Social Media in the Eye of Parents

The purpose of this study is to identify the views of parents about social media. In accordance with phenomenological research design, one of qualitative research methods, the data was collected with semi-structured interview questions developed by the researcher under the control of experts. In the determination of the work group of the study the criterion sampling was used. The data was collected by recording the interviews and analysed by using the content analysis. In the findings of the study, the opinions of the parents about the effects of social median on students’ behaviours were grouped as positive and negative behaviours. While parents stated that “gathering information about the lessons” and “positive shares” are important positive behaviours, students’ “wasting time” and “causing violence” were stated as negative behaviours. An important ratio of the parents stated that social media may improve students academically, however, more than half of the parents stated that social media could not improve students school success as students waste their time on social media and do not use it for educational purposes. According to parents, social media supports education by providing easiness to reach information and including so many sources. Causing waste of time and being exposed to undesirable content are accepted as obstacles to education. In order to have a more educative social media, parents suggest that we should raise awareness of using social media healthily. People should share more educational sources on social media and a mechanism to supervise social median must be developed.


Introduction
It is not possible to define educational institutions and the environmental factors that affect their functioning with sharp lines. For this reason, it is difficult to determine the boundaries of educational institutions with a very complex environment and to determine the dimensions of the environment of educational institutions. Educational institutions are in constant interaction with their environment, and the structure and characteristics of this environment are important in terms of education (Aydoğan, 2006:122). Social media, which we can define as one of the new environmental elements of the school today, is an example of this environment where it is not possible to determine the boundaries. Stating that students acquire new learning styles with the innovations brought by technology, Bynum (2011) recommends that students be taught how to use social media correctly.
By increasing the interaction between students, social media develops the necessary inquiry and research skills in educational processes such as problem solving, sharing content, interacting with teachers and fellow students, problem solving, cooperation and creative learning (Gülbahar, Kalelioğlu, & Madran, 2010). Now, students can create and share content on social media without having too much technical knowledge (Düvenci, 2012: 46). For this reason, content in social media emerges as an environmental element that is difficult to control. It is considered important to carry out studies on the use of social media, which is one of the inevitable phenomena of our age, in educational processes. It is seen that the studies conducted mainly examine the commercial use of social media and as a political instrument that can direct societies, and studies in terms of education are limited. Argın (2013), who believes that social networks can be turned into an opportunity in terms of education, stated that students spend a significant part of their time on social networks. Şahin (2021) also asserted that social media had been used as a medium for communication among the students and instructors during Covid-19 pandemic and this new crisis increased the use of social media as a means of instruction or a medium to learn school topics.
Advocating similar views, Ellison (2008) stated that social networks have the potential to support educational activities, and that users can connect to each other and support different learning styles that can develop inside or outside the classroom. Social media can support education by improving communication and interaction in many ways (Anderson, 2004). Social media can provide important contributions such as cooperation among participants, distribution of tasks, effective and fast communication, and instant answers to questions. It has been stated by many researchers (Mazman, 2009;Anderson, 2004;Ellison, 2008;Munoz & Towner, 2009) that social media can be an important tool in organizing educational activities and has pedagogical features.
It is desired that social media, which has the characteristics of being used in many different fields from trade to politics, can also be used as an educational supporting element in the education and training activities. Social media, which is easy to use with technological devices that are very easy to reach by phones and tablets, especially when the students are interested in digital technology, has many different features that students can use in their education processes. Although social media has advantages such as ease of use make it attractive, concerns about the shared content and student profile, age depended dangers like being deceived easily, it is thought that it may contain significant risks. For this reason, it is necessary to reduce the risks by supporting the use of social media for educational purposes by developing new methods and techniques.
This research is important in terms of determining the views of parents who have students in secondary and high school schools about social media. It is aimed to develop some suggestions in line with the research findings and the opinions of the parents. This study is considered important, especially since the determination of opinions and suggestions for the effective use of social media as an educational tool in line with the opinions of the parents will affect the concrete studies to be done in this direction.
The study sought answers to the following questions: 1. What are the parents' opinions on the effect of social media on students' behavior? 2. What are the parents' opinions on the effect of social media on academic achievement? 3. What are the parents'opinionsn on the features of social media that support and hinder education? 4. What are the parents' suggestions regarding the educational use of social media?

