Social media has become an extremely prevalent part of our society. It aids as a means to spread news, keep connected with friends, and rekindle old relationships. The opposite of this is when social media is used with negative intent. When social media is not used as it is intended, problems arise. Schools are now cracking down on social media and giving out more punishments for it. Schools are monitoring students social media through faculty members’ personal accounts and third party monitoring companies.

But should schools be able to watch what kids say this closely? Teenagers and social media are a combination that seem to cause many problems.

Staff attorney at the Digital Media Law Project Andy Sellar said in an interview with NBC, “if you share something publicly on social media, you should expect the world to read it”.

Social media’s impact is often overlooked by its users. An option on Twitter is to be private, meaning only those you allow to “follow” you can read what you tweet. However, tweets are never truly private. They can be photographed and shown to whomever; being “private” gives the user a sense of false security.

Although law enforcement agencies do not always pay close attention to social media sites, there are private companies that will do so for the right amount of money. This causes many problems for users.

According to a CNN report, the Glendale, California school district is paying 40,500 to a private firm to surf, observe and report on what the students are doing to their schools. This price is for one year for this company to survey what students from the district post and if any posts are threatening, the company must report it to the proper authorities. Is this fair?

When asked about this action taken by the school district, Superintendent Richard Sheehan said in an interview with First Coast News, “[Due to the use of the private company] We were able to save a life.” This refers to an incident in which a student posted life threatening messages but due to the work of  the private company, the school was able to address this with the student and parents. Sheehan believes that after two suicides at the school in the past two years, this was a necessary precaution.

Student Young Cho, a sixteen-year-old in the Glendale school district, tells New York Daily News, “We all know social media is not a private place, not really a safe place.” He went on to say, “It’s not the same as being in school. It’s students’ expression of their own thoughts and feeling to their friends. For the school to intrude in that area — I understand they can do it, but I don’t think it’s right.”

In other news, Emma Sullivan, a senior in high school, was forced to write an apology letter to the Kansas Governor Sam Brownback after a tweet she sent while on a school field trip. Sullivan’s tweet read, “Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot.”

A member of the Governor’s office caught wind of this tweet showed it to the Governor who later called the school and demanded disciplinary action. The principal demanded that an apology letter should be written to the Governor, but hearing this proposal, Sullivan immediately disagreed and stated, “ I believe that it is my right to state my opinion.”

Is this taking it too far?

At Burlington High School in Burlington, Massachusetts, senior Brian O’Connell was given three days of in-school suspension and other disciplinary actions after tweeting about a teacher’s continuous sayings during class. O’Connell was more specific in saying that the repetitive statement made by the teacher was, “Does that make sense?”

English teacher Shannon Janovitz whom the tweet was about was shown the tweet by her husband. Janovitz then brought this to the principal who enforced further discipline. When asked if she was a fan of social media, Janovitz responded, “ I do not care for it because I feel students abuse it and are too rude to one another and faculty.”
O’Connell was furious about the discipline he had to face for his tweet. When asked about the incident he stated, “I don’t think that anything was wrong with what I tweeted. It isn’t my fault she says that all of the time.” Still fighting his point, O’Connell was furious in his response.
Twitter doesn’t only affect just those who are tweeting. It can affect others as well.  Are these reason enough for the country to begin to watch a person’s every move and every message sent? Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt said in an interview with NBC News, “Spying is the nature of our society.”
Obviously not everything in the world is preventable. In an NBC interview, Jay Stanley senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, said, “We could stop bad things from happening if we install cameras in everyone’s bedroom in America.”

Plausible? Probably not; however, it is up for debate.