Research Essay: The Effects of

Social Media on Student Performance

 Steve Johnson  Posted on March 18, 2017   Posted in Essays, Research Papers, Social Media

The Effects of Social Media on Student

Performance
Introduction
Effects of social media in education has been discussed and debated by educational
researchers and social media researchers since the start of these platforms.
Students have been more and more involved in using social media with the passage
of time. Parents, teachers, and education researchers have been discussing the
advantages and disadvantages of frequency of use and time spent on social media.
There are research studies, which find social media useful in the sense that it
facilitates teacher-student and student-student interaction and learning improvement.
While there are others who are against the use of social media by students as they
are of the view that social media wastes the time of students and thus effects their
academic performance. The purpose of this research is to investigate about how
social media affects the students’ academic performance. Academic performance
means the level of achievement of students in their studies. Social media include
Facebook, LinkedIn, twitter, web 2.0 and many more. Thus, this research tries to find
whether using these social media affect the students’ scores in their studies or not
and in what way do these affect the performance.

Effects of Social Media on Students’ Performance

The role of social media in education and its effects on students’ performance has
multiple dimensions. This research presents the positive and negative effects of
using social media on the students’ academic performance.

Research finds different opinions regarding the role of social media in higher
education whether that is through virtual or real classes. It is found that using social
media either does not effect students’ academic performance at all or if it does, the
effects are very slight. The researchers say that different institutions have
established facilities to take greater benefits from social media but there is still lack
of proper integration of these media into educational setup to gain maximum
benefits. Some studies find positive relationship between social media and students’
academic performance, which means that using social media has positive effects on
students’ achievement on examinations and assessments. It is also found by the
research that it depends upon students’ personality traits whether social media will
affect their performance negatively or positively. Some personality traits cause social
media to enhance students’ performance while some personality factors cause social
media usage to negatively affect students results.

Studying the effects of Facebook on academic performance of undergraduate

students at Lulea University of Technology Sweden, Rouis, Limayem & Salehi-
Sangari found that those students who have extrovert (friendly) personalities, then
their academic performance is negatively affected by use of social media. Again,
they argue that extroverts are often good in self-regulation. This characteristic of self-
regulation reduces the negative impact of social media usage on their academic
performance. They also conclude that the extent of deep involvement (also called
cognitive absorption) determines about how much time students spend on Facebook
and how many times do they visit Facebook. Thus, this level of deep involvement
with Facebook can affect students’ performance. Multitasking is another personal
characteristic of humans. Multitasking skills of students control the effects of social
media on students’ performance.

Junco in his research done in 2012 found that time spent on Facebook and
frequency of visiting Facebook are negatively related to students’ performance.
Similarly, they also found that time spent on social media and time spent on
homework are negatively related. Junco explained that when students use social
media in certain ways, then it has negative effects on their performance. Therefore
he suggests that this issue should further researched. He observes that some
specific uses of social media improve academic performance of students while other
ways lower their performance.

Majority of students from Malaysian Higher Education Institutes say that they use
social networks for informal learning and that it helps them to connect to their friends
and classmates to get help in their studies. However, half of the students say that
interaction with teachers is not very common on social media. Study on these
students also reconfirms that use of social networking sites has no significant
negative impact on the students’ academic performance.

A survey of 490 students by Negussie & Ketema (2014) finds that there is no
negative impact of social media usage on students’ performance. Gupta (2013)
studied the effects of social media on the performance of students in distance
education. His research also finds that students’ use of Facebook as social medium
for academic purposes has no strong relationship with the academic performance of
the students. This research suggests that new online tools and technologies must be
integrated to promote online interaction and form online social networks to improve
learning, students’ achievements, and support. Gupta also observed that teachers
perceived that social media does not add any value to students’ academic
performance.

Conclusion
The above studies show that research on the role of social media and social
networking sites in academic performance of students is still unclear about the
results. Most of the researchers have created more questions than finding answers.
Despite opposing opinions, majority of research has found social media as useful
towards educational infrastructure and students’ social grooming. However, careful
investigation is still demanded in this area. Further research must be carried out to
establish well-defined ways in which benefits of social media in students’
performance and hence education can be maximized.