Research Pattern
In this study, which was designed in accordance with the phenomenology pattern, one of the qualitative research designs, it was aimed to determine the views of the parents on social media. Langridge (2007: 10) defined phenomenology as a field that studies how people perceive phenomena and their experiences. Phenomenology, whose founder is accepted as Husserl (Groenewald, 2004;Langridge, 2007), has been described by Husserl as "pure phenomenon" (Eagleton, 1983:56). Phenomenology, which is prominent in doctoral thesis studies (Simon & Goes, 2011: 1) and social science fields, examines the essence of people's experiences and examines the structure of this experience (Yıldırım & Şimşek, 2011;Christensen, Johson & Turner, 2010;Langridge, 2007;Patton , 2014). In this study, a phenomenological design was used to reveal the essence of the parents' experiences regarding the social media phenomenon and to obtain a more holistic perspective.

Working Group
In qualitative research, the aim is not to generalize to the universe, but to investigate the central phenomenon in depth (Creswell, 2012: 206). In qualitative research, a sample is not randomly selected from a representative population. Instead, the researcher carefully and purposefully selects participants who can present rich situation information (Patton, 2014: 46). In phenomenological studies, the participant group consists of people who can reflect their experiences and experiences about the phenomenon that the study focuses on (Yıldırım & Şimşek, 2011: 74). The participants of this research consist of parents who have students in public and private secondary and high schools affiliated to the Provincial Directorate of National Education within the provincial borders of Tokat. In the determination of the parents, the criteria of having a student in secondary and high school level, having at least one social media account of the parent and the student, and having the opportunity to connect to the internet at home were taken into consideration. Reaching a certain saturation regarding the number of participants and repetition of participant views is a rule agreed upon by many researchers (Patton, 2014;Yıldırım & Şimşek, 2011). In line with this rule, 30 parents were interviewed in this study. Table 1 shows the characteristics of the parents participating in the study. When Table  1 is examined, it is seen that 9 of the participating parents are female and 21 are male, a total of 30 people, 10 of these parents' children attend a private secondary or high school, and 20 parents' children attend public secondary or high schools. Although the average monthly income of the parents varies between 12 thousand (1387$) and 1450 (167$), 3901 (450$) Turkish liras is the average. Educational levels of the parents as the table shows, 1 parent has primary school, 2 of them have secondary, 7 of them have high school, 14 of them have undergraduate, 3 of them have master's degree and 3 of them have doctorate level education.

Data Collection Tools
In phenomenology method, data are collected by interviewing the Individuals who experience the phenomenon (Simon & Goes, 2011: 1;Creswell, 2013: 79). Collecting data on the experiences of the participants by interviewing is a method frequently used in phenomenological studies (Creswell: 2013: 162). For this reason, data collection by a semi-structured interview method was deemed appropriate in this study. In semi-structured interviews, the researcher can ask additional questions to the previously prepared questions (Yıldırım & Şimşek, 2011). In accordance with the purpose of the research, a semi-structured interview form was prepared by the researcher benefiting from the studies on the subject in the literature and the views of 2 faculty members from the Education Administration and Supervision Department and 1 from the Education Programs Department.
The Expert Opinion Form, which was prepared to test the comprehensiveness, clarity, relevance and adequacy of the questions, was sent to 16 academic staff working at Tokat Gaziosmanpaşa University and their opinions were received. Then the suggestions were evaluated, necessary changes were made on the questions and the semistructured interview form was given its final form. Questions describing the personal characteristics of the interviewees such as age, educational status and school type that their children continue were also included on the forms. The following questions were asked to the parents in order to determine their views on social media: 1. Do you think social media has an impact on your child's behavior? What kinds of behaviors does it enable your child to acquire? 2. How might your child's use of social media affect his/her academic success? What do you think about this subject? 3. Considering the aims of education, what do you think are the aspects of social media that support education? 4. Considering the aims of education, what do you think are the aspects of social media that hinder education? 5. What can be done so that social media can support the education given in schools, in other words, the expected behavioral changes in children?
A pilot study was conducted with a group of seven participants in order to determine the required time and possible problems for the interviews with the participants and to gain experience. In the pilot application, it was observed that the participants sometimes gave answers to other questions beforehand and the question was not repeated. It was determined that a question was misunderstood, and the question was rearranged. As a result of the pilot application, it was seen that the interviews lasted 15-25 minutes on average.

