New_Media

New Media- Advantages and Disadvantages to Students. In the era of globalization, many sophisticated devices are being invented such as iPod, 3G, high technology mobile phones and so on to make our life easier and comfortable. All the devices that are newly invented in the later part of the 20th Century are called new media. According to Wikipedia, new media is a board term in Media Studies that shows up in the later part of the 20th Century to include the combination of traditional media such as film, images, music, spoken and written word with the interactive power of computer and communication technology, computer – enabled consumer devices and most importantly the Internet. New media is very useful to human beings nowadays, especially to students who are learners attending an educational institutions. New media brings many advantages and disadvantages to students. Many students like to use new media to do their work. They can download much information for their project work. They can find the information they want in the Internet such as Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia that has combined the internet with accessible digital text, pictures and video with web- links. There are unlimited sources of information for the use of students as the information is at their fingertips. Besides that, students can access to internet any time and at any place they like as they can use wireless or Wi-Fi in their own laptop or mobile phone. The sophisticated devices help students to find the information their want just by typing the words or phrases on the keyboard. They also can exchange their information with their friends through e- mailing where they can share the useful information with their friends. Through new media, students can save a lot of time in searching for the information. They can narrow down the search online just by typing the relevant key word that they want to find the information. Besides that, students can communicate through social networking such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and so on. Students can meet a lot of new friends through social networking. New media also acts as a tool to communicate with their family and friends. It is a medium that can communicate with friends or family members who stay far away from them. They can be used to share information and be up-to-date about their friends and family members’ development. New media also has online application. It is convenient and fast. Students, especially those who have finished their SPM or STPM can apply online to enter higher institution of learning that they like. They can download the application forms from the internet or buy the PIN to apply directly online. This will save a lot of their time. This also will make the students feel easier to apply to go to universities or other institutions as they just need to key in all their information online and submit it upon completion. This also will save students’ money as their just need to pay for buying the PIN. New media also can act as educational tools. Students can get extra educational materials apart from the text books. This will help them revise their study more effectively and they can learn more. Besides that, students can do online tutorial. Many exercises can be obtained online. New media enable the students to carry out self- exploration of the information for academic purposes. New media also enables the usage of multimedia such as iPod, MP4, internet and so on. These gadgets increase students’ interest in learning. Teachers can use Power Point to teach students. Pictures with explanation make students more interested in their learning. Students can learn new languages from their friends from different countries. They can meet friends from other countries through social networking. Students can also know the culture of the different countries from their friends. New media can also be used for entertainment purpose. They can help to release students’ tension. Students can download songs that they like to release their tension. New media also can increase communication between teachers and students after school hours. Students can either ask their teacher about their academic or personal needs. Through new media, teachers can know more about their students’ problems and can help them to solve the problems. However, new media can give negative impacts to students. New media can cause disciplinary problems especially through social networking. Students can easily be involved in social ills or cyber crimes when using new media. They can learn to access other’s account without any notification and steal other’s information to commit crimes such as hacking into other’s bank account if the students are greedy. Besides that, many students play truant because of new media. They rather skip schooling to go to cyber café and surf the internet. This will cause their academic performances to become poor. Students can become addicted to internet. Social networking such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace attract students’ attention and finally they will neglect their academic. They will focus less in the class because they will keep on thinking about having fun when they are in social networking. This will also affect students’ health. Students will have a sedentary lifestyle. They will sit in front of the computer for a long period and this will stain their eyes. Students’ eyesight will become poor due to sitting in front of the computer for a long period. Students also may get access to unhealthy websites such as pornographic websites. They will download movies or pictures from these pornographic websites. This can influence the students to be involved in sexual crimes or pre- marital sex and lastly they will dump the baby if there is any pregnancy happening. New media also lead to unhealthy competition. Some new media gadgets such as iPod and MP4 cause a lot of money. Some students who cannot afford to buy these devices will easily feel envious of their friends who have these devices. This will lead to the crimes such as bullying and the more serious crime like murder to happen. New media can tarnish the students’ as well as the schoo’sl reputation. Students can spread false information about someone and causes misunderstanding to the public. Students will post uncensored information of the person they do not like such as criticizing someone’s personality without any censorship through social networking such as blog. This can cause immoral behaviour and can cause the students to become ruder and they think that there are no rules to stop them from criticizing others. New media makes students lazy to think. Students can find a lot of information through internet but this will lead to unethical acts by students. Students will become lazier to make their project work themselves. They will plagiarize other’s work and just change some words and hand it in as their own project work. Besides that, the usage of new media will lead to strained relationship between students and their families. With the new media, students will communicate less with their families. They will talk less to their parent or siblings. They will just focus on the new media that they have right now and this will make the students forget their families. This causes the family relationship to become strained and they may become like strangers the next time when they meet. Less communication may cause misunderstanding among the family members. New media exposes students to unhealthy cultures. Students may follow either the western or eastern unhealthy culture such as free sex, drug abuse and so on. This will cause the students’ moral values to be corrupted if they follow these unhealthy cultures. Some unhealthy cultures may cause them to commit murder. This may lead to juvenile crimes if the students are under-age. This also will tarnish the country’s reputation if the crime rate increases. New media can lead to improper usage of English Language. Students like to use short forms or slangs when communicating such as when text messaging. Students will get carried away while writing an essay and use the wrong English in their essay. This may cause the deduction of marks when the teacher marks their essay and may even cause them to fail their examination. As a conclusion, new media which include the sophisticated devices can help students in many ways but it also will influence students to some unhealthy ethics and the worst is committing crimes. So, new media has its own advantages and disadvantages to the students and it is up to the student themselves to evaluate what is the best for them. (1425 words) 1