Education and Information Technologies

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-019-09867-6

The impact of social networking sites on students’ social

wellbeing and academic performance

Sarminah Samad 1 & Mehrbakhsh Nilashi 2 & Othman Ibrahim 3

Received: 7 October 2018 / Accepted: 9 January 2019/

# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019

Abstract
Social networking sites have played an important role in enhancing students’
social presence. As an educational tool for online courses, they have significantly
contributed in promoting students’ motivation for learning. The aim of this
research is to investigate the impact of social networking sites on students’
academic performance. We conduct a comprehensive review on the usage of social
networking sites in academic environments to identify the influential factors and
propose a new model based on several research hypotheses. To evaluate the
hypotheses and verify the proposed model, a survey is conducted on the female
students from a major research university in Malaysia. We use Decision Making
Trial and Evaluation Laboratory to perform the data analysis. In relation to the
statistical technique, this technique can find the casual relationships among the
factors, their effect size and their importance levels. The results of our survey
revealed that there is positive relationship between social presence, students’
social wellbeing and their academic performance.

Keywords Social networking sites . Academic performance . Causal relationships .

Decision making trial and evaluation laboratory . Social collaborations

* Mehrbakhsh Nilashi
nilashidotnet@hotmail.com

1
CBA Research Centre, Department of Business Administration, Collage of Business and
Administration, Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
2
School of Computing, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, UTM, 81310 Johor
Bahru, Johor, Malaysia
3
Azman Hashim International Business School, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM),
81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia
 Education and Information Technologies

1 Introduction

According to Hu et al. (2017), a social networking site is defined as: Ba social

aggregation that emerges from the Internet when sufficient numbers of individuals
continue a public discussion for a certain amount of time, with sufficient human
feeling, to form webs or connections of personal relationships in cyberspace^. Social
networking sites have played an important role in enhancing students’ social presence
(Helou and Rahim 2014; Joksimović et al. 2015; Lim and Richardson 2016). They are
considered as educational tools for learning and teaching purposes. There are many
researches on the use of social network in educational environments (Kamel Boulos
and Wheeler 2007; Roblyer et al. 2010; Valenzuela et al. 2009). The previous studies
show that these tools satisfy users’ socializing needs (Kizgin et al. 2018) and enhance
human well-being (Valkenburg et al. 2006).
While social networking sites have the potential to play a significant role in
educational environments (Salahshour et al. 2015, 2017), few studies focus on their
impact in enhancing students’ social presence, their wellbeing and learning perfor-
mance. In addition, the most previous studies are based on statistical analysis which the
casual relationships among the factors are not considered. Furthermore, to measure the
students social presence and their learning performance, the applied methods must be
able to find which factors are net causer and which factors are net receiver. This will
help the methods to better analysis the relationships between the factors for revealing
their impotence levels. Accordingly, this study aims to fill these gaps by developing a
new model to investigate the role of social presence factors on students’ social
wellbeing and its effect on their learning performance. We also aim to use a new
method to identify the cause-effect chain components in the proposed model for the
impact of social networking sites on students learning performance. Overall, our
contributions in this study are as follow:

& A comprehensive review is conducted on the usage of social networking sites in

educational environments. We try to identify a set of influential factors which have
impacts on the students learning performance.
& A new model is developed according to the identified factors from the literature
review.
& The casual relationships among the influential factors are identified. To do so, we
apply a new method to achieve this objective. Specifically we apply Decision
Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (Lee et al. 2010; Wang et al. 2016) method
to reveal the importance level of factors by identifying cause-effect components of
the model.

2 Related research

There are many studies on the use of social networking sites in educational environ-
ments. In this section some of these studies are discussed.
Salahshour Rad et al. (2017) proposed a new model for the adoption of social
networking sites in the research universities in Malaysia. Unified Theory of Acceptance
and Use of Technology theory was used for model development. The model included
Education and Information Technologies

