BANKING ACADEMY

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FACULTY OF FOREIGN Vietnam
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ESP - WRITING A RESEARCH REPORT

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 BANKING ACADEMY
FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE

A STUDY ON
THE SOCIAL NETWORK USE
OF BANKING ACADEMY STUDENTS
(Word count: 2900 words)

Teacher: Pham Bich Hanh

Students: Pham Tien Dung
Tran Phuong Anh
Do Hoang Khoa
Nguyen Viet Long
Class: K20CLCB
Course: Advanced Writing 2018
Date: 21/12/2018

i
 ABSTRACT

Nowadays, The Internet acts as a profoundly effective tool not only for distant
communication but also for broadening our knowledge. This research will scrutinize the
social networking use of Banking Academy’s students in various aspects. Derived from
the data obtained from survey technique and interview approach, the research evaluates
the overall use of social sites, its impacts, therefore, suggests some feasible methods to
use it effectively.

ii
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract..............................................................................................................ii

List of figures....................................................................................................iv

1. Introduction...................................................................................................1

2. Method...........................................................................................................2

3. Results............................................................................................................3

4. Discussion......................................................................................................6

4.1. The situation of B.A. students’ social network use................................6

4.2. The positive effects of using social media...............................................7

4.3. The negative effects of using social media..............................................8

5. Recommendations.......................................................................................10

6. Conclusion...................................................................................................11

References.........................................................................................................12

Appendices........................................................................................................14

iii
 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: B.A. Students’ Daily Time Spent on Social Networks.......................3

Figure 2: Different Aspects of B.A. Students’ Lives under the Impacts of
Social Networks.....................................................................................................4
Figure 3: The Negative Effects of Six Prominent Social-Network-Related
Issues on the Lives of B.A. Students.....................................................................5

iv
1. Introduction
Since the dawn of human ingenuity, we have witnessed the continuous development of
technology with new inventions of many pioneers in their area of expertise in order to
improve our ways of living. Unexceptionally, The Internet, an extraordinary integration
of capabilities, was set the stage by the invention of computer and telephone. The Internet
has revolutionized the means of communication, providing us the tool for information
dissemination and interaction regardless of geographic location, and giving us the base to
link people with social network. However, beside the aforementioned benefits, social
network also indicates some drawbacks. This raise social’ attention on the usage of social
network and methods to use this effectively, both of which will be discussed in the
following sections.

Nowadays, social network becomes prevailing between teenagers, especially university

students. In regard to narrowing the main subject of research, Freshmen and Sophomores
of Banking Academy (B.A) would be more appropriate subjects for data collecting
purposes and persuasiveness of final results as this cluster tends to have much leisure
time and low study workload, while junior and senior students act under pressure of high
study workload and internship seeking.

According to Alexa Analysis (2014), Facebook was ranked the second highest social
network site that is used frequently with nearly nine-tenth of user were teenagers in 18-29
age bracket (Brenner and Smith. 2013). Beside tremendous benefits on studying and
communicating, social network also shows perilous impacts when being overused.
Overuse of social network, which act as the main culprit of restraining students from
having conversations, could lead to lack of communication skills and poor adaptive
behavior.

It is crucial that this research is based on survey conducted by B.A. students to evaluate
the overall social network usage of university students and to clarify four main questions
for what purposes do B.A. students use social networking sites?; what are the positive
impacts of social networks on their lives? and what are the positive impacts of social
networks on their lives?; therefore, shed light on some feasible solutions to utilize social
network effectively.

1
2. Method
This research paper’s primary information resource is created by collecting questionnaire
and interview responses. To begin with, we chose 10 specific questions based on our 3
specific research question to create the questionnaires. Next, we indiscriminately picked
out 50 B.A. Freshmen and Sophomores to fill in our survey. In the final step, we
interviewed 5 of the above 50 students to interview 7 questions with each session taking
up 15 minutes. Interviewing is a research method that can help us investigate our
participants’ experience more thoroughly compared to using surveys. We also conducted
interviews with the aim of clearing up and validating complicated details within the
statistics. Therefore, we are certain that our data’s level of relevance is reasonably high.

2
3. Results
Our participants consisted of 35 females and 15 males, which roughly reflects BA’s sex
ratio. As expected, the collected data effectively demonstrates their social network use.

Other 49 1

Tumblr 45 4 1

Reddit 40 8 2

Dating Sites 43 5 2

Youtube 3 11 20 9 7

Instagram 6 19 16 3 6

Facebook 11 25 6 8

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

None <1hr 1-3hr 3-5hr >=5hr

Figure 1: B.A. Students’ Daily Time Spent on Social Networks.

