Our life outside of school can get wild but how does that life affect us when we bring it into the classroom? We are exposed to a variety of content on social media and in some cases it can reflect negatively.

For students it becomes hard to concentrate in school and social media is part of the problem. Shaylee Baer, junior at Taylorsville high school said, “I focus more on what’s on social media than my school work because it’s entertaining.”

Baer continues, “Social media distracts me during school. I don’t get my assignments done and I’d rather be on social media than learning.” As students we always have our phones on us. It’s how we communicate with our peers and stay up to date.

“With the Internet explosion, it’s almost impossible to avoid a distraction while working” said, Social Media Manager, Tereza Litsa from Linkedin.com.

Baer says, “When I’m online I see a lot of bullying and harassment and I usually report it, I think it can be used as a learning tool sometimes and other times it’s just used to bully.” The thing is not all students do report what they see online.

Social media has changed us even though we never notice the signs. Social media has stripped us of our communication skills and how we approach others. We have come to the point where we let social media take control of our lives.

Liz Tanner senior at Taylorsville high (real name withheld) said, “Twitter has taken over my life. It’s the first thing I’m on in the morning and the last thing at night. In all honesty I have no idea how I even came about it. I do more tweeting than homework and my report cards have shown it too.”

Why do we keep going back to social media and our bad ways even after we have seen how it is affecting our school work? Tanner continues with, “It is just always there, a bad habit that won’t leave. I know I need to focus on school but my phone is always on me and I just can’t help myself sometimes.”

Social media can be used is various ways such as a learning tool and it can also be used against others. We need to take into consideration how we approach it and the content we share online.