age, gender and experience as moderator variables and, trust perceived privacy, per-
ceived security, attitude towards technology, and communication benefits as predictors
for intention to use social networking sites. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation
Modeling (PLS-SEM) technique was used to analysis the data. The results showed
positive relationships between the factors, except effort expectancy. In addition, the
results showed that there is no moderating effect of age, gender and experience on the
intention to use social networking sites. Overall, the research findings revealed that the
social networking sites can improve the students’ performance in research. Bicen and
Cavus (2010) conducted a study to find the most preferred social network sites by the
university students. The study results showed that 38% of the students use Live Spaces,
38% of them use Facebook, 11% of them use My Space, 12% of them use Hi5 and 1%
of them use Orkut from social services sites. Pang (2018) investigated the role of
different types of social networking site interactions on social capital and perceived
psychological well-being. The data were collected from Chinese international students
in Germany. A statistical approach was used in AMOS software for data analysis. The
study results showed that the social use of social networking sites can improve the
students’ well-being. Buzov (2014) studied the role of social networking sites for
students’ pro- environmental activities. They collected the data from college students
from six faculties at University of Split. The results showed that the students highly use
social networks to meet their interests in environmental issues.
Bicen (2015) conducted a study on the determination of students’ reasons in using
social networking sites. Two hundred twenty nine volunteer undergraduate students
were selected from different faculties. SPSS package software was used to analysis the
data. The results showed that the students’ instant communication with their friends is
the main reason for using social networking sites. Pempek et al. (2009) studied the
college students’ social networking experiences on Facebook. The data were collected
from ninety-two undergraduate students from a private university. A statistical ap-
proach was used to analysis the data. They found that many students use Facebook to
keep in touch with the friends not at their university. Ellison et al. (2007) conducted a
study to investigate the relationship between use of Facebook and the formation and
maintenance of social capital. The data were collected from 286 undergraduate students
and regression analysis was employed for data analysis. They found positive
relationship between use of Facebook and the formation and maintenance of social
capital. Roblyer et al. (2010) conducted a study on the student uses and perceptions of
social networking sites. A survey questionnaire was used to collect the data from the
mid-sized southern university. In addition, a statistical approach was used to analysis
the data. The results of this study showed that the students and faculty use social
networking sites for different purposes and university students are much more likely
than the faculty in using Facebook as a social networking site.
Bosch (2009) studied the use of online social networking for teaching and learning.
In addition, they explored students’ use of Facebook qualitatively. Cheung et al. (2011)
developed a model to investigate why students use Facebook. The model included
social presence, social influence factors, and factors from the uses and gratifications
paradigm. The data was collected from 182 students at the university. A statistical
approach, PLS-SEM, was used for data analysis. They found social related factors as
the most significant impact on the students’ intention to use Facebook. Lim and
Richardson (2016) investigated the impact of students’ social networking experience
 Education and Information Technologies

on social presence and the perceptions of the social networking sites usage for
educational purposes. In fact, they investigated how the students in online courses
can use social networking sites, the students’ intensity of using the social networking
site and its impact on their social presence, the students’ perceptions about using social
networking sites for educational purposes, and the effect of intensity of using the social
networking sites on students’ perceptions about using social networking sites. The
authors selected the students of a large public university to collect the data through the
Qualtrics online survey software. A statistical approach was used to analysis the data.
The study findings showed a positive attitude from the students to use social network-
ing sites for educational purposes.
Joksimović et al. (2015) investigated the role of indicators of social presence on
academic performance. The work included three main groups, Interpersonal Commu-
nication, Open Communication and Cohesive Communication. In addition, the indica-
tors in these groups were: affective expression, self-disclosure, use of humour, con-
tinuing a thread, quoting from others’ messages, referring explicitly to others’ mes-
sages, asking questions, complimenting, expressing appreciation, expressing agree-
ment, vocatives, addresses or refers to the group using inclusive pronouns, and phatics,
salutations. The data were collected from master’s level students in computer science
online course. They used multiple regression analysis to analysis the collected data.
They found that the certain indicators of social presence are the significant predictors of
students’ final grades. Similarly, Helou and Rahim (2014) investigated the impact of
the use of social networking sites on students’ academic performance. The data
collection was from group of Malaysian university students. A statistical approach
was used to analysis the data. The results of this study showed that social networking
sites can have a positive impact on the academic performance.

3 Research model

According to the literature, it is found that few studies have been conducted to show the
impact of the social presence factors in social networking sites on students’ wellbeing
and their academic performance. The above studies as discussed more focus on the
students’ intention to use and the reasons of using social networking sites in their daily
life. Accordingly more attempts should be paid in this context to show how social
networking sites can help the students in their academic purposes. In addition, from the
literature, it can be found that almost all studies have used statistical approaches for data
analysis. Many statistical methods cannot consider casual relationships among the
factors and ignoring these relationships may affect on the predictive results of the
output (e.g., intention to use, academic performance, and social presence) of the model.
Accordingly, in some cases these methods fail to consider the interdependencies among
the components of the model. It is believed that Decision Making Trial and Evaluation
Laboratory which is aimed to be applied on the collected data from the university
students as samples can better reveal the relationships among the components of the
model and accordingly better predict the output of the model, academic performance).
Our proposed model is presented in Fig. 1. The model considers students social
wellbeing as the main predictor of students’ academic performance. This means that if
there is a satisfactory level of social wellbeing, there may be an improvement in the
Education and Information Technologies

