Basically, tools like Instagram, Tiktok and Bluesky are built on a scale – and with algorithms – which are far beyond any teacher or even most schools.
Recently – and in a way, not so recently, social media has pointed out as, at best, a set of tools “trained not by” socialization “but algorithms designed to” engage “users.
If families, workplaces, institutions and entire governments cannot understand this, why should teachers expect? Or, more immediately, what * teachers should they be responsible for?
The adequate control myth of the class
Take confidentiality, for example. Recent research clearly indicates that the data of the students collected by social media platforms are not only extended, but completely outside the field of a class or an individual school. In their 2020 article, Livingstone & Stoilova write:
“Children are systematically profiled and their data extracted through opaque processes that most parents and teachers are unable to influence, and even less to explain.” (Livingstone, S., and Stoilova, M., 2020, Journal of Children and Media)
Even with devices issued by the district and “closed gardens”, as soon as a student leaves campus – or sometimes even the WiFi network – all data guarantees can disappear.
The risks go far beyond distraction
Teachers tend to obtain warnings on cyberbullying or cheating, but the greater problems are systematic and global. Nguyen et al. to write Computers and education::
“Algorithmic conservation determines what information is visible for students; Disinformation and biased accounts can strengthen existing stereotypes and even undermine the authority of teachers in a way that no simple directive in class can anticipate. “ (Nguyen, N., et al., 2022)
A simple example: imagine that you use a new viral for a class discussion, to discover later that the majority of your students discovered this story through a network of coordinated disinformation campaigns pretending to be news. If the students find themselves with more confidence in unaccompanied influencers than in evidence -based sources, the conversation in class has already been shaped before starting.
Not just a teaching tool, but an environment
Most educational advice on social media establish it as a tool, but research shows that it is its own type of environment. Marwick and Boyd argue:
“Network audiences are shaped by the possibilities of social media, which means that students live a landscape with different standards, confidentiality expectations and power structures.” (Marwick, A. & Boyd, D., 2014, New Media & Society)
For example, you can use Instagram for a poetry project, but your students’ publications (and Likes and profile data) are part of a wider ecosystem that they cannot control or even understand.
So what is the teacher’s responsibility?
You cannot fully isolate students from social media manipulation, any more than you can watch what they see on their phones at home. Teachers are also not fully equipped to control algorithms, massive data collection or bad players using these platforms to spread propaganda.
Instead, a more realistic role is to help students to understand How these platforms work. Specifically:
- Teach privacy: Make sure students know that on most platforms, their publications are permanent and that their data is collectable and marketable.
- Promote critical consumption: Model of verification of the facts and teach students to question the reliability and the reason for what they see online.
- Highlight manipulation tactics: Discuss the basics of algorithmic foods, echo rooms and how bots can distort which seems “popular” or “true”.
- Conversations open to identity and well-being: Social media can shape the way students see each other, each other and the broader world.
Practical examples for class
- Assign a project where students find how a viral rumor is spreading online – Annenberg’s research on media literacy suggests that this real connection is more effective than conferences.
- Invite students to analyze screenshots of images or messages handled, comparing them to sources of trust.
- Use current events to arouse a discussion on algorithmic amplification (why do you see this story? Who benefits from its spread?).
Where to trace the line
Teachers should not act as privacy agents or content moderators for global technological companies. The best educators can do is create class policies that keep students as safe as possible and focus on creating digital citizenship. For young students, the limitation of the official use of open social platforms is generally wise. For older students, focus on teaching how these tools shape culture, identity and knowledge itself.
Politics – and technical and ethical implications – should be debated at the level of the district, the State and the national level. Like Livingstone & Stoilova Note:
“Protective measures, to be effective, require a systemic approach rather than trusting educators or individual parents.”
More weight on teachers?
Obviously, it is not for teachers individually to “solve” the massive and systemic problems of surveillance, propaganda and private life endemic to social media. There is not a single system or a set of policies or rules of “best practices” which can even start to achieve it. The best we can do is, for the moment, to follow research.
Instead, our responsibility is to help students become thoughtful participants in digital society – devoted, skeptical and equipped to sail in the realities of social media both in and out of the class.
References
- Livingstone, S., and Stoilova, M. (2020). “Data and literacy of privacy: the role of school and teacher.” Journal of Children and Media, 14 (1).
- Nguyen, N. et al. (2022). “Algorithmic literacy and critical assessment in the era of disinformation.” Computers and education, 179.
- Marwick, A. and Boyd, d. (2014). “Network confidentiality: how adolescents negotiate the context in social media.” New Media & Society, 16 (7).
