The internet is a huge, vast and expansive space that is growing all the time, every day! And there is nearly no one else who knows that better than students. Studying a subject or researching a specific topic is now sometimes solely executed on the internet with the use of sites like Wikipedia, Jstor and others. Besides researching and compiling information about a topic, students still use the internet a whole lot, most of the time as a form of escapism from their studies! But being that students spend days and days online, whether they are studying hard or fooling around it’s important to familiarize yourself with the trends that occur, as documenting them will give one a good idea of what they spend the majority of their time doing. The trends themselves can sometimes seem similar to everyone else, but some trends are a bit more insightful.
Social Media
Social Media is a huge part of the online landscape for students. You’ll often see, as soon as someone logs onto the internet they open up a multitude of social media pages just to have them open, they have almost become a staple of every students browsing. Why would this be? Most of the reason is because it allows them to talk to their friends and fellow classmates, maybe they are discussing the implications of apartheid in South Africa, or maybe they are just fooling around sending silly pictures to each-other! It’s a well known fact that social stasis and image are incredibly important factors when you are a young person, and this is amplified when you are a student as you want to prove to others that you are cool and intellectual, that you enjoy life but you also keep up-to-date with your studies. All of this can be done through the magic of social media, and that’s why it is such a big hit for students.
They get help
Modern students look to the internet as a source of help for many, many things. It might be to double check a recipe that they thought they knew, to ask for assistance when using their new phone, or double check the facts of a historic event two minutes before they go to take an exam on it! They see the internet as the beacon of information it so often is. When I was a student, I found it incredibly hard not to write my dissertation online without any actual book references because there is such a wide spectrum of information available that it can seem like books and journals are completely obsolete. And students still find the same now, as finding all of the information you need online becomes an extremely enticing prospect. Along with the fact that available to me was a multitude of online services that would write my essay for me Australia or Denmark, New Zealand or England, wherever I was from! This being the case it’s a pretty thin line between getting help and getting someone to do it for you, but the internet makes both of these eventualities possible. And a lot of the time students will have to stick to using the internet to get help and advice on work and essays, rather than get their work done for them.
They watch things
A lot of students don’t even own a television, as they have become aware that the internet can provide them with something to watch and entertain them. With sites like Netflix and Amazon Prime, to a lot of students, TV’s have become old-fashioned and someone obsolete. The internet allows one a free reign and choice from an ever increasing selection of shows, movies and documentaries, whereas on TV, it can often be a case of what you see is what you get, and you may get stuck watching something you are not really that interested in. There is also, unfortunately, a lot of content you can watch that has not been okayed by its creators online too! But it’s best to steer clear of these and stick to sites that you trust.
The internet is an ever-increasing expanse of information and entertainment. This being the case, it’s no wonder that so many students log onto the net every single day. Whether they are posting pictures of their friends on the weekend, researching the history of the British Empire, or watching their favourite series on Netflix, they all spend a large amount of time online, surfing the web and finding content that is interesting and entertaining to them.