Comfortable H1
Participating

H9 H10

Comfortable H2
Interaction

H11

H8 Comfortable H3
Conversation

H12
H7 Student
Social Wellbeing Academic
Performance

Affective
Expression H4

Continuing a
Thread H5

Vocatives
H6
Fig. 1 Research model

students’ academic performance. Furthermore, the proposed model has considered

several social presence factors (e.g., for which can impact on the students’ social
wellbeing). Here we define social presence as Bthe degree to which a person is
perceived as ‘real’ in mediated communication^ (Gunawardena and Zittle 1997).
Overall, the proposed hypotheses of our research are as follows: H1: Comfortable
participating in social networking sites will positively influence the students’ social
wellbeing, H2: Comfortable interaction in social networking sites will positively
influence the students’ social wellbeing, H3: Comfortable conversation in social
networking sites will positively influence the students’ social wellbeing, H4: Affective
expression in social networking sites will positively influence the students’ social
wellbeing, H5: Continuing a thread in social networking sites will positively influence
the students’ social wellbeing, H6: Vocatives in social networking sites will positively
influence the students’ social wellbeing, H7: Affective expression will positively
influence the comfortable interaction in social networking sites, H8: Continuing a
thread will positively influence the comfortable participating in social networking sites,
H9: Vocatives will positively influence the comfortable participating in social network-
ing sites, H10: Comfortable participating positively influences comfortable interaction,
H11: Comfortable conversation positively influences comfortable interaction, and H12:
 Education and Information Technologies

Social wellbeing in social networking sites will positively influence the student aca-
demic performance.

4 Data collection

According to our discussion in the previous section, we aim to find the relationships
between social presence factors, students’ social wellbeing and learning performance.
Accordingly, the attempt is made to collect the data from the female students in
Malaysia. The data is collected from the female students of different faculties at the
Universiti Teknologi Malayisa. Specifically, the students of different courses of this
university are selected. Using probability sampling approach, our sample selection is
based on Krejcie and Morgan’s sample size determination table (Krejcie and Morgan
1970). The sample size is calculated by the following formula:

ðt Þ2 p:q ð1:96Þ2 0:5  0:5

d2 ð0:05Þ2
S¼ " ! #¼ " !# ≅366 ð1Þ
1 ðt Þ2 p:q 1 ð1:96Þ2 0:5  0:5
1þ −1 1þ
N d2 7909 ð0:05Þ2

In the above formula, S is sample size, N is population size, d2 is the degree of accuracy
expressed as proportion, p. q estimate of variance and t is the value of selected alpha
level. Accordingly, with 95% level of confidence, the sample size of our study is 366.
The respondents of this study have been from the Faculty of Built Environment &
Surveying, Faculty of Science, Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences, Azman
Hashim International Business School, Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Tech-
nology and Faculty of Engineering. In addition, 25% of the respondents’ age was
<25 years old, 24% of the respondents’ age was ranged in 25–30 years old, and 51% of
the respondents’ age was >30 years old. 35% of the respondents were PhD degree, 40%
of the respondents were Master degree and the remaining 25% of respondents were
Bachelor degree.

5 Method of data analysis

In this research, we use Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory

(DEMATEL) technique (Nilashi et al. 2015; Ahmadi et al. 2015; Yadegaridehkordi
et al. 2018) to analysis the data and find the relationships between the factors in the
model. The applied methodology is introduced in this section.
DEMATEL is one the effective technique to find and analyses the inter-relationship
among the system factors (Tsai and Chou 2009; Shieh et al. 2010). This method
transforms the causal relationships between the factors indicators into a tangible
structural model. DEMATEL is a comprehensive method for the preparation and
analysis of a structural model that includes causal relationships between complex
factors (Tzeng et al. 2007). This technique acts on directional graphs, and these graphs
Education and Information Technologies

are able to display directional relationships between sub-systems. The result of the
DEMATEL technique is to divide the factors into two cause and effect groups (Wu
2008). The steps of DEMATEL technique is a follows:

Step 1. The data is collected from the respondents. Suppose that there is H
respondents and n factors, each respondent provide the effect
h ofi the factor i on
factor j. These effects are presented in a matrix X k ¼ X kij (for the kth
nn
respondent). From this matrix, direct relations matrix is formed. The scale ranging
is from 0 (No influence) to 4 (Very high influence). All elements aii in main
diameter of Xk are 0. To have a combined matrix of all respondents’ feedback, we
use the following formula:

1 h i
A ¼ Aij nn ¼ ∑H k
 
k¼1 X ij ð2Þ
H nn

Step 2: In this step, the normalized primary direct matrix is calculated. We call this
matrix as initial influence matrix, D. To form a normalized matrix of direct
relations matrix, we use the following formulas.

