Social Media: Classroom Ethics?

With social media become more popular, there are new regulations and ethical questions that need to be considered. Social media can be used in so many positive ways, but along with that there are plenty of negatives that go along with it. The main point I want to hit on today is the ethical topic of social media and productivity.

Because social media is relatively new, companies have to create new policies and regulations to enforce the productivity of its workforce. There have been plenty of studies done that have found a correlation between social media use and decreased productivity in a work setting. It’s obvious that if you are tweeting a funny joke instead of filing paper work you probably aren’t being ethical at your job. This seems like an obvious comment. But, the question that I want to ask is, is using social media in the classroom ethical?

I can’t tell you how many times I have been sitting in a class and not listened to a word the professor said due to me browsing on social media sites. Is it ethical to choose to not pay attention in class? In a work setting this would be considered an unethical use of time, but employees are being paid to do something. As a student, I am not being paid, so where is the line of ethical versus unethical behavior at school?

I honestly don’t have a set in stone opinion on this matter. We’re adults. We’re paying for our education. But, we also need to be respectful. Is respect ethics? I don’t know the answer to all of these questions, but it is something we need to decide for ourselves. After thinking about social media and ethics in the classroom, it made me want to be better at paying attention and not looking at Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter for an hour. It’s really up to us to decided if this is ethical behavior or not.

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