Data Collection
In this study, the researcher interviewed the participants through social media networks due to Covid-19 conditions. The interviews took place in the form of correspondence in the form of questions and answers. In order to prevent data loss, the researcher edited the answers given by each participant and sent them again, and received the participant's consent for the data recorded in writing.

Analysis of Qualitative Data
Before the analysis of the data collected in the semi-structured interview form, the interviews made through social media accounts were converted into MS Word files. A text consisting of 58 pages and 29759 words was obtained, which was created with 12-point font size and Times New Roman writing style of the interviews with the parents. The researcher made his analysis on this text. Content analysis method, which is a "systematic and repeatable technique,," in which inferences are made by defining the message given in a text through coding based on certain rules, and some words are summarized as small content groups (Büyüköztürk, Kılıç, Çakmak, Akgün, Karadeniz, & Demirel, 2009: 269), used to analyze the data.
After a field expert and researcher made open coding, analyzes were made. With the open coding method, the meaning of the data pieces has been tried to be revealed (Berg, 2001). With this method, all data is accepted and no data is left outside (Jones and Alony, 2011: 10). The effect of consensus and disagreement on the reliability of the study was calculated by using the formula of Miles and Huberman (1994: 64) for the coding results in which two different coders were used to ensure the reliability of the encoder. The consensus correlation between the two coders was calculated as 89.9%. The fact that this rate is above 70% is considered sufficient for the research to be considered reliable (Miles & Huberman, 1994: 64). The codes and themes obtained through content analysis were converted into tables with percentages and frequencies. The themes and codes in the tables were supported by direct quotations from the participants' views, and the findings obtained as a result of the participant's opinions were interpreted.

Results
In this section, the findings obtained as a result of the research are given.

Parents' Views on the Effect of Social Media on Students' Behaviors
The first question in the research was, "What are the parents' views on the effect of social media on students' behavior?" Considering that parents are the closest people to their children who can observe whether there is a change in the behavior of students who use social media or not, parents are asked to answer the questions "How does social media affect the behavior of your children, what kind of positive or negative behaviors have you observed?" The opinions of the parents were divided into two main themes as "positive behaviors" and "negative behaviors" and a content analysis was conducted and the result of the content analysis is summarized in the table below. When Table 2 is examined, it is seen that parents' views on the effects of social media on students' behaviors are grouped under two themes, positive and negative. According to the parents, the most important (f=8, 27%) positive effect of social media is that it leads "self-development." The second positive behavior was expressed as "gathering information about the lessons" (f=5, 17%) and third important behavior is students "sharing positive posts" (f=4, 14%). Some of the parents' statements on the subject are as follows: At least it's good at getting information quickly and briefly. Today, it is easy to reach information, but the important thing is to use that information correctly; it is not possible to say anything clear about this (P5). My son is very good at exchanging ideas with friends on social media (P6). My communication has become more comfortable with him. But apart from that, there are no serious sites for information purposes such as those that he receives information from, he uses Facebook and WhatsApp to communicate with his friends, there are educational sites, well-prepared programs, I have not seen a situation that reflects very positively (P13). Positive, for example, a lecture note, you can instantly find something that is not in the book. It's very helpful in that way. For example, the child does not have a book, he cannot buy it at that moment (P14). I did not observe any negative behavior. He watches things that will improve his dexterity positively and tries to apply them later. He is making, doing, trying to do… Today, for example, he learned to make dough, got up and made dough (P21).
Parent statements given above also support the information in Table 2. It is seen that the participants with the code P5 and P14 emphasized that social media makes it very fast and easy to access information. Easy access to information by students is important for the continuity of educational activities. Although it is so easy to access information, this participant says that the information is not used correctly. In addition to these, participant P14 draws attention to the importance of instant access to information that is not included in the books. Some participants (P6 and P21) stated that they developed themselves through social media. The parent coded P21 stated that he developed himself by watching videos that would improve his child's hand skills. In addition, P13 coded parent, who supported the view that communication skills and abilities increased thanks to social media, stated that social media increased their child's communication skills by saying "my communication became easier." When the negative behaviors in Table 2 are examined, the opinion of "wasting time" (f=7, 24%) is in the first place. The most important problems of parents are that their children use time uncontrollably and therefore they do not have time to study. Second negative behavior is "fighting, violence and getting angry" (f=6, 21%). Many parents stated that when their children started to use social media, they started to become irritable, disobedient, and their tendency to violence increased. Third, the parents stated that social media is a "barier to socialization" (f=5, 17%). Apart from these views, it is seen that some other negative behaviors expressed by the parents such as "not studying, lack of communication within the family, modelling others, seeing undesirable images and news, and inappropriate sharin.".
