What is the perception of the students in a small town about Social Networking Sites (SNS) – A Study9/25/2015 A talk with parents, teachers in schools and colleges would reveal that to a large extent, students, whether in schools or in colleges are ‘hooked’ on to social networking sites (SNS). Once when one of the authors on a visit to the college where he had graduated from, met one of the professors, he heard the professor lamenting that the current ‘bunch’ of students are ‘addicted’ to their ‘smart’ phones, thumbing the phone incessantly day and night in the hostels and during the class room breaks; texting and visiting social networking sites. The professor went on to say that some of the students are so obsessed with this ‘habit’ that they even forego taking proper food at the appropriate times. As a fad, the authors find that this is not limited to the school and college students. Even in industrial organizations this habit is widespread. In the factory where one of the authors is employed, the younger recruits spend substantial portion of their ‘shift’ time playing with their smart phones. During the lunch break and tea-breaks the traffic generated from these instruments is so heavy that the local communication channels get choked. The feedback from one the network service providers is that, their servers are unable to handle the traffic during these times, leading to many of the subscribers getting the ‘Network Busy’ signal or ‘Call-dropped’ feedback. The other author who works in a women’s college finds that girls are captivated by the social networking sites (SNS) spending time on their mobile phones. Many articles have been reported in the papers and magazines about the bane of the cell phones and the SNSs on students. The authors have also seen some snippets of feedback from students themselves appearing now and then in newspapers and magazines about the usage of ‘smart phones’. While formal research studies have been carried out on the impact of SNS on the students, on an informal basis, the authors have made a small study of the perception of the students on the impact that SNS have on them. While lot a lot of discussions and interviews have been carried out covering the students of metros, the authors have attempted to study the impact of social networking sites (SNS) in a small town.
A simple questionnaire that was devised by the authors was distributed to 1000 college students in and around Vellore town. 814 responses have been received and studied. The response represents a mix of 30% (246) male students and 70% (568) females. 11% of the sample is from professional colleges (engineering) and the rest are from arts and science colleges. 85% of the sample was less than 21 years of age and about 38% are doing their first year of their studies in college. The sample also shows that 77% are more than 19 years old. When asked about the devices that they own, 59% of the students admitted to owning a laptop. All students are seen as owning mobile phones. 41% (333) of the students are having smart phones, of which 40% are boys and the rest are girls. The authors listed out 5 probable reasons for which students visit SNSs and asked them about their feelings on these reasons. (1) For keeping in touch with their friends, (2) To while away their time, (3) To solve social problems, (4) To belong to a group, and (5) To improve their general knowledge. For the authors it was surprising to note from the feedback that 20% (165) of the students claiming that they do not visit SNS. Of this sample who claim not to be visiting SNS, 14% (34) of the sample are boys and 23% of the sample (131) are girls. The students were asked to rank the above reasons in the order of their preference. About 15% of the students have top-ranked the reason – “to keep in touch with their friends”. 12% have ranked the reason – “to while away their time” as their top rank. 20% of the students have ranked the reason – “to solve social problems” as ‘numero-uno’. 13% of the students have selected the reason – “to belong to a group” as the first ranked and 14% have marked the reason – “to improve general knowledge” as the first rank. While only 8.5% (21) of the male students have ranked the reason – “to while away the time” as number one 13% (74) of the female students have ranked this reason as number one. For the reason – “to solve social problems it is 18% (45) and 21% (119) respectively. For the other three reasons the percentage of the selection as number one is evenly matched between the boys and girls. But how much time in a day do these boys and girls spend time on SNSs? According to their response, roughly 40% of the students (both gender) spend less than 2 hours in a normal working day and 20% spend up to 4 hours a day visiting the SNS. However the hours spent by the students on holidays and Sundays jumps up sharply. There is a sharp 50% jump in the number of students who spend between 4 to 8 hours visiting the SNS between working days and Sundays / holidays. While the average time spent in a week by the students (of both gender) remain almost a constant in their early part of their (first and second year of) graduate studies, in the higher classes (final year) it shows a jump, shooting up by nearly 20%. And the next question that comes would be as to where do these students spend most of their time? From them – the answer is Whatsapp. A good number of the students are spending their time messaging through ‘Whatsapp’. (The percentage of girls outnumber the boys by 5 times using Whatsapp!). Shytlefm and Facebook too appear popular with the students. Facebook and Youtube are more used by girls and less by the boys. The professional networking site ‘linkedin’ appears to be hit with the students as one popular SNS meriting their visit. The students were asked to respond to a specific question as to how the habit of visiting SNS affects their academic performance. Overall 39% of the students (33% of the boys and 42% of the girls) voted that this has no effect on their studies. Only 11.5% (15% of the boys and 10% of the girls) admitted that their studies have been affected by the SNS. This is indirectly brought out by the