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BYU-Hawaii courses are tying in social media to their assignments and encouraging students to take a studious viewpoint at the ways they can incorporate it into their learning. Classes such as “The Psychology of Social Media” taught by Assistant Professor Brian Kinghorn promote the use of social media by assigning students weekly blog posts and Twitter tweets. “I’ve used social media to do school projects, and instead of having to meet up, we can just message each other at our convenience,” said Hailey Page, a junior from California studying secondary education.BYUH students said social media helps them communicate with classmates but warned it can also be a distraction.“I feel like I have not been in a full class period where I’m not clicking between my notes and Facebook. It’s crazy,” said Heidi Wolfgramm, a junior from New Zealand studying psychology. Wolfgramm said even though she may seem addicted, the advances in social media have not changed her interpersonal relationships. However, grandparents of the digital generation said they have noticed a change in their relationships with their grandchildren. “My grandkids are always sitting there with their phones and not really paying attention to what is going on right now. They’re not involved with what’s happening here, and they’re always concerned with something outside of the room,” said Sister Fuller, a senior missionary from California. Advances in social media have created ways to communicate that would have seemed unthinkable and strange to people just a few decades ago. These advances have created a bridge for students to communicate with people they don’t know.“I use Facebook to find stuff that I need through groups on there,” said Christopher Joyce, a freshman from New Zealand studying psychology. He said the groups he uses consist of local community members who post things they’re either looking to sell or buy. “I’m still old-school. Social media isn’t really my thing other than for buying and selling things,” Joyce said.

Shootings in Munich, suicide bombers in Brussels, drivers running amok in Nice, and many more reports on the news keep Europeans on alert. Over the summer break, I had the pleasure of traveling back home to Europe and visiting other countries. During my time there, I observed the effects the recent terror attacks have had on the news; terror attacks in Europe flash on the news on a nearly daily basis.Students and faculty of BYU-Hawaii attribute a lot of the fear of rising terror to lurid news reporting. “What news is,“ said Troy Smith, professor of political science, “depends to a large extent on the perspective of the readers. We humans are moved by sensationalism, emotion and sentiment. If you want somebody to read through a story, that is what will capture their attention.”According to The Guardian, religious terrorist attacks are rising, although separatist terrorism has significantly decreased in the last 40 years. The definition of terror attacks often differs in the news from official sources. So does the categorization and the localization as well, meaning the news defines and reports incidents such as shootings in other ways than officials would, The Guardian reported.“Flawed methodologies and media bias contribute to this unreliability, but trends do emerge when looking at where – and how often – such incidents occur,” The Guardian reported. The author said it is almost impossible to say if the feeling in Europe that terror is on the rise is justified. The rise in reporting is not equal to the rise of terror, and need to be held apart.The sensationalistic people fuel this fire on the news, giving the reports of terror a huge audience, said Nathan Young-ha Kim, an accounting freshman from South Korea. “The number of shootings and suicides have gone up in occurrence, but people like to cover those stories because it gets heard. Even though people don’t like what is happening, they like to talk about how awful it is. Especially out here, people are posting things on social media where it’s all mostly for attention when you state your opinion on what is happening.”Montes Jonathan Comeau, following this opinion, an accounting sophomore from Massachusetts, said, “I don’t think it is as much the media’s fault, as it is the consumer’s – us. They might say that a bombing happened, but then everybody will take it out of proportion. Yes, terror is a problem and we should be aware, but not in that way.”Dr. Smith said with the Internet society, it is not like in the 60s and 70s where everybody received the same kind of information from a handful of the major media sources. “Now you can go and get whatever information feeds your biases.”“A lot of people want to talk it up in the media,” said Evan Dickson, a biochemistry junior from Washington D.C. “We get bombarded by these things, but still there is an increase in these happenings.” Dickson said though “bad news sells,” terror attacks as a matter of fact become more common in our day. The top ten countries with the most terror attacks in recent years lie without exception in the Middle East, according to the Global Terrorism Database. Dickson said he understands the fear some Americans may have of its immigrants, because Americans tie the terror attacks to the immigration problem in Europe.Yet geographic distance also plays into the collective feeling of safety. Kim said out here in Laie and back home in Korea, the topics on the media relating to European happenings are less. Dickson observed, “It is interesting how desensitized people get by the flood of reports on terror attacks. It is almost part of everyday life now. Growing up in a place where it is not as common, and now as the world is becoming smaller, places those things closer. At the same time, it is not hitting me as hard because it is happening all the time now. It should be dramatic.”Comeau said though the media sometimes exaggerates facts, it doesn’t stop the fact that things are happening. “I think it’s a sign for Jesus to come. All that’s going on in the media also can help people understand this is the end of times. It is time to prepare.”