Recognizing the potential problems it may cause to learners and teachers, the Department of Education has discouraged the use of social media in the classroom.
DepEd Undersecretary for Administration Alain del Pascua, in a memorandum dated June 28, 2019, explained why the department discourages the use of social media in classrooms.
“While social media is the “easiest mediums to deliver information in this digital age using the latest on-hand technologies,” the use of the platform also “opens one’s identity to the world wide web making young learners exposed to different cyber threats.”
“Social media as a tool for collaboration and communication could defeat its purpose if not used properly and may cause serious problems,” said Pascua. “It can also be a tool that could provide gaming applications, marketplace or online services, and viewing of different multimedia content which are not appropriate to the level of maturity of young learners,” he added.
Overall, Pascua said that the use of social media in the classroom “could promote” problems that the “school may not be aware of or be caught unprepared for.”
For instance, social media has a group chat feature that has “adult content which can elicit malicious content and incorrect values to learners.”
Likewise, Pascua noted that social media may also “open doors” for cyber bullying, identity theft, online gambling, pornography, and market fraud that can cause “self-isolation, humiliation, and trauma.”
DepEd also expressed concern that the use of social media can affect the study habits of learners and “they can be distracted with the many available materials posted on social media.”
Moreover, Pascua warned that the use of social media “can result in deceit of parents because children who are attracted to social media can easily say that they are waiting for the teacher’s assignment post.” This, he noted, will eventually “result to poor performance in school and poor value formation.”
Pascua explained that in the case of Facebook, users should be at least 13-years-old before they can create an account. Thus, “creating an account with false information is violation of terms.”
Given this legal impediment, he noted that “all elementary students, sixth graders and below, are legally barred from using this social media platform.” (Ina Malipot)