Considering the age and interests of students using social media, it can be accepted that students of this age can be overly curious. However, the fact that social media, whose purpose is to socialize people, does not serve this basic thesis, should be examined further as an important phenomenon. The statement of the participant coded P4 below as "we can no longer spend time even in front of the TV" is important. This situation needs to be examined in more depth. Some of the parents' views are quoted below: It messed up our family chemistry. We can no longer spend time with our children, even in front of the TV. Even it is not a good view being a family watching TV and sharing nothing, we missed that view.
There is a lack of communication in this aspect. The child is messaging for water from his room to kitchen (P4). First of all, children become lonely; they don't talk to anyone and mostly the children's desire to talk is decreasing, in this sense, I can say that it is negative (P5). He got angrier. When he was living a normal puberty term, he suddenly started to experience explosions. He had tantrums. His school life was affected completely negatively. He got into the wrong friend groups. In other words, he was in a friend environment that I would not approve of, which contradicted our family identity (P6). My son gave his Facebook account to someone else. A girlfriend shared inappropriate photos there. When he enters Face, the lesson or anything is forgotten (P9). The social media does no guide them to study. Social media takes children away from family issues and customs. The child becomes introverted. Because it stays connected to electronics. There is no sharing with parents (P14).
When the above statements exemplifying the negative behaviors seen in social media are examined, it is seen that these statements support the negative behaviors in Table 2. There is a need for serious studies on the negative impact of social media on students. The fact that students spend a lot of time especially on social networks, have difficulties in communicating with friends or family members next to them, and use social media at the level of addiction are issues that threaten our future and will cause serious problems very soon, even if they seem virtual. For this reason, the society can be educated in the direction of conscious use of social media by giving priority to the efforts to turn the negative effects of social media into positive behaviors.
Numerous studies on school-parent cooperation have revealed findings such as that school-parent cooperation increases the academic success of students positively (Çelenk, 2003;Berkyürek, 2008;Altun, 2009) and reduces the disciplinary problems at school (Çalık, 2007). An effective school-family cooperation will increase both the motivation of teachers and the development of academic success and positive behaviors in children. Parents have as much influence on the education of the child as the teachers. For this reason, the opinions of the parents were considered important in revealing the contribution of social media to the academic success and skill development of students. Therefore, the parents were asked to answer. The question "How do you think social media affects your students' academic success?" Content analysis of the parents' answers was made and given in Table 3 below. When Table 3 is examined, the effects of social media on academic achievement are grouped under two main themes as positive and negative effects. According to a significant portion of parents (f=13, 45%), social media "can improve academic success." According to parents, "lecture presentations and videos" (f=6, 21%) come first among the positive effects of social media on academic achievement. Secondly, "ease of accessing information" (f=4, 14%) and thirdly, "development of the child's perception" (f=2, 7%). In addition, it is seen that the development of students' communication skills, problem solving, repetition, and reading books can affect students' academic achievement.
According to Table 3, half of the participants (50%) state that social media negatively affects students' academic achievement. One of the negative effects of social media on academic success is "wasting time" (f=7, 23%). In the second opinion is "not using it for educational purposes" (f=4, 13% and "decreasing motivation to study" (f=3, 10%). Apart from these opinions, the participants said that social media makes students "asocial, keep not reading books, distraction, some undesirable behaviors such as addiction." Some parents' statements are as follows: In other words, they become antisocial, they do not know what is going out and playing in the park. They only spend their free time on the Internet, in front of the computer or phone (P2). They have established a communication network regarding the courses. Sometimes, they can either download videos about their lessons, or download and review articles and so on. At the moment, there is a serious spectrum of social media in terms of accessing a resource (P4). Eyüp looks at Facebook account for an hour, two hours sometimes, he looks like this. My son, I say enough. That's enough. He can't stop surfing on the net though I've said it over and over. It is negative in this aspect (P7). It's affecting a lot positively. Because he took the lessons there, because he read, I don't know, I think it helps. It helps with the lesson (P8). It had a huge impact on the course study. He generally takes tests and uses for lessons mainly (V10). It affects the child's perception. Social media affects differently, they become better in communication.
