Art teacher speaking. The influence of DeviantArt (and now ArtStation) on young a tists is staggering, and not always good.
When I was a student, I got my eye candy from the school library, which provided context and history to the art. On these site, most images are presented without much context: what was this artist influenced by? How did they develop? Etc.
You can see who they follow and what they've written right there on the site, and you can move freely between works via tags and collections. If anything I'd say it's much easier to get more context on DA than in a physical gallery.
When I was a student, I got my eye candy from the school library, which provided context and history to the art. On these site, most images are presented without much context: what was this artist influenced by? How did they develop? Etc.