The Impact of Social Media on College

Student’s Academic Performance

Prepared by: Valerie Sampson, Kelly Valerio, Kristina Piersanti, Annie Marx, Emma Sapio

October 17, 2018

Background and Objectives

A research article from the Journal of College and Character found that 86% of students own
laptops, 62% own smartphones, 33% own desktop computers, and 15% own a tablet. “Having
access to various devices, especially mobile ones, means the ability to be constantly connected
with social media” (Mastrodicasa & Metellus, 2013). Due to the immediate access to social
media, many students spend hours of time on these sites and apps, and are sacrificing time spent
on their schoolwork. Our objective is to research student attitudes and perceptions about their
social networking habits to determine how they impact their academic performance. The
following research questions were used to guide our focus group:

RQ1: Why are students using social media?

RQ2: Does type of media affect the frequency of use and/or distraction?
RQ3: To what degree is social media a distraction for college students?
RQ4: Are students’ academic performance affected by the usage of social media sites?

Methods and Procedures

The research methodology that we used to gather our research was by conducting a focus group.
The focus group was completed in an empty Elon classroom on a Wednesday night. We
recruited a well-rounded group of individuals who are all involved in different activities and
organizations on campus. We screened for participants that reflected what typical Elon students
are involved in (Greek life, athletics, etc.) and included seven women and one man. All the
participants were 19 years of age or older, with no participants older than 22 years of age. As a
thank you for participating, we provided the participants with fresh-baked cookies. We notified
participants of the purpose of our study and informed them that all information would remain
confidential. The following is the format of the focus group:

Throughout the focus group we touched on different categories that were related to seeing how
social media impacts student’s academic life. We first started off by asking what their academic
schedule is like and if they are more likely to do homework alone or with others. Then we
moved over to asking why students use social media, to what degree is social media a distraction
for college students, and does the type of media affect the frequency of use and/or distraction.
We then went in to asking if the participants feel that their academic performance is affected by
the usage of social media sites- how does it distract you from your work? How would your
schoolwork performance change if you did not have social media? Is social media a distraction
in classrooms? A lot of research has focused on the negative aspects of the impact of social
media on student’s academic performance, but we wanted to uncover new information. This
lead us to asking if the students found social media to help their academic performance in some
way.

Detailed Findings

➔ Notifications from phones and laptops are the most distracting to schoolwork

Participants did recognize social media as a significant distraction when they do not want to
complete assignments. One said: “If I don’t want to do my work, I will sit there and scroll
through every single feed until I’ve run out of new stuff just so I don’t have to do my reading.”
However, they shared that distraction did not come as much from the urge to go on social media
itself, but rather notifications and “buzzes” from its apps. One participant shared that with the
new iOS app, users can track their app usage, including how many hours per day and week they
spend on a particular platform. Users can also track how many notifications they receive. This
participant admitted to receiving, “600 notifications one day… So that’s apparently 27 an hour,
so every 2 minutes I get a notification essentially, so that’s why it’s distracting because a
majority of those are from social media.”

Some participants said they turn their phones on “Do Not Disturb” to combat the distraction, but
because of their involvement in greek life organizations and clubs on-campus, they shared that
missing notifications can be detrimental to missing out on important information. One said, “I
find I get stressed out when I leave my phone on ‘Do Not Disturb,’” and the room responded to
her comment in agreement. Another said: “I have all my notifications on- I feel like I’ll miss it if
I don’t leave them on.” One more participant explained that she often leaves all of her
notifications on “Do Not Disturb,” but it takes her a while to get back to people and sometimes
misses important information.

As a result of these responses, we found that the noise from notifications acts as a distracting
stimuli and “gateway” to going on social media and other communicative apps. A participant
shared:“It’s just kind of like when I’m going to bed at midnight or something my phone’s not
buzzing because if my phone buzzes I’ll look at it.” Similar to the discussion on the “Do Not
Disturb” feature, participants said that they leave notifications off for many apps. There were
mixed thoughts on keeping Instagram notifications on, but a couple people discussed the
messaging component of social media apps being a motivator to keep notifications on; if there is
no direct link to the user, there is less of an urgency to stay constantly updated with important
information. One participant summed it up well, that she has, “Snapchat and GroupMe
[notifications] on because I get messages through that but for Instagram, Facebook and Twitter,
I don’t need the notifications.”
 ➔ Snapchat has the most impact on academic performance of all the platforms
examined

When discussing the type and frequency of social media platforms, another common theme was
discovered from the participants. When asked what social media platforms they were on,
participants answered that they have accounts for a majority of the popular ones, including
Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter. Out of these four platforms, Snapchat is commonly
used, not only because it is “easy,” but that it is almost like “texting.”

