What is it?
To start us thinking about the issues that are coming up in the next reading, "Are online 'friends' a threat to development?" Warwick and Rogers invite us to briefly discuss the following question.
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Question
- Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of young people using social media. Then decide whether the former outweigh the latter.
You have 12:00 minutes to plan and write a response to thee question. I suggest you divide your time roughly as:
- planning = 3:00 minutes (It's usually a good idea to plan before you start to write.)
- writing = 7:00 minutes, and
- editing = 2:00 minutes.
A helpful strategy
As usual, imagine you are writing for someone who has not read the question you are answering. Your job is to clearly communicate your response to that reader, so it might help to paraphrase the question at the start of your response to it. Paraphrasing it in your own words also checks your understanding of the question and might help you get ideas on it.
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Reference
- Warwick, L. & Rogers, L. (2018). Skillful 4: Reading & Writing, Student's Book Pack (2nd. ed.). London: Macmillan Education
Although most of the young people I know don't use social media a lot, meaning for hours a day, a couple do use it a lot, which worries there parents. I don't think anyone worries about moderate use of social media, although I do regularly hear people say that it leads to bad behaviour, like crime or violence or not working hard at school because of peer pressure. However, I'm not sure to what extent I agree with that. One of my friend's sons uses social media a lot. During his free time, he always seems to have a phone in his hand, or his tablet, or to be seated in front of a computer playing games or chatting and sharing content on social media. And when he plays games, they are usually online games where he is playing with friends (I can't give specific examples because I don't know what games he plays – I never play any games on my devices.). Nonetheless, even though he is now only 14 and has been using social media for a few years, before he had reached the minimum age that FB and other social media networks require (he lied about his age), I can't see any problem, except the actual amount of time he spends on the networks, but even there, he does put the devices away when it would be inappropriate to use them, such as when we are having a meal and talking. As far as I can tell, he is a happy, healthy, well-adjusted adolescent with no obvious problems stemming from his extensive use of social media, on which he has far more "friends" than I do, but like my own, his friends seem to be mainly friends he also knows at school or elsewhere in the real world.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with your comments there. Another benefit of the social media is that young people can really get accustomed to the use of technology which seems to be increasing important in the modern world. Social media allows the young users to know how the technology works in real life.
DeleteIt appears to me that the advantages of youngsters using social media app far more outweigh than the disadvantages. This is because the social media is crucial for keep ing young people and their peers connected any time and any where in the world regardless of their geographical locations. Instead of a physical meeting, they are able to have a virtual meeting or contact which is quite convenient and more importantly safe, considering the concern over the spread of highly contagious Covid-19 these days.
ReplyDeleteI like your use of Covid as an example of how important social media can be for maintaining connections. In fact, my own example supports that: my friend's son who I wrote about in my own comment has relied far more on social media than usual to stay in touch with his friends while their school has been closed and their normal social lives and face-to-face meeting's severely restricted.
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