Social Media in Education • Statistics
This image shows statistics provided by McCrindle World Secure Systems as of 2016. The top statistic speaks the most about what kind of lifestyle our students live by spending over 10 hours per day in front of "screens". This also includes devices at school, but after the school day is over a significant amount of time is spent on the remaining activities and others in this graphic. If we as teachers are going to be more effective in the classroom, we will need to make our lessons relevant to what our students are doing in their free time. |
As of 2017, the number of Facebook users alone is larger than the 2018 estimate of the population of China, the world's most populated country by almost 200 million! The image on the left is also from McCrindle World Secure Systems. The statistics in the chart above are from Worldometers.info.
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What's scary is how much information our students are putting about themselves online! It never hurts to be too careful, because once it's up on the web then it will always be retrievable. The charts on the left from Pew Research Center are from 2013, but the information is still pretty relevant to what can be expected from today's young internet user. Adults should be careful as well... I know, because my identity has been stolen TWICE! And I'm careful! All too often we hear headlines about the latest security breach and how many millions of users may have had their personal information stolen by hackers. For excellent resources on how to teach young people of all grade levels (and parents, too!), be sure to check out the information at Common Sense Media. They have information not only about social media but also movie, TV show, and video game evaluation guides for parents. Teachers can find lesson plan resources here. |