As for time, a significant portion (68%) of B.A. students use Facebook, Instagram and
YouTube up to 3 hours per day, while 26% go on these sites up to 5 hours or more. A
very small number of students admit to never use Instagram and YouTube. On the
contrary, the users of Dating Sites, Reddit, Tumblr and Others are a minority (11.5%) and
those who do use the sites hardly ever visit them for more than 1 hour per day.

3
 Soft Skills 2 19 27 2

World Knowledge 1 8 32 9

Finance 1 6 32 10 1

Mental Health 2 9 21 18

Physical Health 3 15 23 7 2

Academic Progress 6 15 26 3

Social Life 1 2 18 29

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Very Negatively Negatively Not at All

Positively Very Positively

Figure 2: Different Aspects of B.A. Students’ Lives under the Impacts of

Social Networks.

As can be seen from Figure 2, more than half of the interviewees don’t feel that social
networks have any impact on their soft skill (54%), world knowledge and finance (both
64%). Besides, about 30% to 50% of students answered that they feel social networks are
either harmless or beneficial to their mental health, physical health, academic progress
and social life. About three-fifths of the interviewees said that they felt social networks
had helped them a lot it their social life and academic progress. Some of them even think
that it helps them solve the problem with their mental health (36%). However, a few
people said that social networks impacted negatively on some aspects of their life like
soft skills (42%).

4
Private Information Violation 13 21 7 8 1

Study/Work Disruption 4 12 9 20 5

Phishing & Scams 24 11 8 6 1

Cyber Bullying 27 12 5 4 2

Fake News 10 15 16 6 3

Addiction 8 18 15 8 1

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Not At All Little Somewhat Badly Very Badly

Figure 3: The Negative Effects of Six Prominent Social-Network-Related

Issues on the Lives of B.A. Students.

According to Figure 3, about half the number of participants do not take seriously the
issues of Addiction and Fake News while the other half are affected to various degrees.
Cyber Bullying, Scams and Private Information Violation are the less dangerous
problems as they affect 22%, 30% and 30.5% of the students respectively. In the other
hand, Disruption is considered a complication by most students as a significant portion of
them (68%) express noticeable concerns.

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4. Discussion
All the facets of the utilization of social network may beyond the covering capability of
the results as this research is only based on survey statistics obtained from B.A. students.
However, in terms of evaluating the use of social network, we assert that the diversity of
this results and the extensive distribution of the survey could generalize this matter.

4.1. The situation of B.A. students’ social network use

According to our findings, Facebook and YouTube are most renowned and frequently
used social platforms with a tremendous proportion of 100% and 94% of the students,
respectively. This result is by no means far from our predictions as this was reported in
“Top 15 Most Popular Social Networking Sites and Apps”, a 2018 article of Kallas. The
article also stated that Facebook held the predominant position in the number of regular
users with a staggering 2.2 billion monthly users and this was followed by that of
YouTube with 1.8 billion monthly users. However, while there is an exponential growth
in the number of users, not many of them know how to use social network suitably.
Therefore, as regards effective use of social network, this necessitates some feasible
solutions which would be further discussed in the following section.

Taking time spending for social network into consideration is a serious matter
considering this acts as one of several crucial factors when evaluating the effectiveness of
student utilization. As shown in the Figure 1, it is evident to conclude that there are
immense differences in time distribution of social network use between students which is
mainly because of their distinct purposes. The outcome of the research indicate that an
overwhelming majority of users allocate from 1 to 3 hours surfing social networking
sites. M.Q., a respondent, affirm that he only accesses to social sites in his idle time and
occasionally use smart phone to rely messages on Facebook in class. In sharp contrast,
some students couldn’t restrain themselves on surfing and use social network
superfluously to gain social attention on their virtual life which, potentially, could distort
individual’s sense of self and sense of other people. This phenomenon was explained by
Matthews (2014) in his article as he articulated that not many efficient users of social
network could circumvent the desire of using it as a tool to gauge their position in the
world.

6
From the perspective of an individual, the social media platforms could be utilized for
searching information, maintaining contact networks or finding entertaining content.
Bearing this in mind, we asked 50 surveyors what purposes of social network they find
most useful and the result by no means exceeds our expectations. It shows that most
students use social network to keep in touch with friends and stay informed on current
news through Facebook and Instagram. Besides intended purposes, there are also digital
consumers who purely surf the feed to look for amusement. This habit was explained by
M.H., a Sophomore of BA, “one of my recreational activities is going through hilarious
memes and sensational videos on Facebook’s newsfeed.” Another reason why students
use social network is acquiring knowledge. A paradigm of this is YouTube, a video-
sharing social network site, is used routinely by students to widen their understanding.
Nowadays, not only could students study at school but they also could enrich their
knowledge by watching online lectures which are uploaded daily and updated frequently.

