You’re walking to class and you feel your phone vibrate. You feel a moment of excitement until you see it’s that dreaded text saying you’ve somehow gone through 90 percent of your data plan with a week left until your cycle ends. How have you used this much data if you spend a large chunk of time at school, connected to Wi-Fi? The school has blocked many social media apps, so the Wi-Fi is worthless to you.
This is a problem many students are facing after the new restrictions to the Wi-Fi were implemented. While Facebook was previously blocked, other popular social media sites were allowed to be used on the schools’ Wi-Fi. Changes were made and now most social media websites are blocked.
These changes are costly as they force students to go off the network when they want to check these websites on their phones during their free time. The new restrictions increase the data many students use on their limited data plans, and thus increase the costs of their phone bills. Social media websites are not just for personal use; they are also used for educational purposes. Many students would like to access faculty Twitter accounts and contact other students via Facebook Messenger. Clubs and class groups also post daily on Facebook.
The Schreiber Times believes that the school should remove these constraints and allow students to utilize social media on the schools network. Social media is a powerful tool that should not be something that students have to pay extra for due to school limitations. The school should also acknowledge that many students are old enough to decide when to use their social media accounts, without administrative intervention. If the school is concerned about Internet safety, they should instead educate students about it, rather than block it, because these sites will be used even if students have to use up their data packages.