feedback got that 1/3rd of the students spend their class hours and / or their study time on SNS. But there is a marked difference between the boys and girls. About 44% of the boys spend a part their study time on SNS where as it is only 29% for the girls, though both (50% of the boys and 36% of the girls in the overall) are quite aware and confirm that visiting SNSs during study time can affect their academic performance. The percentage of boys on SNS during study hours is slightly over 50% compared to the percentage of girls. However, overwhelmingly (about 70%) both male and female students, (without any difference) opine that SNSs and the web helps them in preparing their class work and they rely on the web for preparing their class-assignments. The authors (their opinion) in their questionnaire spelt out 5 negative fall-outs of SNSs and asked the students’ opinion as to their agreement with the opinion of the authors. The students were posed with the following statements: Statement 1: Constant time spent on the net visiting SNS creates a bad behavior, Statement 2: It makes an addict out of the student, Statement 3: Writing skills, Language and Grammar skills come down, Statement 4: Students start losing human contact (face-to-face) and Statement 5: Lot of personal time gets wasted, The students were asked to rate the statements on a 5 point scale ranging from ‘Strongly Agree’ to ‘Strongly Disagree’. It was seen that 44% of the respondents agree or strongly agree with Statement 1. It is 60%, 55%, 62%, and 51% for Statements 2,3,4 and 5 respectively. The students were also asked for their agreement with the following statements, which have been considered as positive effects of SNS by the authors: Statement 6: Visiting SNS helps in improving computer skills (Presentations / Graphics), Statement 7: Playing online games improves one’s mental skills, Statement 8: SNSs help in networking and building up professional contacts, Statement 9: SNS is helpful in tracking down old friends, and Statement 10: SNSs help in sharing and disseminating one’s knowledge. 74% of the respondents Agree / Strongly agree with Statement 6. It is 49%, 75%, 77% and 73% respectively for Statements 7,8,9 and 10 respectively. For statements 8 and 9 the agreement of the boys is slightly higher (by 1%) when compared to the girls while for statements 6, 7 and 10 the girls outnumber the boys by around 3%. Except Statement 7, nearly three-fourths of the students endorse the rest of the positive statements. The two top positive effects of SNSs, for the students appear to be its ability to locate their old friends and to build up professional contacts. Dating is a word commonly associated with city college students. And to know how this is seen by the students in a small town (with many of them coming from a rural background) a question was inserted asking the students as to whether SNSs are used by them for dating. Though a comparative study has not been done on this paper, the fact that just about 35% of the students agree that SNS is good for dating shows that this concept is not so prevalent in the smaller towns. A cursory analysis reveals that this agreement is more from the set of students studying in professional colleges and not from the arts and science streams. It can be seen that students are aware that SNS can have a bad influence on their behavior, especially that they can become addicted to the SNS and in the process lose the touch of human contact. Possibly because of this awareness most of the town-based students (about 62%) are spending less than 4 hours a week on SNS with about 15% spending up to 8 hours per week during the working weeks though during the holiday season it goes up to 12 hrs. It is noticed by the authors that there is a 50% jump in the time spent on SNS during holidays. Conclusion: • More Girls than boys have cell phones and smart phones. • More Girls than Boys spend (more) time on their devices. • Quite a lot of the leisure hours of the students (up to one-third of day) on holidays and Sundays are spent on SNSs. • However, both boys and girls are of the opinion that SNSs do not affect their studies, though quite a goodly percentage of boys do spend time on SNS when they should have devoted their time for their studies. Students are also aware that SNS can become addictive and can lead to them losing human contact. • On the plus side SNS are being used by the students to locate their old class / school mates and keep in touch with them and for networking and developing professional contacts. Overall the authors conclude that SNS can take up a lot of time of the present day students, but students are alive to the problem that SNSs can pose to them and are accordingly regulating the time that they spend on SNS. Of course the times spent spikes up during the holiday seasons, but definitely in the perception of the students, they can leverage the power of the SNS for networking and developing professional contacts and renewing old ones. In conclusion, this article does not say that parents and teachers should encourage the students to spend more time on the Internet / SNS. Rather, Teachers and Parents should reinforce the Students through patient telling, the ills of sustained times spent on SNS. As the survey study shows, students are mature enough to be aware of the pitfalls of getting hooked to the SNS and its consequences. A subtle and gentle support should suffice. In the understanding of the authors, a guidance given properly and in a timely manner would help our students to leverage the benefit of technology to further augment their studies and can lead to a good and overall development of their personality. The final word of caution by the authors is that teachers and parents should actively and constantly look-out for any signs of the students getting addicted to the SNS so that they can take corrective action on time, and guard the students from becoming the victims of the ‘net’.
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AuthorDr. Beulah Suresh, Head of the Department of Management Science, Auxilium College, jointly with Cyril Fernandez, General Manager, BHEL, Ranipet. ArchivesCategories |