Browsing by Author "Mustonen, Salla"

Social media is dominating more and more the life of today’s young people. The usage of social media is automated and seamlessly linked to our everyday actions. Since social media is crossing the institutional boarders of the school, the teachers aswell must be alert with this phenomenon. The focus should be especially on how the children are behaving in social media and the effects of that in formal environments such as school. The goal of this study was to explain the behaving models of the youth in social media and the effects of them in their mutual relations, peer popularity and power play. A special interest lays on the social media usage of girls and on social media as a status symbol. The difference between the genders is shown for example in the different purposes of using the media and as different behavioral tendencies in the media. The study results on this field can be seen as valuable and necessary in education for the extent of it. This study was conducted as a descriptive literature review in the spring of 2017 and is focused on the educational point of view. Materials and literature have also been collected from social sciences and sociology. From the study results it was noticeable that peer popularity and peer relations or the lack of them is proven to have a major impact on the wellbeing and the future of an adolescent. Therefore it’s important to ponder what effects the popularity game and forming relationships in the invisible field of media may have. In this work I took a look at cyberbullying aswell, which is relatively new form of bullying but all the more difficult to sever. In addition of discussing the role of social media in today’s adolescents’ lives, I oriented in the responsibility and actions of a teacher in the era of social media. Based on the study, the media educational point of view can be seen as an important addition in the ethical field of teaching and must be reflected to the morally high responsibility of the profession.