Recently, social media become so famous. The teachers and the students are also using this social media. Now the question is, are teachers allowed to follow students on social media? As a teacher, you may want to know about this topic. Also, some questions across your mind, like can students use social media? Can teachers have Tiktok? What age should students have social media? Should teachers be allowed to interact with students on social media? How can social media help students in their studies? What age should students have social media? Is it illegal to have your teacher on social media? Can a teacher be fired for social media? Is Social Media Helpful?
Usually, teachers have their privacy that shouldn’t explore their students. But if it is related to education, teachers may follow their students. But students shouldn’t follow or be friends with any students on their private accounts on social media. But if it becomes an emergency to add any student to their private account, teachers should follow some rules. It is not appropriate for students and teachers to connect on social media. But if any student faces an academic problem, students can contact a teacher. Now, cybercrime increase rapidly, so a teacher shouldn’t follow their students by their account. Some bad students can mock teachers and also can take their private pictures. And students can share them and viral their teachers’ private issues.
In this article, we want to include all types of data that may help a teacher or student. We want to inform you whether teachers are allowed to follow students on social media or not. If you learn more, read the article.
What Is Social Media?
Social media can be defined as a collective term for websites and applications. These websites and applications concentrate on communication, community-based input, exchange, sharing content and partnership, etc.
Social media has many forms like blogs, vlogs, social networking sites, picture-sharing sites, messaging, podcasts, and so on. So, social media is a way of sharing text and multimedia through virtual networks. More than 4.80 billion people use social media worldwide.
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The benefits of social media are:
- Improve your visibility
- Presenting support
- More useful communication
- Spreading news
- Building a business
- Noble cause
- Awareness
- Information
- Update news
- Share your expertise
- Gather knowledge
Disadvantages of social media:
- Cyberbullying
- Hacking
- Addiction
- Problems with privacy
- Lack of emotional connect
- Fear of missing out (FOMO)
- People spend a lot of time on social media
- Some content on social media is not useful for our children
- Spreading fake news
Social networking sites names and users:
- Facebook -2.96 billion
- YouTube -2.2 billion
- WhatsApp -2 billion
- Instagram – 2 billion
- WeChat -1.26 billion
- TikTok -1 billion
- Telegram – 550 million
- Snapchat -557 million
- Qzone -553.5 million
- Pinterest -444 million
- Twitter -238 million
- Reddit -430 million
- Linkedln -424 million
- Quora -300 million
- Tumblr -135 million
Are Teachers Allowed to Follow Students on Social Media?
Teachers may be required by some rules and regulations to ignore current students over social media accounts. But teachers shouldn’t follow any students over social media. Teachers can follow any students with the school’s software.
Moreover, a teacher can contact any student by email or formal message. But by teachers’ account, they shouldn’t follow any students. Teachers shouldn’t communicate with any students directly on social media.
Also, teachers shouldn’t give their private numbers to any students. If a student and a teacher both have social media accounts, they have to stay within a boundary. Also, they have to follow some instructions to use social media.
Always keep in your mind that inappropriate social media behavior can damage your image. If any teacher posts anything about his personal life, he can face some troubles like mocking, making memes. So, no teacher should “follow” and “friend” his students on their private social media accounts.
Some rules that a teacher must know while using social media:
- Firstly, a teacher has to know some guidelines before using social media about his school, country, and state.
- Do not accept students’ friend requests, and if they follow you, decline them.
- If any teacher has a public Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram account, he has to block students who send follow requests.
- Do not share your private pictures on social media if your boss follows you. Teachers shouldn’t share bikini pictures, party pictures, alcohol or drugs photo.
- Be careful about your privacy. Set all your privacy settings according to your security. Also, make sure teachers set their profiles up to date on their new privacy settings.
- A teacher shouldn’t post a picture of any students on his social media account.
Can Students Use Social Media?
Students can use social media. Also, they should be aware of the usage of social media. Social media is important for students. A student can take help from social media. Social networking can help students connect with other students studying the same subject in different regions of countries.
The benefits of social media, students can improve their learning skills. Also, social media permits students to connect with like-minded peers. Social networking can be valuable for youth. There are so many negative impacts of social media on students.
Students become addicted to social networking, they face some physical issues. They may face eye fatigue, poor sleep, and mental health issues like depression. Some of them are involved with cybercrime and do wrong things.
So, students can use social media but they have to know about their limits and stay out of occurrences.
What Age Should Students Have Social Media?
A student must be 13 years of age to use social media. A surgeon says that regular social media use can be harmful to kids’ brain development. So, nobody should be using social media under the age of 13.
The minimum age for using social media is 13 years old. Facebook and Instagram, require that whoever wants to open a social media account must be at least 12 years old. In 1998, US legislation declared the minimum age for using social media and restricted the collection of children’s data without parental permission.
At the age of 13 years old, a child can use social media. The minimum age of 13 is a benchmark for schools, parents, and cyber safety.
Which Social Media Are The Most Useful For Students?
There are so many platforms for people. People can communicate with anyone from anywhere at any time. For students, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest where they share unique ideas and connect with anyone. If any student wants to learn in the form of video format, they can use YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.
Through, these social media, students can exchange ideas and knowledge through messages, articles, and live. Social media can be a wonderful tool for students to gather knowledge and change their outlook. The users of YouTube are 95% of teenagers. The survey of TikTok about 69% of teens.
How Can Social Media Help Students In Their Studies?
Recently, people are so dependent on social media. People want to do everything through social media. Also, the students can get resources from experts all over the world. Students can express their ideas in several ways, like by posting a photo, blogs, articles, live, audio, etc.
Furthermore, students can explore their ideas and show their talents. If any student shares their ideas and show talents, many company, and events will select them and give them a chance to set a career.
Social media can help students to get useful information and also get help from learning groups. Moreover, some educational information can make their studies convenient for students.
Does Social Media Affect Studying?
Social media has two sides, positive and negative. These positive and negative sides can affect anyone, especially affect on students. If any student uses too much social media and gets addicted to it. It can have adverse effects on the mind and health.
Social media can gives eye strain and depression. If social media supplies many advantages such as improving communication, sharing, educational chances, and gaining knowledge, it has also some negative sides like addiction, cyberbullying, and spreading false news.
Social media drains attention resources and detracts attention from other activities in students’ life. When students get addicted to social networking, they lose interest in the study.
What Are Three Bad Things About Social Media?
There are so many bad things about social many. Three of them are top-noted.
Cyberbullying:
Cyberbullying has increased day by day. Cyberbullying means posting, and sharing negative, fake, or mean content about someone else. Also, it shares private information about others that can be a cause of embarrassment.
Invasion of Privacy:
Invasion of privacy means the illegal intrusion into anybody’s life without their consent.
Identity theft:
Identity theft means that someone stole others’ private or financial data without their consent.
Conclusion
Above all, we are trying to show that teachers shouldn’t follow students on their private social media. Students can bully teachers and troll them by taking their data. Also, a student is aware of using social media. Moreover, teachers should follow social media guidelines. Here, we also add some essential information that may help a teacher and a student. If you read the article, you would know whether Are Teachers Allowed to Follow Students on Social Media or not.