The impact of social media

Children learn context through activity and interaction. According to social learning beliefs, new behavior is acquired through direct experience and through the observation of others (Bandura & Walters, 1971). Through exploration, favorable behavior is reinforced while unfavorable behavior is avoided. This is to state that we repeat what we observe, and that collaboration is critical to learning.

To dive deeper into the context, let’s think about the impact of our presence as adults in the lives of children. How many times have you witnessed children mirroring adult-like behavior? Additionally, how often are we seeing children imitating trends they see in social media?

As a parent, I have realized my responsibility to help my child navigate through a world filled with good and bad information. Now that we are seeing children use media platforms at a larger capacity to gauge acceptable or rewarded behavior, we must be better aware of what our children are exposed to.

It is important to note that social interaction has both positive and negative effects on the learner. To start with, distributed cognition allows the sharing of content knowledge across various platforms. Additionally, social learning enables shaping, modeling and reinforcement to take place (Cherry, 2022). Thus, by watching others, we can replicate desired behaviors to meet favorable outcomes.

On the other hand, detrimental effects caused by social learning are proven in case studies such as Bandura’s Bobo Doll experiment. Here, we see young children imitating violent behavior they witnessed from adults (DebateFilms, 2011). Not only did this study seem unethical but it proved the human tendency to repeat behavior from perceived role models.

As stated in the work of Lave and Wenger, ‘we learn by doing with mentors in the community’ (Dyack, 2020). Therefore, we must use collaborative settings in the real world to create positive change while being cognizant of negative influences that lead to damaging behavior. Only when we gain higher awareness of how we are socially impacted by environmental influences can we begin to learn to take charge of our own actions and set of beliefs.

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References

AsapSCIENCE. (2014). 5 Crazy ways social media is changing your brain right now. [Video].

Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HffWFd_6bJ0.

Bandura, A., & Walters, R. H. (1971). Social learning theory (Vol. 1). General Learning Press.

Cherry, K. (2022, October 14). How social learning theory works. verywell mind.

https://www.verywellmind.com/social-learning-theory-2795074

DebateFilms. (2011, May 17). The brain: A secret history - emotions; Bobo doll experiment

[Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zerCK0lRjp8

Dyack, A. (2020, February 8). Situated learning theory [Video]. YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV0XhlKk1Cw