But too much social media causes sleep disorder, introversion They also find friends on the Internet. In this respect, it affects the child differently (P14). What I can say is the most negative, maybe if we do not control it, it can lead to waste of time. Of course, we limit the time the child uses the social media and internet (P20).
The above statements support the analysis given in Table 3. Some participants highlighted the positive effects of social media (P7, P8, P10), and expressed that students study and solve tests by making use of social media. However, some participants also stated that social media kills socialization (P2) and leads to negativities such as wasting too much time (P2, P7, P20). While social media has the potential to eliminate the inequality arising from social and economic imbalances that can seriously affect the academic success of students, it should be emphasized once again that these views, which show that children do not use social media sufficiently, should be examined in detail and the society, parents, teachers and students should be made aware of the use of social media for educational purposes.

Parents' Views on the Supporting and Obstructing Features of Social Media in Education
Considering that the parents closest to the children have a significant advantage in observing the behaviors of their children, it was thought that the parents' views on the aspects of social media that support and hinder education may be important, considering that the parents can observe the priorities, change and development in the student's life. What are the features of social media that support education when you consider its aims?" and "When you consider the aims of education, what are the features of social media that hinder education?" The questions were asked separately and the answers given by the participants were analyzed with the content analysis method and the analysis results are given in Table 4. From the parents' point of view, the "supporting and obstructing features" of social media are given in Table 4. According to this table, "ease of accessing information" (f=15, 50%) takes the first place among the features of social media that support education. Accessing all kinds of sources easily through social media is considered important in terms of education. According to the parents, the second important feature is that social media "provides abundant data sources" (f=6, 20%). The third important feature supporting education in the table is "sharing resources" (f=5, 17%). As other supportive features, parents express such features as speed in accessing information, facilitating communication, and following up-to-date information. Some parents' opinions regarding the supportive features of social media are given below: In fact, there are very serious data sources prepared in electronic environment. That is, both visually and in written forms. Being able to access those resources easily means being informed about more people and thus there is more information flow mutually.... In other words, teachers, parents and students can reach them. In other words, social media has a side that supports education in this aspect (P4). There is definitely a benefit, we cannot say that there is no; but it is necessary to bring a measure, a limit. For example, in the past, it was necessary to look at hundreds of books to research a subject; but now it's all just a click away. It is very beautiful in this sense; but I think it will be useful if used without spending much time (P5). Social media fills a huge gap in children's education, especially in the variety of questions used as resources, materials and subsequently as an evaluation tool. I think it is beneficial both in terms of information and ease and speed of accessing information (P7). It had many aspects, for example, you learn a subject without going to the library. You find it on social media by shortcut (P10). Of course, they can find the books they can't find in their city easily. So, in this way I think media supports education, students reach the books and other sources easily (P29).
Looking at the statements given above, it is seen that the parents used expressions that support the themes in Table  4. Parents were also asked about the features of social media that obstructs/hinders education. In the second part of the table, the content analysis of the parents' opinions in terms of inhibitory features was made. The most important obstructing feature in the table is "waste of time" (f = 14, 47%). According to the parents, the second important barrier is the view of "exposure to unwanted content" (f=8, 27%). The third opinion is "facilitating access to inappropriate content" (f=5, 17%). In addition, the parents stated that social media is causing addiction, not playing outdoor games, causing information pollution, causing laziness and being asocial. Parents expressed the obstructive features of social media with the following words: It's a waste of time and very damaging to cultural values. In other words, someone gives a lot of harmful things on social media that we do not want to give to our children (P3). The obstructing features is that there are so many materials with negative-content that children can act recklessly at the point of reaching them, and this leads to their wrong spiritual upbringing. It also negatively affects their studies. Instead of spending time for their lessons or socializing in the normal sense, introverted types of individuals may emerge. Unfortunately, a youth whom we do not considered to have can emerge. That is, there is another trainer educating our children, that is social media, or the internet. You, me, and the teacher are all ineffective (P4). Once they start using social media, they become deprive of sleep for two, three or more hours, but ultimately, they learning nothing (P6). There are also malicious aspects. For example, they make friends on the Internet and enters inaccessible and unsuitable places... (P10). It can be a serious waste of time. Human relations have been moved to the virtual environment. We live far from speaking Turkish. We use body language more with symbols. Or the child is sending a message to his mother from the other room instead of saying welcome to my mother (P13). Well, I can't say that it does not support education in Turkey but it must support. There is nothing about social media in schools, as far as we know, there is nothing in the curriculum, there is no aspect of social media that supports education. Education-related things are not shared much, and they do not contribute much to education (P22).
