Today we live in a world with the technological era where we see that children and young people are the most modernized as they use social networks very often without taking into account the responsibility they have; However, it is necessary to mention the interactions we have with other people or as a society, it is important to take into account that in the educational field today students have low school performance due to excessive abuse of social networks which is estimated that students are connected to social networks today do not consider studies as a means to escape poverty as demonstrated by the results applied through a survey of students.

Keywords: social networks, responsible, interactions, society, performance, school, school performance

To talk about social networks is to talk about cutting-edge technology, which today we are living at least with this new generation where children are considered digital technology, taking into account that social networks are the set of interactions between people, work groups or also as a whole society. At present, children are not using social networks responsibly because they have considered that technological media and social networks cover that emotional part due to the absence of parents.

However, the objective of the present research is to analyze how the use of social networks influences low school performance by means of a survey of students from 8 to 12 years of age from the "Jorge Matilla Ortega" Educational Unit. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to know the reality of the students in recent times of how they are developing academically through the use of technology; it is also transcendental to express the importance of conducting this research since it is of vital importance for the parents representing the students, since it will be known what are the anomalies that the students present in terms of pedagogical level.

But when we talk about the responsible use of social networks, we can state that nowadays parents do not have that precaution with the responsible use of social networks in children because nowadays parents work to give them a better life and we forget that our children today spend only connected to a technological device for this reason the following essay describes the responsible use of social networks that have been considered by the following actors.

Currently, children and young people only promote leisure; since they spend all day connected with family and friends without considering the danger they have because through social networks can spread assaults, extortion, kidnappings and even child trafficking. It is important to note that students no longer have the spirit to learn because social networks have become a means of entertainment and at their age, they are not aware that they can often be in danger because they spend all day connected.

For Technology often gives us an illusion of companionship without the demands of face-to-face friendship. The problem is that adolescents hide behind a screen and do not know how to relate in real life. In addition, this type of relationship can have the attraction of offering them certain pleasurable emotions that they do not easily find in real life. Nowadays, children and young people have problems relating to others, they are more shy and have few friends because technology has isolated them from people, they only know how to communicate through social networks.

Another anomaly presented by children from 8 to 12 years old are the low grades in the educational field, since there is no control by the representatives of the children, boys and girls present low school performance among other anomalies. For Pelegrin¹ recent studies show that, in general, families do not establish parental control over the use of digital media; However, some families present conflicts related to excessive time in digital media by their sons and daughters, relating this to the loss of time and its negative consequence in the academic field, this is generated by not controlling the parents the necessary time of the use of social networks many of the times we leave the children many hours on the computer without realizing that is actually what they are doing and this attracts in the pedagogical field bad grades because the use of networks are not considered for many children and young people as a mechanism to study if not to play converse among other things.

On the contrary, the interest is focused on the relationship between the excessive use of social networks and its relationship with learning disabilities, as well as the presence of symptoms and signs that are associated with psychomotor diseases that can trigger chronic diseases Hernández² when students already have an excessive use of networks not only entails having poor grades can also be associated with diseases such as depression, anxiety, impulsivity or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) which are risk diseases for children and young people.

The purpose of this article is to make known the reality that is currently being experienced by students in the educational field. The research is descriptive exploratory and the methodology applied is the collection of data through an online survey applied to students and representatives of the fifth grade of General Basic Education of the Jorge Mantilla Ortega Educational Unit. A total of 103 students were surveyed, from 8,9,10,11,12 years of age, from 4^th to 8^th grade at the "Jorge Mantilla Ortega" Educational Unit. Once the volunteers, who were the students, were contacted to answer the survey that was shared through a link, permission was requested from their representatives, taking into account that they are minors, and the objectives of the present investigation were explained. The anonymity of the answers was guaranteed and no person refused.

Graph N. 1 grade of the students of the Educational Unit "Jorge Mantilla Ortega".

With respect to the grade or course that the students are in, 32 students in eighth grade corresponds to 31.1% while 31 students in fifth grade corresponds to 30.1%, 29 students in sixth grade corresponds to 28.2%, 9 students in fourth grade corresponds to 8.7% followed by 7th grade which corresponds to 2 students with 1.9% Figure 1.

Figure 1 The age of the students.

With respect to the age of the students surveyed it can be described that of the 103 students 34 students are 12 years old, which corresponds to 33%, 27 are 10 years old, which corresponds to 26:2%, 19 are 9 years old, which corresponds to 18.4%, followed by 17 students who are 11 years old, which corresponds to 16.5% and 6 students are 8 years old, which corresponds to 5.8%.

Regarding question N. 1 regarding whether you are familiar with social networks

Considering question N.1, 97 students out of 103 respondents (94.2%) stated that they know what social networks are, while 6 students (5.8%) stated that they do not know what social networks are.

Regarding question N.2 on what social networks do you use?

