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assignmnet focuses on the positive and negative impact of Instant Messaging on education & schoolwork.

Home, - Impact of Instant Messaging on education of college students

Introduction

Instant messaging (IM) refers to the sending of short typed messages from one computer to the other, over internet. It is evident that the college students use the information technologies in an advanced and different way as compared to the older generation. These kind of IM are extensively used by the students of university and college campuses. It is also observed that the facility of instant messaging and multitasking has an adverse effect on the educational outcomes of the students. Based on the survey report conducted on various college students, it is found that that instant messaging facility has both positive and negative impact on their schoolwork. Multitasking can create an obstruction in the learning process as there is information overload on the students. Parents and teachers also complaints of students irregularity in schoolwork due to their constant involvement in instant messaging and other multitasking. The highest used social networking sites by the college students includes Facebook, WhatsApp and IM. Statistics of Higher Education Research Institute suggests that around 94 percent of the first year college students are addicted towards social networking sites. According to Junco et al (Junco & Cotton, 2011), the positive or negative impact of instant messaging (IM) on the education of students. However, the findings provide very little support towards the students who claim that this form of multitasking does not affect their achievement in lecture content. Teachers and professor in most of the high schools have already banned doing text messaging within the classroom (Chen, & Yan, 2016). 

Body

In some of the studies, there is positive correlation between the instant messaging and literacy, while others have discovered that there exist negative impact on literacy. On the other hand, some studies have revealed conflicting findings and results of the instant messaging. The different studies revealed that the frequency of texting along with the knowledge of texting can in a way help the reading, writing, and grammar of literature (Lepp, Barkley, & Karpinski, 2015). In contrary, there are certain studies which revealed that students addicted to IM often suffers from higher rate of day time sleepiness, shorter sleep time, and poorer academic performance. The messaging done prior to the light out was found to be less associated to day time sleepiness and academic performance. Instant messaging is found to have deteriorate the sleep quality of those students who are mostly addicted to messaging during the night time. There is major correlation between the night time messaging of the students and their sleepiness in the day time. The data collected from female students revealed that they are more involved in instant messaging, as well as day time sleepiness, but bring better academic results as compared to males. It is also observed that students frequently responding to arrival tone of instant messages makes their attention diverted from the current classroom studies. The outcome varies according to the difference in population and design of the specific educational system. The research of cognitive psychology suggests that the multi-tasking is very often associated with the performance cost. Students often believe that they can pay required attention to the classroom lecture while sending and receiving messages in the electronic multimedia tasking. However, the survey results demonstrated the completely different outcome. The students involved in the texting messages during lecture session are found to have poorer performance in the test consisting of the lecture chapter (Seo, Park, Kim & Park, 2016). 

In the present time, students are so supportive towards use of mobile devices and instant messaging that they also prefer to use this mobile device in education learning. The previous studies has well documented the use of instant messaging by students only for the purpose of social purposes. However, there are some evidence who suggests that some students are also highly interested to use this technology for the academic purpose (Lepp, Barkley, & Karpinski, 2015). Through technology there is freedom to communicate with the tutors and ask any question at any time. However, it also requires equal interest from the tutor’s side to send and receive messages through instant messages. IM is usually ubiquitous to receive educational messages because majority of the students own it and remain online most of the time. It also make them to immediately check the messages from the tutor, eventually making them more focused and motivated. Most of the students have claimed IM as the dominant mode of e-communication within student as teachers as compared to the email. It is also helpful for sending time sensitive and brief administrative messages to the students (So, 2016). For example, the upcoming exam date or the due date for the library books can be sent through IM during actual and virtual office hours. Even, teachers can use this technology for sending a group message for any emergencies, like class cancellation. Since, it has the facility of ubiquity and immediacy the IM is well suited for the students in providing time management assistance. It is a very good means of reminding the student some academic issues like timetable change or assignment due dates (Ainin, Naqshbandi, Moghavvemi, & Jaafar, 2015). These type of text messaging reminders are a great source of benefit for the first year students to get adjusted in the academic life. It is helpful in giving immediate responses to the students concerns and doubts through a two-way conversation between teachers and students.  

Conclusion

The teachers need not only consider the reason behind the frequent applications of these instant messaging application by the students, but also try to incorporate it into educational experience. It is evident that when students are encouraged and given opportunity, they use IM frequently with educational instructor than the peers. The report describes the usefulness of IM addressed by the students and how they differentiate it from the basic mobile phones. The instant messaging can be considered as more useful among friends for discussing group activities, academic issues, and sharing files as compared to the student-instructor learning experiences (Bellur, Nowak, & Hull, 2015). There is further requirement of research, with experimental intervention for finding the exact relationship between instant messaging and education.     

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