Have Contemporary Students Lost Their Identity? The Impact of New Technologies on Today’s Education

The modern world and its fast-changing educational sector, influenced by constant technological advances, as well as the reforms and requirements of the educational authorities, have brought an enormous impact on how languages are taught nowadays. This puts enormous pressure on teachers to design curricula that meet these new institutional expectations. In this sense, the world of education is no different from power relations existing in other institutions, with specific emphasis on the issues around the means of acquisition and production of knowledge. This study analyses the influence of students’ involvement in social networking on their potential to learn. The specific focus is placed on how Facebook or Twitter has successfully redefined students’ priorities through modifying their systems of values and stressing the importance of collecting “likes” and gaining virtual popularity. This research provides a profile of contemporary youth on the basis of questionnaires and interviews with numerous primary and secondary school teachers, as well as by using media sources — which are mainly responsible for shaping public image and opinion — from three quality Polish news magazines: Newsweek, Wprost, and Polityka. The author adopted the qualitative approach to the presented study and conducted a long-term analysis of the changing image of Polish learners, in order to comprehend the roots of the phenomenon presented and the various metaphorical names attached to them. Therefore, is the zombie generation the outcome of our own actions? Based on the study findings, specific pedagogic advice if offered. Specifically, when working with contemporary students, educators need to develop a completely new awareness in order to “update” their knowledge and pedagogical skills.