Basically, tools such as Instagram, Tiktok and Bluesky are built on a scale – and with algorithms – which are far beyond the understanding of every classroom teacher or even most schools.
Recently – and in ways, not recently – social media have emphasized themselves as at the best case a set of “instruments” not powered by “socialization” but with algorithms designed to “engage” consumers.
If families and jobs, institutions and whole governments cannot understand why teachers should be expected? Or, more so, what do the teachers have to meet?
The myth of adequate control in the classroom
Take confidentiality, for example. Recent studies have clarified that students collected from social media platforms are not only extensive but completely outside the area of a separate classroom or school. In their 2020 paper, Livingstone & Stoilova write:
“Children are routinely profiled and their data are extracted through opaque processes that most parents and teachers are not able to influence, even less explain.” (Livingstone, S., & Stoilova, M., 2020, Journal of Children and Media)
Even with devices and “fenced gardens”, as soon as a student leaves the campus-or sometimes even only WiFi network-any data protective measures can disappear.
The risks exceed the distraction
Teachers tend to receive a warnings about cyberbullying or infidelity, but greater problems are systematic and global. Nguyen et al. Write Computers and education:
“The algorithmic courage determines what information is visible to students; misinformation and prejudiced stories can strengthen existing stereotypes and even undermine teachers’ powers in ways that no simple direction in the classroom can predict.” (Nguyen, N. et al., 2022)
One simple example: Imagine using a viral history of class discussion only to find out later that the bigger part of your students have discovered this story through a network of coordinated misinformation campaigns that are disguising as news. If students end with greater confidence in unverified influencing ones than in the evidence-based sources, the classroom conversation is already shaped before you start.
Not just a teaching tool but an environment
Most social media teaching advice creates it as an instrument, but research shows that it is its own kind of environment. Marvik and Boyd are arguing:
“Network audiences are formed by the benefits of social media, which means that students inhabit a landscape of different norms, expectations for confidentiality and power structures.” (Marwick, A. & Boyd, D., 2014, New Media & Society)
For example, you can use Instagram for a poetic project – but the publications of your students (and likes and profiles) become part of a broader ecosystem that they cannot control or even fully understand.
So what is the responsibility of the teacher?
You cannot completely isolate students from social media manipulations, more than you can observe what they see on your phones at home. Neither teachers are fully equipped in the police algorithms, massive collection of data, or bad participants using these propaganda distribution platforms.
Instead, it is a more realistic role to help students Find out How these platforms work. Specifically:
- Learn for confidentiality: Make sure students know that in most platforms their publications are constant and their data are collector and selling.
- Encourage critical consumption: Model the facts check and teach students to question the reliability and motive of what they see online.
- Highlight the tactics of the manipulation: Discuss the basics of algorithmic feed, echo cameras and how bots can distort what looks “popular” or “true”.
- Open conversations about identity and well -being: Social media can shape the way students see themselves, and the broader world.
Practical examples of classroom
- Assigning a project in which students track how viral hearing is spreading Anaberg’s online research on media literacy suggest that this connection in the real world is more effective than lectures.
- Invite students to analyze screenshots of manipulated images or publications, comparing them to reliable sources.
- Use current events to ignite a discussion about algorithmic amplification (why do you see this story? Who takes advantage of its spread?).
Where to draw the line
Teachers should not be expected to act as confidentiality employees or content moderators for global technology companies. The best teachers can do is create classroom policies to keep students as much as possible and focus on building digital citizenship. For younger students, restricting the official use of open social platforms is usually reasonable. For older students, focus on teaching how these instruments shape culture, identity and knowledge themselves.
Politics – both technical and ethical consequences – must be discussed at the district, state and national level. Like Livingston and Stoilova Note:
“Protective measures, in order to be effective, require a systematic approach, not to rely on individual teachers or parents.”
More weight of teachers?
Obviously, it does not depend on teachers individually to “solve” the massive, systemic issues of observation, propaganda and privacy, endemic to social media. There is no system or set of policies or rules of “best practices” that can even begin to achieve it. The best thing we can do is follow the study for now.
Instead, it is our responsibility to help students become deliberate participants in the digital society – aware, skeptical and equipped to navigate the realities of social media in both the classroom and outside the classroom.
Literature
- Livingstone, S., & Stoilova, M. (2020). “Data and Literacy for Privacy: The role of the school and the teacher.” Children and Media Magazine, 14 (1)S
- Nguyen, N. et al. (2022). “Algorithmic literacy and critical evaluation in the age of misinformation.” Computers and education, 179S
- Marwick, A., & Boyd, D. (2014). “Network Privacy: How Teens Contract Context on Social Media.” New Media and Society, 16 (7)S
