What are the positive and negative impacts of social networking on high school and college students in India? In the light of these pros and cons, do you think it is necessary to develop certain regulations? Opine.

The positive and Negative impacts of social networking on high school and college students are as follows:
Positive Impacts
Social networking has enabled them to socialize and this helped to enhance he networking skills. This helps them in professional life. Social networking sites are effective way to share knowledge and this helps the students to keep themselves updated in real time about happenings not only on national level but also local school / college level.  Apart from networking, sites are designed such that students have opportunities to learn new things by following people, well known personalities, educational sites etc. Sites are provides platform to share their thoughts and feelings which they may not receive at home, school etc. They can come in contact with people who share same passion, thought and ideas. They are also exposed to diverse opinions on a subject and diverse cultures.
Negative Impacts
The primary threat from the sites is distraction from their studies by vulgar content, negative ideas etc. Multi-tasking may lead to reduction in focus. Through these sites, they may be exposed to wrong people and wrong content. Further, too much communication on social media hampers the communication also because then they fail to understand non-verbal cues like tone, body language. Further, putting out lot of private information on net may put their privacy in danger. Photos can be used for wrong purposes. Psychologists have expressed concern over identity crisis faced by teenagers as they are easily affected by negative comments. Many a times students get disheartened if they do not get enough likes, comments.  Students may lack adequate knowledge and wisdom to differentiate between a fact and opinion with enormous information being flooded. It has developed lax attitude towards spelling and grammar.
Regulation
I think education and awareness is more important than regulation, though most social media sites have self regulation of content; and are trying to improve their algorithms to track and delete / block content that is profane, amoral or spreads hates etc. Any kind of imposed regulation can lead to rebel among students and youth as they would see it as restriction on their freedom. It is important to educate them about social networking sites and their impact. Schools and colleges should organize programmes such as visit to places of natural beauty, community development programmes to engage them with real society.
Social Networking sites have become unavoidable in today’s world hence better approach would be education.

Topics: GS-II: Social Sector Services Education Human Resources