4.2. The positive effects of using social media

After analyzing from collected data, we claim that there is a positive correlation between
social media use and the maintenance of social intercourse as a vast number of students
interviewed define social media as a positive influence for their social life. Even though
there is a representation of users who found social media harmful for their social
experience in our sample, this number is relatively low. This is most likely due to the fact
that all of the second-year college students in our sample use social media to connect
with their friends and relatives. As stated by P.T., a student in BA, she was initially
opposed to the idea of using social media just to avoid the fear of missing out, but was
soon compelled to do so and eventually found a real pleasure in having online
conversations to crystallize relationships. For P.T., Facebook is an implicit solution to
keep in touch with her high school friends and acquaintances from her hometown as a
boarding student.

It can also be concluded from our survey results that students can employ social media as
a learning platform at different school levels. According to Terregrossa and Wang (2010),
social media is a lot more momentous than its advantages and its users often have poor
performance academically. Nevertheless, 58% of participants in the survey appreciate the
existence of social media in their academic progress. Female B.A. Freshman P.A.

7
reported that using online technologies encourage online discussion among students in
her class after the classes, beyond the classic class setting. By interacting after school,
students have more opportunity to transform their own understanding through revision
with their friends online.

As depicted in Figure 2, another focal positive impact of social media is to strengthen

mental health. It is generally established that social ties can exert powerful beneficial
effects on students’ psychological well-being. Added to that, most participants in our
survey spend time socializing on social network find it helpful. Therefore, most students
proclaim that social platforms are likely to generate desired mental health conditions.
From interviews with students, it can also be seen that only a small proportion of
respondents enhanced their soft skills, physical health, financial situation, and worldly
wisdom.

Considering all of the above advantages, we can conclude that social media has become
an irreplaceable tool - as T.A., a male B.A. student describes - “used to facilitate effective
communications, stay healthy, promote businesses, boost up world knowledge and soft
skills.”

4.3. The negative effects of using social media

While social networks do bring about a lot of conveniences, they also introduce a certain
number of challenges according to our research. The data we collected from inspecting
the influences of social networks on 7 different aspects of our participants’ lives were
especially noteworthy.

Soft Skills and Physical Health stand out as the aspects that receive overwhelmingly
detrimental effects. The decline in students’ soft skills is possibly due to people’s lack of
proper responses to the rise of smartphones. Social media has become so accessible to
students, who already have limited communication skills, that they have got significantly
less involved in direct interactions due to convenience (Anonymous. 2015).
Consequently, students are becoming less and less experienced in face to face
communication and team work and they are less likely to pick up subtle body language
cues (Irwin. 2014). Excessive social network use also accounts for B.A. students’ decline
in physical health. There have also been many reports of students having reduced

8
eyesight and sleep deprivation. Moreover, exercise routines are also occupied by
unnecessary online time and make-up sleep time (Nazzal, Rabee, Ba’ara & Berte. 2018).

The setbacks caused to the average B.A. student's World Knowledge, Finance and
Academic Progress are reported largely inconsequential. However, looking at Figure 2,
we can see that even though social media is generally perceived approvingly more than it
is adversely, when it does receive criticism, there’s a significantly higher chance that the
critique takes the matter seriously, as the total number of “very negatively” results
doubles that of “very positively” ones. In particular, social media has been condemned
for the decline of a certain number of students’ mental health and social interaction
quality. This probably stems from a widespread problem called cyber-bullying, which
only a few students suffer from, but as our findings have shown, it’s still worth pointing
out. According to researches, over-excitement and the impulse to throw insults are very
common among young Vietnamese people nowadays. “They hardly ever put their
emotions under control and would be willing to assault anyone as part of an angry mob
(Huynh. 2015).” Male B.A. Freshman and pet lover C.C. claimed, “Facebook comment
sections are ridiculous, people can insult one another for literally anything. I only said
Hanoi should ban dog meat once and was already taken aback by the sheer number of
protestants and bitter argumentum ad hominem (personal attack fallacy) I received.”

