their peers - i.e. having a strong ‘herd-like’ nature. In the event of ‘boredom’ and/or the absence of alternatives; social media is the default activity. If we accept they are influenced by their peers and those peers are investing the majority of their time in social media, then it is de-facto that social media probably has a much higher level of influence than students are ready to see.

What are the most popular activities?

I grouped these in two separate parts negative/positive to learn more about the student perspective.

Legal issues includes illegal peer-to-peer file sharing or ‘downloading’ . Stalking is a term students use to describe time they spend investigating individuals, often ‘celebrities’ of varying degrees of notoriety. Technically speaking stalking involves unwanted or uninvited observation - so it is debatable. Vulgarities include videos containing adult content such as violence and profanities.

It’s hard to define all of what ‘personal research’ includes (because it’s personal) but students’ examples included; maps/ places, events, organizations, writers, ideas, photographs, trends...

What are the most popular social media sites?

As you can see Facebook is not popular with our students, who see it as a domain for parents and older people and so they prefer to interact elsewhere online. The dominant activities are Games and the gaming platform Steam, as well as Youtube and Google.

Value and limitations

The value of this data is that when taken as a whole, we can observe trends and group behaviours. We can also reflect as individuals when we compare and contrast with others. This analysis process is a great way to build understanding and improve our knowledge, which I hope will lead to better informed judgements and wiser choices.

This has also become a key part of  our annual learning journey in grade 8 humanities, as data shows this to be the time in a student's life when they spend the most time consuming social media. We rely on students to self report and then evaluate the data - we focus on improving consistency for those students whose data shows inaccuracies or surprises, and on the whole this leads to an acceptable level of accuracy. The data may be affected by peer pressure, comprehension and cultural perspectives. As well as perhaps one or two doubts about where this data may end up (!), so we must allow for a certain level of error and give a correction of approximately 10-20%.

I would like to thank and give praise to the students who prioritised the collective education over personal privacy and gave their trust to peers in the spirit of learning.

Conclusion

Overall I believe that with adult guidance, students can become more responsible and mindful about their social media consumption and behaviour, by being better informed about the pro’s and con’s; analysing their own habits and then investigating and researching the potential benefits and risks such habits pose to everyone.

However, this guidance process needs role modelling and some level of supervision and a willingness to intervene if necessary. In terms of parent responsibility; I think we can try to provide a good role model for our children by reducing our own screen time at home. Engaging in analysis and discussion about the impacts of social media. And perhaps discouraging the use of gadgets during family dinners and anytime between the hours of 21:00 - 06:00.

If you would like to discuss any of the above in more detail please feel free to contact me during school hours only: jason@svp.sch.id  (I’m trying to cut down on my screen time at home too!).

Written by Jason Young

Humanities & Global Perspectives Teacher Coordinator