Snapchat has the direct messaging within one setting, which makes it the most interpersonal
platform. One individual mentioned, “I feel like [Snapchat] is the most interpersonal. It’s more
on-on-one and it’s an equivalent to texting.” Most agreed heavily on this statement, especially
since, “it is more fun to see photos and videos than to read messages.”

Others also found Snapchat to be the most distracting because of the constant notifications that
one receives from friends and followers. One person found that Instagram can be very distracting
because if “I’m waiting for something, I’ll just go on Instagram for five minutes and then do
whatever I was supposed to do.” But if she has a message or notification from Snapchat, then
“definitely Snapchat” is the more distracting of the two.

➔ People will find other ways to distract themselves regardless of social media
presence

Social media certainly is a proven distraction for students, however this study shined light on
some interesting concepts. Many participants reported that social media is simply one of many
platforms/tactics used to avoid focusing on academics. But, participants agreed that if social
media did not exist, other activities would be used to spend time focusing on non-academic
actions.

One individual reported that while doing homework, “just random thoughts pop into my head…
if I’m doing homework and I just don’t want to do it, I’ll just be like ‘oh look at that tree, it’s so
nice.’” Others agreed with this statement, including a student who reflected, “[I’m] fostering two
cats so there’s a lot constantly going on in my apartment at all times, and one of the cats likes to
jump up on things that she shouldn’t be jumping up onto so I’ll hear a noise and I’ll have to go
check that… so that’s kind of been a distraction lately.”

Since email would not be classified as a social media platform, it also qualifies as an external
distraction. Students agreed that email can be an easy way to avoid tasks, especially when they
are waiting for a response to a specific one. “Email isn’t really social media but I think every
time I’ve checked my email this week, I’ve had about 7 new emails,” shared one participant. “If
I’m going into my email to check for a message from a professor for the assignment I’m doing
and there are 15 other things that I need to answer, then I become distracted so then I start
doing other things, like checking social media.”

➔ Social media can be either helpful or have no impact to academic performance

During the investigation, researchers asked participants if social media could be a possible asset
to their academic performance. Many participants talked about the benefit of certain social media
apps in getting in contact with other students. One respondent said that “Facebook is really
helpful [because I am] able to find a person on Facebook and then send a message.” Participants
shared that they do not have classmates’ numbers which makes it hard to get in contact with
them. But if they have a question about the homework, they can find them on Facebook and send
them a direct message about their questions. Others also said that “instead of emailing a
professor and waiting for a response, I’ll just Facebook message a student who is more likely to
respond faster.”

Participants also shared the benefits of GroupMe, a social media app that allows people to create
group chats through any device. Most students use GroupMe for clubs, teams, and group
projects. “If you want to see group things, then you have that option with GroupMe,” said one
respondent. Most participants found that GroupMe is easier to use than group texting for a large
number of people because it is “a pain to get all those numbers.”

In regards to the actual schoolwork, some participants enjoy the distraction after hours of doing
schoolwork. Sometimes they “want the distraction and [they] go to social media since it’s the
easiest and most convenient.”

On the other hand, students found social media can have little impact on quality of academic
performance. When asked if their academic performance would improve without the existence of
social media, she said, “I don’t know if it would necessarily be better.” Another participant
shared that, “I definitely agree that social media is a distraction, but I think I’ve trained myself. I
only go on social media when I’m already bored doing my homework, and so I think if I didn’t
have social media, that time when I was bored I’d be doing something else.”

Summary and Implications

Our research suggests that students find social media to be a major distraction to their academic
performance. Notifications from social media, specifically from Snapchat, tend to be the biggest
interference to students’ work and academics. But participants also believed that regardless of
social media, they will continue to find items or activities to distract themselves from their
schoolwork such as emails or phone alerts. Therefore, many believe that while social media is a
distraction, it has little impact on their actual academic performance. In some ways, students
believe that social media can help them complete their schoolwork by allowing for relaxation
and breaks.

➔ Snapchat detracts academic focus through the use of notifications

Not only is it more fun and entertaining to receive pictures and videos in the form of messages
from your friends and people you associate yourself with, but this app can easily turn into a
distraction. Students’ are constantly finding the need to check and go on the app, especially if
they receive a notification, have a message, or are waiting for a notification so they can reply
with a picture or text. This puts a major toll on the students’ ability to do work, along with being
able to focus on tasks that need to get done in an academic setting; their focus is somewhere else
and their brain is on constant high alert for the next time they will receive another notification.

