Anxious and Disengaged: How Social Media's Engagement Model Has Disrupted Student Capacity to Engage in School

Abstract

Education stakeholders in reddit groups describe how emerging cohorts of students are increasingly disengaged from learning. For many, the change seems unprecedented, and a key culprit may be the social media apps on your cellphone. Our mixed methods study drew on data gathered from over 500,000 comments distributed across 2383 education centered reddit threads. Narratives displayed cohorts that reflected their social media behaviors into real world actions. These behaviors then amplify preexisting anti-intellectual normative expectations, creating a generation of apathetic and anxious students unwilling to take risks out of their fear of sanctions. Analysis of the temporal distribution of disengagement discussion shows that disengagement is growing as an issue in teacher discussions and diminishing in student discussions, suggesting its normalization for students. Implications and limitations are discussed.