Exploring student's social experiences and exposure in the use of social media in catholic secondary schools in Bagamoyo district

The use of the social media in the past decade has increased and attracted the interests of researchers in exploring its association with roles of other social institutions such as schools, family, religion and the media. Because of this interest, the social media has continued to gain popularity regardless of the age of its users: 0 because it is a source of enormous information. However, there is a paucity material on how the information accessed influences the lifestyles of the users. In addition, not much has been done on the ways young people who are still schooling navigate through this world of information abundance, through social media and ho.. They strive to access such information and adhere to the social norms and values of the social institutions that are intended to shape their lifestyles. Thus, the aim of the study was to explore the social experiences of young people in accessing and utilizing social media, using secondary school students from two catholic schools as case studies. Specifically, the study explored student's exposure to the social media and other channels of communication, it also explored the teachers perceptions on the role of social media in influencing the students output and lastly it sought to understand the role of the school systems in shaping young people's use and non-use of social media. Using Giddens structuration theory, the study explored the above issues by taking into account key concepts such as transformation, knowledge ability, agency and time-space distanciation. The unit of analysis for this study was Marian girl's secondary school and Marian boy's high school. The study participants were students, teachers, matrons, patrons, and religious leaders who were teachers. This study was qualitative in nature and used non-experimental exploratory study design. Sampling procedure was purposive sampling. Methods of data collection included In-depth interview and focus group discussion as well as observation. The findings of this study provide us with a better understanding of the role of the social media in shaping the interaction and lifestyle of the youths. The study shows that most of the students make use of sites of interest and not necessarily for academic purposes. In the first objective, both discursive and practical consciousness was taken into consideration. This is because, even though the rules and regulations governing use or non-use of phone and social media were permeable, there were students who adhered to the school rules. This is adolescent's adoption of traditions and norms according to how it is given to them (Giddens, 1984). In addition, the school system is such that there are many divergent agents, and they all have their different approach to the school rule of use and non-use of the social media by students. Thus, there is multiplicity of powers within the same institution, which leads to misuse of the available school system. It weakens the schools position/system. In conclusion, the findings show that the school rules and regulation in catholic schools both constrain and are constrained by the current young people access and use or non-use of social media implying the interdependency among social actors as postulated by the social structuration theory. This is because students as social agents have ways of accessing and using social media without necessarily showing disobedience to the laid down school rules and regulations. The study recommends further research that will involve larger sample size and social settings other than school setting.