➔ Students will always find a way to distract themselves from their schoolwork

Overall, our research confirmed that the college student’s brain automatically desires to do
anything besides homework, no matter what that may be. Social media certainly is one of these
activities, however simply staring out the window or playing with pets also become extremely
appealing when a student has many tasks to complete. Therefore, if social media did not exist,
students would still find other ways to distract and prevent themselves from completing their
work.

➔ Students believe that social media can help with schoolwork

While many students said that social media is a distraction to their schoolwork, most believed
that it has little effect on their actual performance. In fact, social media can be beneficial to
students who have studied all day and need the distraction in order to decompress from their
work. It’s also helpful with obtaining information from other students about notes, homework,
and assignments. Social media can be a distraction but it also offers many benefits that do not
exist without these apps.

While our research found several themes about social media and academic performance, there
were several limitations that we must address. Our focus group was conducted by 8 participants
which is not a holistic depiction of the Elon campus. Another limitation also involves the
participants, in which we only had 1 male participate in the study. While we were not studying
different genders’ opinions on the impact of social media, it would have been more consistent
with the greater Elon community if the participants had an even number of males and females.
Lastly, since our participants were not an accurate representation of the Elon student body, our
findings cannot be generalized to the larger population. Therefore, future research, such as a
survey, will have to be performed in order to obtain information about whether or not our
findings can be generalized to all of Elon’s campus.
Appendix

Moderators Guide:

Warm- Up

● Introductions— Have everyone go around and introduce themselves (name, year, major)
along with including what social media platforms they are on.
● Set Ground Rules—There are no wrong answers and we encourage if you have comments
to please share them. This is a conversation so only one person may talk at a time and
please be respectful of others’ answers/opinions. If you need to leave for any
circumstance, please do so quietly.
● Rapport— Each answer is confidential and we will be recording this focus group for
research purposes. This research is for a class and during the research presentation,your
identity will be kept hidden.
● Procedure—If an individual is causing issues during the discussion, the moderators and
note takers will acknowledge it and the individual will be asked to step outside for a
personal interview by one of the note takers. After being interviewed, the individual will
be asked to leave. One person must keep track of the number of times each participant
glances at their phone

Lead-In
● Academic Schedule
○ How many classes are you taking?
○ Do you do homework alone or with others?
○ Where do you do your homework?

Sequence/Discussion
● Why are students using social media?
○ How long have you been on social media?
○ Why do you use these sites? What interests you about these sites?
● To what degree is social media a distraction for college students?
○ How often do you check these sites a day? And how much time do you spend on
social media a day?
○ Are you more susceptible to checking social media on your laptop or on your
phone?
● Does type of media affect the frequency of use and/or distraction?
○ What social media platform do you use the most?
○ Why do you use this platform the most?
 ○ What makes you check this platform more than other platforms? (notification,
bored, more interesting, etc.)
○ On a scale of 1-10, how distracting do you find social media?
■ In what ways is social media distracting?
■ Why do you feel the need to check social media?
■ In what areas of your life is social media a distraction?
● Are students’ academic performance affected by the usage of social media sites?
○ How many hours does it take to complete your homework each night?
○ What are some things that distract you from your schoolwork?
○ Do you think social media distracts you from your schoolwork?
■ How does it distract you from your work?
○ How would your schoolwork performance change if you did not have social
media?
○ What are some other things you do as a distraction, besides social media, to
schoolwork?
○ Is social media a distraction in classrooms?
■ If so, why?
And when are you most likely to check social media in class?
○ Does social media have no impact on your academic performance? And if so,
why?
○ Do you find social media to be a help to your academic performance? And if so,
how?

Other follow up questions we asked:

● Do you agree that without social media you would find other ways to distract yourselves
and would that cause you to do worse or better?
● Do you think technology is the problem, rather than social media?
● Does putting on “do not disturb help or is it not effective?
● Do you check social media sites through phone or computer
● Do you think social media has an impact in your social life; harms/ benefits social life?
Would our attention spans be better if we didn't have social media?
● In relation to this example, do you feel more overwhelmed by not having your phone
right near you at all times?

Wrap-Up
● Summarize and understand the points students made during the focus group
● Final thoughts on the distraction of social media
● Thank them for coming
Bibliography
Mastrodicasa, J., & Metellus, P. (2013). The Impact of Social Media on College Students.
Journal of College and Character,14(1), 21-30. doi:10.1515/jcc-2013-0004