The Impact Of Social Software

825 Words2 Pages

Introduction Technology is changing how we think and act at younger ages. The term “technology” doesn’t only mean manufacturing processes and equipment necessary for production, it also defines a social space and could be a social problem which makes a real impact on social reality. Different types of social software affect a variety of aspects and have both positive and negative impacts. It's important to be aware of how a digitally-driven life is changing our education, sense of self, relationships, social interaction, consumerism, and ways of doing business around the world. Types of social software “Social software is the integration of communication and collaboration technologies that allow people to meet, interact and share ideas, artefacts and interests with each other.( Aelita,1)” Social software technologies include email, wikis, blogs, and knowledge sharing functions such as collaborative editing and document management. Some social tools also integrate real-time features, including instant messaging and web conferencing with voice and video. (See Table 1) Educational Impact The advantages of using the social network make it an excellent learning tool through dialogues and collaborations. Class Materials and online cooperation among students foster the creation of a class-room-like learning environments which has many potential benefits that they can acquire. The communication and interaction in learning is reinforced by adding the social networking to the school community; therefore, it results in the overall enhancement of the learning environment. However, students who surf irrelevant web-sites or play games at the cost of healthy productive activities increase academic impairment, poor integration in extracurricu... ... middle of paper ... ... we are tuning more to screens and less to people, not only are we getting less practice time and less face-to-face social time, but we’re also hard-wiring the brain to be less adaptable. If we inoculate ourselves to extreme images on screen, it also depletes the brain’s tendency to seek out real-life stimulation. At a very fundamental level, we expect less of our brains now. Because we have so much at our fingertips, we don’t ask our brains to remember the same things, which is what makes our brains robust. “We just don’t see a need to remember as much because it is going to be right at our fingertips. The neurological component of this is that the regions of the brain that we don’t use or that we don’t stimulate end up getting pruned off. And so if we aren’t asking the memorizing portions of our brains to work, those portions will gradually lose their function.”

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