Moving on to Figure 3, where we surveyed how far each of the five particular issues have
affected our students, we can see that the biggest problems our students have faced when
it comes to social media are disruptiveness, fake news, addiction, and violation of private
information. Meanwhile, Phishing/Scams and Cyber Bullying do not take much of a toll
on them. Another B.A. Sophomore named H.L. admitted that she finds discussing group
assignments on Facebook distracting sometimes because her newsfeed would constantly
be bombarded with new messages and K-Pop news, so she often tries her best to stay
away from it while studying. Besides, with the booming of social media, fake news is
also on the rise and public opinions are manipulated for sales, political purposes and even
personal retaliation more easily than ever (Pham. 2018). On the issue of addiction,
experts argue that people using social media for too many a purpose and sites like
Facebook capitalizing on this situation to develop itself into such a tight ecosystem
consisting of a wide variety of useful utilities have led to it becoming harder and harder

9
to distance ourselves from social media. Social networks are now where we
communicate, read, learn, do group assignments, work, and go shopping. As Pham
(2017) wrote in an article, netizens’ whole lives and works now depend on the use of
social media. With regards the violation of private information, 68% of our participants
acknowledge the existence of the issue’s impact on their own lives, considering our
research took place only months after the Facebook class-action lawsuit for selling
records of users’ activities. According to Pham (2018) in another article, “Every click of
the mouse, deliberate or not, is recorded to later be turned into a commodity.” However,
more than half of the above 68% also take it merely as a trivial kind of issue. Student
H.L. also commented, “I don’t think of it as a big deal, I never bother looking at ads (that
appear based on my search history and online activities) anyways. I believe I can tolerate
the problem.”

5. Recommendations
For most B.A. students, it is necessary for them to utilize social networks wisely and
mindfully. Indeed, the students deal with online issues on a day-to-day basis, so a need
for a proper recommendation is critical.

To begin with, in order to deplete the impact of given issues, the university needs to
conduct training on tactics for networking effectively on social media. The training
resources could come in a variety of formats: specialized training sessions, blog posts on
intranets, video, or some simple how-to sheets. These training resources are likely to
solve all of the most daunting challenges faced by students, but the problem is the cost as
these materials should be created by a specialist.

Moving forward, students should be aware of the harms and follow certain rules, such as
limit your online schedule, try to participate in more offline activities, avoid clicking on
suspicious links and giving out private information, stay away from online arguments, or
use ad blockers. Though this particular habit is troublesome at the moment, they will
ensure that every individual within the university is cautious about online issues.

To sum up, if both the university and the students implement above-mentioned
suggestions, the result will not only eliminate the problem but will benefit both parties in
the future.

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6. Conclusion
In conclusion, our research has shown four main issues which are on account of using the
social network and the concerned impact of it to B.A. students. We expect that the
research is bound to help students of B.A. to receive more information and to
comprehend its positive and negative sides. According to BA’s students, the largest
advantages of joining the social network are social intercourse, mental health
improvement and the advancement of studying methods through online communication.
In some circumstances, its overusing weakens students’ physically and discourages them
from furthering their soft skills. Students also have to deal with specific problems while
using the social network, namely addiction, disruption from study or work and fake news.
We hope that the growth of social networks in the future will not only help students more
in studying but also affect their lives in less negative ways.

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 REFERENCES

Alexa. (2018). Alexa Top 500 Global Sites. Retrieved from URL:
https://www.alexa.com/topsites

Brenner and Smith. (2013, August 5). 72% of Online Adults Are Social Networking Sites
Users. Retrieved from URL: http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/08/05/72-of-online-adults-
are-social-networking-site-users/

Pritt Kallas. (2018, August 2). Top 15 Most Popular Social Networking Sites and Apps [August
2018]. DreamGrow. Retrieved from URL: https://www.dreamgrow.com/top-15-most-
popular-social-networking-sites/

Dan Matthews. (2014, June 6). How Effective People Use Social Media. Forbes.
Retrieved from URL: https://www.forbes.com/sites/danmatthews/2014/06/06/how-
effective-people-use-social-media/#4ef10e2d6a40

Englander, Terregrossa and Wang (2010). Educational Review. Journal of Education.

62(1): 85 -96.

Anonymous. (2015). The Negative Impacts of Social Media on Face-to-Face Interactions.