Regarding question N.2 on what social networks students use, the following are described:

Out of 103 respondents ,38 students this corresponds to 36.9% state that they use WhatsApp, 32 students state Tiktok this corresponds to 31.1 %,16 students which corresponds to 15.5%manifest that it is Facebook ,6 students which corresponds to 5.8% state that it is YouTube, 4 students which corresponds to 3.9% state that none and the other networks described in the graph corresponds to 1% which corresponds to 1 student.

Regarding question N.3 on how many hours the student uses social networks, the following question was asked

Of the 103 respondents 69 students stated that from 2 to 4 hours they use social networks which corresponds to 67% and 6 students stated from 4 to 6 hours which corresponds to 5.8% 2 students stated that from 6 to 8 hours this corresponds to 1.9% as well as there are students who use all day long which corresponds to 1% as others who use less than 30 minutes, you must when at no time.

Regarding question N.4, which states whether parents are aware of the hours of connection to social networks.

Of the 103 respondents answered in question N.3 that 86.4% (89 students) are aware of their children's connection hours, while 13.6% (14 students) said that their parents are not aware of their children's connection hours to social networks. Regarding question N.5 which states that you think that social networks cover the absence of parents because they work all day long.

Of the 103 students, 83 said that they do not cover social networks in the absence of parents, which corresponds to 80.6%, but 20 students said that they do, which corresponds to 19.4% of the respondents.

Regarding question N.6 which states that in your free time you dedicate your time to:

Of the 103 students it can be stated that 65% of students, which corresponds to 67 students only spend time playing on the networks followed by 23.3%, which corresponds to 24 students, who state that they spend time studying while 11.7% only spend time connected to the social networks, which corresponds to 12 students.

Regarding question N.7, which states Why do you think that there are currently students with low school performance (low grades)? 

Of the 103 students, 56 (51.5%) stated that they only spend time playing on the networks, 26 stated that they do not like to study (23.3%) and 17 students (16.5%) because they have friends on the networks and spend time chatting all the time, among other causes that are reflected in the 1%.

With respect to graph N1, which refers to the grade or course, it can be seen that the students with the highest number of respondents were those in eighth and fifth grade, since seventh grade was considered the grade with the least number of respondents. Regarding the age of the surveyed students in the graph N.2 it can be described that the surveyed students comprises from 8 years old to 12 years old considering that the number of surveyed students is 12 years old students and the age with the lowest number of surveyed students is 8 years old. With respect to question N.1, it can be stated that most of the students have knowledge about what social networks are, this gives us an alert since we can realize that we are living in an era where technology and social networks intend to gain ground in some aspects, considering that they are useful. Continuing with the question N.2 about which social networks students use, some of them are reflected, but the most popular is WhatsApp followed by Tiktok and Facebook, which are the most used by students from 8 to 12 years old. With respect to question No. 3, it is evident that we have students who are using social networks all day long, so we can see the risk that children and adolescents run today, since we do not know who they talk to on the networks and parents often have no knowledge of what they are doing. Question 4 makes us realize that parents are aware of their children's connection hours, but it is evident that we do nothing to correct this anomaly, since it is not wise for children and adolescents of this age to spend many hours connected to social networks, while a smaller percentage of parents do not know their children's connection hours, which shows that we are not aware of our children's needs.

With respect to question N.5, which states that social networks cover the absence of parents because they only spend time working, it is important to collect this data because if we have students who consider that social networks cover the absence of parents, this should be taken into consideration to avoid future young people with emotional problems. With respect to question N.6, it can be stated that the problem studied is evident since the students only spend time playing and connected to social networks with a higher number of students in the three alternatives, while less than half of the students dedicate themselves to study. Regarding question No. 7, it is worrying because it is reflected that students do not like to study, so they only spend time chatting on social networks or playing games, considering that if they do not study, what will become of the future of these children?³

It has been shown that currently students have low school performance due to excessive use of social networks this is because there is no control by representatives or family members and consider that they do not like the study because they find it easy to make content through them without considering that even to use social networks an advanced level of study is needed to make content.  It is important to take into account as parents what our children are doing on social networks due to many anomalies that are happening worldwide, it is important to improve rules of good use of social networks, raising awareness that should not be allowed to be connected all day to a social network where you do not know who they talk to in order to avoid future damage to children and young people.

I want to thank God first of all for allowing this contribution to be of great help to parents and researchers in the area of education, I also want to thank my father because he always instilled in me that perseverance goes a long way and my son because he always accompanies me in this dream that became a reality being a reference for him and all my teachers.

The author declares there is no conflict of interest.

1. Rita Cánovas-Pelegrín FJPL. Adolescents' perception of social media consumption. Relatec. 2022;22(1):124–125.
2. Kelly Deysi Hernández Mite MJ. Social networks and adolescences: impact on physical activity. Revista Universidad y Sociedad. 2017;9(2):242–247.
3. Ángela del Barrio Fernández, Isabel Ruiz Fernández. Teens and the use of social networks. Redalyc Org. 2014;3(1):571–576.