As can be seen in the statements above, social media causes a serious loss of time (P3, P6, P13 and P22). According to the parents, once students log into their social media accounts, they can spend hours here without realizing the time has passed. Exposure to undesirable content and ease of access to inappropriate content, which are other important barriers, disturb the parents. The participant with the code P3 expresses this situation as "Someone gives a lot of harmful things on social media that we do not want to give to our children ". The fact that images, videos or information that children should never encounter or see under normal conditions can be viewed by students without any restrictions may negatively affect their academic life as well as their physical and psychological development. P3, P4 and P10 coded participants seem to have statements that support this idea. Although we try to protect our children from certain things and prevent them from learning bad things, "there is another trainer educating our children, that is social media, or the internet. You, me, and the teacher are all ineffective" (P4).
The supportive and preventive features indicated in Table 4 actually warn educators and families about raising awareness about the use of social media and taking some precautions. For example, children at primary school level, whose consciousness level we can consider to be very low, may be completely prohibited or restricted from opening and using social media accounts. Social media literacy course can be given to students and within the scope of this course, examples can be given to show how social media can be used for educational purposes.

Suggestions for Parents on the Use of Social Media for Educational Purposes
In the interviews, many parents mentioned that their children spend a significant part of their time on the Internet or on their social media accounts. We asked parents, who we think may have very good observations about their children's use of social media, "What would you recommend for social media to support the education given at school more?" Content analysis of the responses of the participants was made and the results of the content analysis are given in Table 5. According to the results of the content analysis of the parents' suggestions regarding the use of social media for educational purposes, a significant part of the parents (f=13, 43%) suggested that "people should be enlightened." In the interviews, many people, including administrators and teachers, have limited information about the use of social media. For this reason, it may be beneficial to raise awareness of the society, especially among teachers and students, about the use of social media. The second important suggestion is "sharing useful content" (f=11, 37%). Social media has many uses. Entertainment, communication, trade, and education are just a few of them. Increasing the share of educational content naturally means more educational materials in the content that students will be exposed to. Thirdly, the parents suggested "developing control mechanisms" (f=9, 30%). The fact that social media has so many uses and there is no control over the shared content naturally worries some parents and they suggest the development of a control mechanism. As in all areas, control must be applied systematically in social media. It would be beneficial to have a control in social media, as in television broadcasts, in order not to mislead the generations making up our future with random inappropriate posts and to develop their physical and psychological development appropriately. With a control mechanism to be developed, negative features should be minimized.
Other important suggestions of parents are "giving social media education" and "monitoring use of social media." Social media education should be carried out in all layers of the society, especially starting from schools, and the level of awareness should be increased. In addition to all these, administrators, parents and teachers should be sensitive to students' use of social media and try to monitor whether they use social media appropriately. The suggestions of some parents regarding the educational use of social media are as follows: Children should be made aware. They have computer class one hour a week and I don't think it's used for educational purposes. I think that children should be well educated on this issue (P2). There are visual, audio and written materials that you can reach very seriously on social media. Teachers should be made aware. So, there are training materials developed. Integrating social media into the educational process will increase the quality of education and will result in more permanent information in the child's world. Now, there are bad hands that can reach our children, defenseless and unconscious, on social media, legal regulations need to be made in this sense (P4). Currently, it is not possible to detach our children from social media; but they can use it consciously. Otherwise, things like banning the internet and the phone are not correct (P5).
In order for this to be effective, children must first be told about the harms. He should take a lesson about it, how social media can be used. I think children are unaware of this. Education on this use should be given in schools (P19). Yes, filtering is a must. I want the posts to be realistic, related to education, reflect the truth that will open people's horizons, do not distinguish between religion, race or sect, be better for our children and our future, and have educational purposes (P25). There must be a very good control mechanism so that their use of social media can be controlled and they can be protected from the harms (P27).
