Social Network Impact

SOCIAL NETWORK IMPACT ON STUDENTS Online social network is a worldwide recognized virtual sites with limitless potentials in various fields for the upstarts of the current tech-savvy era. According to Wang, Chen and Liang ( as cited in Walter & Riviera, 2004), the definition of social network is the relationships that exist between network of people. The social network has been known to be easily accessed due to internet wide range connetivity and this has resulted to a huge number users that exploited the facillities that the social network provides. The social sites can be oriented to work-related contexts such as Linkedln.com, friendship and romance which are the goals of Friendster.com , shared interests of politics or music and the college

At present, one of the giant leaders among the social network main front are the Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Based on several studies and research of the social networks, it is determined that all these sites are affecting the lives of people without regarding their differences such as age, occupation or interest especially among the students. Among all the users of social network, the young adults and teenagers are most likely to be the fanatic over this trending virtual tools. The popularity of social network among the youth has awaken few concerns regarding its effects. The youth of a country is an invaluable assets that will become the pillar of the country in the future thus any kind of distraction must be isolated to ensure a positive environment for them. From this fact, it is crucial to determine whether the social network are more beneficial or more unprofitable for students. Therefore, the positive and negative impacts of social network on students in term of social bridging, academic performance and psychological well-being are studied to improvise the methods to use the social networks to its full benefits

In the academic field, social network is capable of being a new learning and teaching tool but it is not completely ensure to surpass the traditional face-to-face learning style effectiveness. Khan (n.d.) said that most students are heavy users of the social network that spend hours on virtual sites and only used it for entertainment purposes. The findings are worrying because the usage of social network has the opposite purposes to the educators. The students academic performance is considered a priority thus in order to ensure their study efficiencies is on its peak level, the impacts of social networks on academic field are studied to recommend several counter measures to deflect any unwanted effects during their study process. According to Wang, Chen and Liang (2011), 45 percent of the sample admitted that they spent 6 to 8 hours per day checking social media sites, while 23 percent spent more than 8 hours, 20 percent spent 2 to 4 hours and only 12 percent spent less than 2 hours on this task. Based on result, it is indicate that most college students use social media for entertainment and rarely for knowledge purposes. Social media facilitates the academic experience with the majority of the participants but need to control and manage their time. If not controlled properly, students will faced difficulties in focusing on their study. This awareness and determination might not