According to the article “What Students Don’t Know,” teenagers do not know how to properly research. They also rarely ask librarians for help, even when they desperately need help. Why does this happen? The reason is because students only think that librarians are good for pointing to different stacks in the library. As a result, student’s study habits are worse than before. When finding research, Google is the first website to be overused. Students nowadays prefer simple databases to find information and answers. However, students do not know how to properly research on Google in order to gain good sources that are reliable. As Andrew Asher says, “Just because you’ve grown up using Google doesn’t mean you know how to use Google as a research tool.” As a result, students suffer from headaches and frustration as thousands of links pop up when they are not researching a topic thoroughly.
This week, my class has been discussing the ways in which new media often requires new literacy to use them successfully. The topic that I have chosen to research on is the impact that social networking sites have on teenagers. However, I am focusing on the positive aspects, not the negative. So many people focus mainly on how social networking sites harm teenagers. I will be focusing on facebook because that is the most used site for teenagers and adults. By exploring Google, Google scholar, and Loyola’s online library, I have managed to find reliable research to back up my claim on how facebook can create positive aspects for teenagers.
I had to narrow down my topic while searching through these online sources. By narrowing down my topic, I was able to produce reliable and high quality research. This also helped to avoid a headache that comes when performing research. On Google, I began with “Social Networking Sites.” This brought up thousands of sites and spoke of all types of social networking sites, such as Myspace, Facebook, Friendster, and blogs such as Xanga. I then tried googling “Social Networking Sites positive qualities.” This produced results that were more descriptive to my topic. Also it focused on only the positive qualities, not the negatives. Last, I typed in “Facebook – positive aspects.” By being clear about your topic and narrowing down your results to be more descriptive, you will be able to do thorough research.
From Google I found this site: http://networkconference.netstudies.org/2010/04/a-social-society-the-positive-effects-of-communicating-through-social-networking-sites/. It claims that communication is encouraged amongst teenagers.
From Google scholar I found two sites: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0193397308000713 and http://nms.sagepub.com/content/10/3/393.full.pdf+html. These sites claim that there are more advantages to social networks such as entertainment (music), job searches, being up to date on news and events, being able to portray yourself in a different light, and instant feedback. For example, I can always find out what kinds of concerts are occurring. I “liked” United Center’s facebook page so I am always up to date with events happening. Without it, I never would have realized that Madonna is coming to Chicago for two days. Also I like it because it is easy to share fun links and youtube videos with all my friends.
From Loyola’s online library I found this: http://www.sibm.edu/FacultyResearch/pdf/samvad2.pdf#page=18 . This site also proclaims how teenagers can gain confidence and make tough decisions that are difficult offline.
Therefore, the reason why I like having a facebook is because I can stay in contact with my friends who all attend different colleges, show off your talent of photography or musical skills, and express what type of person you are.
sofiakarin 