When the statements given above are examined, it is seen that the statements of parents regarding the use of social media for educational purposes support the information given in Instead of prohibiting, should be used more effectively. V20 1 3 Not charging fee for some educational programs.
V24 1 3 Given live lessons to students at home. V29 1 3 isolate students from social media, social media can be used in educational activities by taking some precautions. In order to do this, the main issue that parents focus on is raising awareness at all levels, including students, teachers, administrators and parents.

Discussion and Conclusion
According to statistics, more than half of the world's population is connected to the internet, and there are approximately four and a half billion active social media users. While 65.8 million people are connected to the internet in Turkey, 60 million people can actively use social media. 36 million people access their social media accounts using mobile devices such as mobile phones. Social media is used for 2 hours and 57 minutes per person per day (Digital Ajans, 2021). According to Düvenci (2012), the internet has made the world even smaller due to its functions. The Internet and social media have reduced the need for libraries, books, television, radio, people, friends, grocery stores, greengrocers and tailors.
It seems possible to use social media in the field of education, which has a very common usage area. Particularly created groups, shared materials, sharing of books, documents, video applications, and video and audio applications have made it possible to learn everywhere. In this study, it is clearly stated that social media is effective in acquiring some positive and negative behaviors. Students' self-development, finding information and resources about the lessons, positive sharing, developing human relations and socializing are expressed as positive contributions of social media to students' behaviors. "Wasting time," "fighting, violence and getting angry" and "obstructing socialization" were stated as negative behaviors. While the majority of parents share the view that social media affects education negatively, nearly half of them believe that social media also supports educational activities. Parents expressed features such as "easing access to information, providing abundant data sources, sharing resources, "increasing the speed in accessing information, facilitating communication and following upto-date information" as features that support education. It was observed that the views of "wasting time, exposure to unwanted content, and "facilitating access to inappropriate content" were expressed as features that hinder education.
The findings of the study are similar to many studies (Tanriverdi & Sağır, 2014;Mazman, 2009;Özmen et al., 2011;Koç & Karabatak, 2011;Düvenci, 2012). Yuen and Yuen (2008) and Sounders (2008) included statements that support the ease of accessing information and resources, which are important findings of the study. According to Tanrıverdi and Sağır (2014), social media can be used to maintain communication and friendship relations, provided that they are not dependent. Social media's negative effects on education, such as wasting time and causing addiction, are issues that other researchers emphasize (Zafarmand, 2010;Tanrıverdi & Sağır, 2014;Şimşek, 2012).
As a result of this study, in which the place of social media in education is discussed from the perspective of parents, there are important warnings to educators and families about increasing the level of awareness about the use of social media and taking some precautions. While social media has very important features that support education, it also has many features that can hinder education. Just as a knife can be an innocent tool that we use in the kitchen to peel fruit, chop and cut something in an adult's hand, it can also turn into a weapon that can kill a person in the hands of an unconscious person in a fight. Based on this knife metaphor, it may be necessary to take some precautions regarding the use of social media. For example, children at primary school level, whose consciousness level we can be accepted to be insufficient to consider bad and good, may be completely prohibited or restricted to open and use social media accounts.
Social media literacy course can be given to students and within the scope of this course examples can be given to clarify how to use social media for good purposes, like education, learning useful things. By creating a closedcircuit social media network with useful posts for students development without being exposed to undesirable content can be helpful to increase conscious use of social media. In order to limit the time spent on social media and to prevent access to the inappropriate content shared, such sharing can be blocked by the service provider, the account can be automatically closed and access again during that day can be prevented by setting a daily limit on the account entered. As with television, images related to violence and inappropriate content can be labeled as not suitable for children, preventing access to those under the age of 18. As a result, instead of completely avoiding and banning social media, it is possible to take advantage of the educational supporting features of social media by taking more constructive measures.
These awareness-raising activities can be carried out under a different topic, either by placing a social media course or in computer or guidance courses. Social media tools, what educational materials can be shared through them, how they can be shared, how they can get help from social media about the subjects they study, how to create groups for specific interests, membership in groups are determined and the topics that are thought to be beneficial to students can be determined and presented as a separate course in the curriculum or as a unit added within an existing course. It may be beneficial to carry out information and awareness activities on the use of social media, especially among students, by supporting such trainings with seminars or conferences.