Citations
Ajjan, H. & Hartshorne, R. (2008). Investigating faculty decisions to adopt web 2.0
technologies: Theory and empirical tests. The Internet and Higher Education, 11(2),
71–80

Gupta, C. (2013). Relationship between social media and academic performance in

distance education. Universal Journal of Educational Research,1(3), 185-190.
Hamat, A., Embi, M. A., & Hassan, H. A. (2012). The use of social networking sites
among Malaysian university students. International Education Studies,5(3), p56.
Joosten, T. (2012). Social media for educators: Strategies and best practices. John Wiley
& Sons
Junco, R. (2012). Too much face and not enough books: The relationship between
multiple indices of Facebook use and academic performance.Computers in Human
Behavior, 28(1), 187-198.
Negussie, N., & Ketema, G. (2014). Relationship between Facebook Practice and
Academic Performance of University Students. Asian Journal of Humanities and Social
Sciences (AJHSS), 2(2).
Rouis, S., Limayem, M., & Salehi-Sangari, E. (2011). Impact of Facebook usage on
students’ academic achievement: Role of self-regulation and trust.Electronic journal
of research in educational psychology, 9(3), 961-994.
Tess, P. A. (2013). The role of social media in higher education classes (real and
virtual)–A literature review. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(5), A60-A68.
NEW

Social Media Impact on the Students

Academic Performance Proposal
Exclusively available on IvyPanda

Updated: Aug 26th, 2020

Background

The growing popularity of social networking and online communication has

raised an issue of the influence of these activities on the daily performance of
the individuals. The professional achievements were proved to suffer from
social networking as a major distraction. Also, there exist links between the
use of social media and academic performance (HNGN par. 1). Lifespan
reports that contemporary youth may spend as many as 12 hours a day
chatting online (par. 1). Moreover, two studies conducted in Ghana explored
the impact of social media on the academic success of college and high
school students and found that social networks are used for procrastination
and have a harmful impact on learning (Owusu-Acheaw and Larson 94;
Mingle and Adams 3).

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Problem Statement
While the use of technology has been considered an overall positive impact
on studying and education process, certain features are definitely harmful
when abused (Carter 1). The variety of social networks is wide, and any
student may get distracted especially now that they are the major means for
keeping up with the peers, the society, and the world in general (Ndaku 15).

Purpose
The purpose of this study is to determine how the academic performance of
college students is influenced by the use of social media.

Research Question
What is the impact of social media on the academic performance of college
students?

Scope
This study will analyze the effect produced by the use of social media on the
academic performance of college students and determine the following
outcomes:

 Positive impacts
 Negative impacts
 The overall nature of influence on academic performance
 Potential ways to address the issue
 Size and effect of the impact produced by social media

Relevance
In the contemporary world, this topic is highly relevant because the use of the
social media is widespread and it is very likely to have a significant effect on
the academic performance of college students. It is important to know how
exactly the influence is produced and whether or not it should be minimized or
emphasized.
NEW

Social Media’s Negative Effect on Academic

Performance
Category Academic Performance, Adolescence, Internet, Social Media
 Words 475 (1 page)
 Views 237

Social Media's Negative Effect on Academic Performance Researchers

with the Miriam Hospital's Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine
say social media has a negative impact on academic performance of
freshmen students, the Science Daily reported. Researchers show a link
between social media and academic performance among the freshmen in a
study, which is the first of its kind. The study looked at students engaged in
any form of media use including texting, music, the Internet and social
networking.

The study shows an average freshmen woman spends 12 hours every day
engaged in any form of media use. The impact of such indulgence results
in poor academic performance. Researchers, however, excluded listening
to music and reading newspapers as it boosts academic performance
unlike other forms of media. "Most research on media use and academics
has focused on adolescents, rather than new college students, or has only
examined a few forms of media.

So we were curious about the impact of a wider range of media, including

activities like social networking and texting that have only become popular
in recent years," said lead author Jennifer L. Walsh, PhD, of The Miriam
Hospital's Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine. "We also
wanted to know how media use related to later school performance, since
there aren't many longitudinal studies looking at media use and academics.
" For the study, Walsh and her colleagues interviewed 483 freshmen
women during from a northeast university.

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Researchers noted 11 different forms of media use that had an impact on

academics, which included television, movies, music, surfing the Internet,
social networking, talking on a cell phone, texting, magazines, newspapers,
non-school-related books and video games. Students were asked to report
an average time spent on any forms of media throughout the previous
week. Students were also asked to report their grades in the academics for
the fall and spring semesters and their intellectual confidence, behavior and
troubles, the report said.

As a result, researchers listed that cell phones, social networking, television

and magazines had severe impact on students' academic results for their
fall semesters. Walsh further noted that students who spent more time
engaging in these forms of media, had "fewer academic behaviors, such as
completing homework and attending class, lower academic confidence and
more problems affecting their school work, like lack of sleep and substance
use. " Researchers noted that the major use of social media among the
students was found to be more on campus than off.

Walsh suggested that professors could use social media as a means of

communicating with their students in reminding of their assignments and
referring them to helpful resources that could fetch them higher grades in
academics. Also limiting media use within the college campus, especially in
classrooms could go a long way, researchers said. The findings were
reported online by the journal Emerging Adulthood.
NEW

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