A
D¼ ð3Þ
S
!
n n
S ¼ max max ∑ aij ; max ∑ aij ð4Þ
j¼1 i¼1

Step 3: We compute the direct/indirect influence matrix. This matrix reflects the
direct and indirect effects that the matrix elements (factors) have on each other. L is
an identity matrix. The total relation matrix T is calculated by:

T ¼ DðL−DÞ−1 ð5Þ

Step 4: In this step, two matrices C and R are calculated. These matrices are
constructed to form R + C (total effects given and received by a factor) and R − C
(the net effects that a factor contributes to the system). Accordingly, if R − C is
positive, the factor is net cause, otherwise the factor is net receiver (Shieh et al. 2010).

 
T ¼ tij nn i; j ¼ 1; 2; …n ð6Þ

!
n
C¼ ∑ tij i ¼ 1; 2; …n ð7Þ
j¼1
n1
 Education and Information Technologies

 
n
R¼ ∑ tij j ¼ 1; 2; …n ð8Þ
i¼1 1n

6 Data analysis

The data was collected from 366 students at the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.
They were asked to provide their answers to the questions by the following scores:
Bno influence (0),^ Blow influence (1),^ Bmedium influence (2),^ Bhigh influence
(3),^ and Bvery high influence (4)^. To perform the steps of DEMATEL presented
in previous section, the data was structured in the matrices for each respondent. In
the first step of our analysis, the combined (average) matrix A = [Aij]n × n was
calculated. In Tables 1 and 2, the initial findings for DEMATEL are presented.
These tables show the initial impact of the factors on each other. Then, by calcu-
lating the normalized primary direct matrix, we could obtain the matric T by Eq. (6)
for all relationships. In Table 3, we present the total relation matrix among social
presence factors and social wellbeing. In Table 4, the total relation matrix between
social wellbeing and student academic performance is presented. After calculating
this matrix, we obtained C, R, C + R and C − R from each matrix T. The results are
provided in Table 5.
According to the data analyses, the proposed model with the hypotheses results are
presented in Fig. 2. In this figure, the total influence of each factor on the other factor is
presented with the T value (influence size). From the results, we can observe that the
total influence of wellbeing on student academic performance is about T = 1.053,
indicating that there is a positive relationship between these two factors. In addition,
it can be observed that the influence values of comfortable participating, comfortable
interaction, comfortable conversation, affective expression, continuing a thread and
vocatives on social wellbeing are respectively, T = 0.226, T = 0.176, T = 0.227, T =
0.214, T = 0.226 and T = 0.220 which show that these factors can have significant
effects on the social wellbeing. The most influences are from the comfortable conver-
sation, comfortable participating and continuing a thread factors.

Table 1 Normalized primary direct matrix among social presence factors and social wellbeing

SC CI CC AE CT VO CP

Social wellbeing 0.000 0.014 0.024 0.024 0.014 0.014 0.019

Comfortable interaction 0.152 0.000 0.000 0.033 0.024 0.024 0.010
Comfortable conversation 0.176 0.181 0.000 0.000 0.014 0.024 0.029
Affective expression 0.171 0.171 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.014 0.024
Continuing a thread 0.176 0.000 0.019 0.014 0.000 0.000 0.171
Vocatives 0.167 0.019 0.014 0.000 0.019 0.000 0.171
Comfortable participating 0.157 0.171 0.052 0.057 0.029 0.019 0.000

SC Social Wellbeing, CI Comfortable Interaction, CC Comfortable Conversation, AE Affective Expression,

CT Continuing a Thread, VO Vocatives and CP Comfortable Participating
Education and Information Technologies

Table 2 Normalized primary direct matrix between social wellbeing and student academic performance

Social wellbeing Student academic performance

Social wellbeing 0 1
Student academic performance 0.05 0

We further investigated the interrelationships among the factors of social presence.

In Fig. 2, it can be observed that there are relationships among these factors. The results
show that affective expression can positively influence comfortable interaction with
influence value of T = 0.185, continuing a thread has significant effect on comfortable
participating (T = 0.181), vocatives has positive impact on comfortable participating
(T = 0.184), and comfortable interaction receive positive effects from comfortable
conversation (T = 0.197) and comfortable participating (T = 0.202). The final results
are presented in Table 6.