Retrieved from URL: https://rampages.us/peasedn200/2015/12/01/final-inquiry-project/

Stacey Irwin. (2014). The most-social media is face to face. TEDxLancaster. Retrieved
from URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNGvhO8XNrE

K. Minh. (2015). The harms of Facebook and the dangers of crowd psychology.
Vietnamnet. Retrieved from URL: http://vietnamnet.vn/vn/doi-song/tac-hai-cua-
facebook-va-moi-nguy-cua-tam-ly-dam-dong-254741.html

Pham Hai Chung. (2018). The naive trust. VnExpress. Retrieved from URL:
https://vnexpress.net/goc-nhin/niem-tin-tho-ngay-3813628.html

Pham Hai Chung. (2018). Privacy is a commodity. VnExpress. Retrieved from URL:
https://vnexpress.net/goc-nhin/doi-tu-la-hang-hoa-3726136.html

Pham Hai Chung. (2017). Addicted to Facebook. VnExpress. Retrieved from URL:
https://vnexpress.net/goc-nhin/nghien-facebook-3609981.html

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Zaher Nazzal, ABCM. Hadi Rabee’, MD. Mohammad Ba'ara, MD. and Denis Berte,
PhD. (2018). Excessive Facebook use and physical and mental health risks in the
occupied Palestinian territory: a cross-sectional study. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-
6736(18)30363-5

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 APPENDICES
APPENDIX A

QUESTIONNAIRE

We are a group of students in Banking Academy who are dedicated to researching on

Banking Academy students’ social media use. As a group, we would like your feedback
so we can find out a better way to use the social media more effectively. All responses
and comments are 100% confidential. The information will be utilized to create some
suggestions for Banking Academy students to use the social network efficiently. We
appreciate your time and honesty in completing this survey. Thank you!

1. Which is your gender?

 Male

 Female

2. Which social platforms do you use? (choose all that applies)?

☐ Facebook

☐ Instagram

☐ YouTube

☐ Dating Sites (Tinder, OkCupid, etc.)

☐ Reddit

☐ Tumblr

☐ Other : ______________

14
3. How much time per day do you spend on social networks?

<1h 1h-3h 3h-5h >5h

Facebook    

Instagram    

Youtube    

Dating Sites
(Tinder,    
OkCupid, etc.)

Reddit    

Tumblr    

Other:________
   
_____

15
 4. Which social networks do you use for what purposes? (choose all that
applies)

Communication Learnin Extracurricula New Planned Simply I Other

s Entertainment surf (specify)
g r tasks don'
the
feed t use
and
see
what
amuses
me.
Facebook ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
Instagram ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
Youtube ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
Dating Sites
(Tinder, ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
OkCupid, etc.)
Reddit ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
Tumblr ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
Other:_______
☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
_

5. How important are social networks to you?

 Not at All

 A little

 Somewhat important

 Important

 Irreplaceable

16
 6. How has social networking sites affected certain aspects of your life?

Very Negatively Not at All Positively Very

Negatively Positively

Social Life     

Academic
    
Progress

Physical Health     

Mental Health     

Finance     

World
    
Knowledge

Soft Skills     

17
7. How often do you try to use social networks effectively?

 Never

 Occasionally

 Sometimes

 Often

 Always

8. What have you done in order to use social networking sites effectively?
(choose all that applies, check only "Nothing" if you chose "Never" for the
last question)

☐ Limit your time online per day and try to follow

☐ Making timetable for getting online

☐ Participating in more offline activities

☐ Plan ahead what you are going to do before getting online

☐ Avoid online arguments

☐ Not clicking on suspicious links

☐ Not giving private information on untrustworthy sites

☐ Using AdBlock

☐ Nothing

☐ Other : __________________________________________________

18
 9. How severely have the online issues below affected you?

Not at All A Little Somewhat Badly Very badly

Addiction     

Fake News     

Cyber Bullying     

Phishing &
    
Scams

Distracted from
    
study/work

Private Info
    
Stolen/Violated

10. What have you done when one of the issues above affected you? (choose
all that applies, if you tick “Nothing”, don’t tick anything else)

☐ Nothing

☐ Attempted to fix it

☐ Punished yourself

☐ Promised to do better next time

☐ Other : __________________________________________________

19
APPENDIX B

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Regarding Use:

- Which social networking sites do you use and for what purposes each?

- How do you spend time on those sites on a daily basis?

2. Regarding Impacts:

- How have social networks affected certain aspects of your life (such as Social
Life, Academic Progress, Physical & Mental Health, Finance, World Knowledge
and Soft Skills)?

- What is your level of awareness of the impacts of the following social-network-

related issues: Addiction, Fake News, Cyber Bullying, Phishing/Scams,
Disruptiveness from study/work, Private Info Violation.

- How seriously have they affected you on a personal level?

3. Regarding suggestions:

- What have you done to use social networking sites effectively and prevent the
above problems? To what extent do you follow your own rules?

- What have you done/will you do if these problems affect you directly? How
effective do you think your solutions are?

- What do you think the university and government should do to prevent such
problems from occurring to students?

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21