JOYCE MARIE G. DALISAY
Teacher I
Guiguinto National Vocational High School
Today, teenagers tend to use their electronic devices every time in anywhere. It seemed that their lives depend on it. Social media is a medium where they can communicate and share anything and everything that are happening in their lives daily that it somehow became a habit and addiction. Communication is the most common thing to do in social media. Social media became a virtual space where you can meet new people, talk with friends, and during the pandemic, it became highly utilized in online schooling. They define social networks are web-based services that allow users to build a public or private within a system.
The electronic and communication revolution effected a drastic change in lifestyle, culture, and tradition of people, particularly of the youth. Most common problems or issues entailed from this change that are affecting the youth – such as social isolation, mental health, suicide, peer pressure, introversion, social media addiction, difficulties in determining the facts from fake news, cyber bullying, change in behavior and values, and lastly, it also affects the performance of students in school.
In line with this, I have conducted research that deals about the perceived impact of social media usage on Senior High school students’ social interaction. It aims to determine all a students’ social interaction in use of social media. Some relationships are based on their similarities. This research may give in-depth meaning and understanding that social media can bring.
The operational framework was anchored on Media System Dependency Theory. A systematic approach to the study of the effects of mass media on audiences and of the interactions between media, audiences, and social systems. Dependency theory conceives dependency as a relationship in which the fulfillment of one party’s needs and goals is reliant on the resources of another party. A main focus of the theory is the relationship between media and audiences. In industrialized and information-based societies, individuals tend to develop a dependency on the media to satisfy a variety of their needs, which can range from a need for information on a political candidate’s policy positions (to help make a voting decision) to a need for relaxation and entertainment.
This study primarily aimed at determining the perceived impact of social media usage on 300 students’ social interaction.Specifically, this study sought answers to the following questions:
1. What is the profile of the respondents in terms of, gender, strand, frequency and duration. 2.What is the perceived impact of social media usage on the respondents’ social interaction in terms of face-to-face communications, personal relationship; and online communications.? 3. Is there a significant difference in the respondents’ perceived impact of social usage on students’ social interaction when grouped according to their profile?
This research used two sources of data which are the primary and secondary sources. The primary sources of data are the Grade 11 Senior High School. The secondary sources of data will come from books, articles, journals, thesis, and papers found in the internet.
The research focused on determining all students’ social interaction in use of social media using descriptive correlational research as the research design. Based on the foregoing findings of the study, the following conclusions were drawn:
- The students’ interrelationship are affected by social media usage specially when grouped according to their strand and the duration of the use of social media
- Personal Relationship accumulated the highest weighted mean followed by Face-to Face Communication and Online Communication having the least.
- There is significant difference between social media usage and student’s relationship on Duration and Strand, but no significant difference was found on Frequency and Gender.
Based on the significant findings of the study. The following recommendations are:
- Parents should be aware of their children’s use of social media and should implement rules that can regulate the use of it.
- Students should know how to limit the use social media, apart from the social benefits of this social networking site, using the sites more than necessary will pose possible dangers.
- Teachers need to implement activities for students to have more time to interact face to face and for them to take their minds of social media.
- The school administrators should conduct more school programs to nurture and further enhance the students social and communication skills.
The good news is this, cutting down on harmful social media use is possible, and you’re not alone. We’re all in this together — and a healthy relationship with our social selves and our virtual neighbors is more than possible.