7 Discussion

Social network sites have played a significant role in the educational environments (Yu
et al. 2010). The previous studies have confirmed its effectiveness in learning and
teaching in educational environments (Bosch 2009; Liccardi et al. 2007; Yang and Tang
2003; Yu et al. 2010). These studies reveal that social network sites shows potential for
enhancing collaboration between the students. Further, using social network sites allow
students to reinforce distant relationships and fledgling. The previous research shows
that these interaction and social collaborations in social network sites environments can
have positive effects on mental health (Fiori et al. 2006) and improve the students’
social wellbeing (Burke et al. 2010). This research also reveals that engagement with a
social network site is correlated with greater overall well-being. Accordingly, it can be
concluded that potential design enhancements of social network sites to foster the
communication among the students can improve their interactions.

Table 3 Total relation matrix among social presence factors and social wellbeing

SC CI CV AE CT VO CP

Social wellbeing 0.024 0.029 0.026 0.027 0.017 0.017 0.027

Comfortable interaction 0.176 0.015 0.006 0.040 0.028 0.028 0.024
Comfortable conversation 0.227 0.197 0.009 0.015 0.024 0.033 0.045
Affective expression 0.214 0.185 0.007 0.013 0.009 0.023 0.036
Continuing a thread 0.226 0.046 0.034 0.032 0.010 0.009 0.181
Vocatives 0.220 0.062 0.030 0.018 0.030 0.009 0.184
Comfortable participating 0.226 0.202 0.060 0.071 0.039 0.030 0.021

SC Social Wellbeing, CI Comfortable Interaction, CC Comfortable Conversation, AE Affective Expression,

CT Continuing a Thread, VO Vocatives and CP Comfortable Participating
 Education and Information Technologies

Table 4 Total relation matrix between social wellbeing and student academic performance

Social wellbeing Student academic performance

Social wellbeing 0.053 1.053

Student academic performance 0.053 0.053

In addition, the results showed that social presence can be effective in improving
the students’ wellbeing. This result is confirmed by the previous research. Previous
research on the effect of social presence on the students’ motivation to participate
also demonstrated that social network sites can improve the students’ social pres-
ence (Dabbagh and Kitsantas 2012; Dunlap and Lowenthal 2009; Lim and
Richardson 2016). They further reveal that social network sites improve the stu-
dents’ social presence through the form of web communities within a social network
site environment. Further, Kang (2007) found a positive relationship between
online chat use and psychosocial well-being. This research further reveals that
online interaction in social network sites can decrease estrangement and depression
and increase happiness.
This study has also confirmed that social network sites can have positive effects on
the female students’ learning performance. In addition, our results show how the social
aspect of individuals’ learning can be improved by the power of peers. This result of
our study is confirmed by the previous studies on the use of social network sites in
educational environments (Yu et al. 2010). The authors consider the learning outcomes
from three perspectives, self-esteem, satisfaction with university life and performance
proficiency. The authors find that online social networking engagement can have
significant effects on self-esteem, satisfaction with university life and performance
proficiency. In addition, they find that social acceptance can have similar effects on
self-esteem, satisfaction with university life and performance proficiency. This study
result on the effect of social network sites on students’ learning performance is also
confirmed by the social learning theory and the individuals’ active engagement per-
spectives which find that learning’s social genesis and views learning as a social
process (Alavi 1994; Yu et al. 2010).

Table 5 Net causer and net receiver among social presence factors and social wellbeing

Factors of model D R D+R D-R

Social wellbeing 0.167 1.313 1.480 −1.147

Comfortable interaction 0.317 0.736 1.053 −0.419
Comfortable conversation 0.550 0.173 0.723 0.377
Affective expression 0.487 0.216 0.703 0.271
Continuing a thread 0.539 0.156 0.695 0.383
Vocatives 0.554 0.149 0.702 0.405
Comfortable participating 0.649 0.518 1.167 0.131
Education and Information Technologies

Comfortable T=0.226
Participating

T=0.184 T=0.202

Comfortable T=0.176
Interaction

T=0.197

T=0.181 Comfortable T=0.227

Conversation

T=1.053
T=0.185
Social Wellbeing Student Academic
Performance

Affective
Expression T=0.214

Continuing a
Thread T=0.226

Vocatives
T=0.220
Fig. 2 Final research model

Overall, the findings of this study can help the universities consider effectively the
technologies of social networking sites for the academic purposes, as social media can
better build social credibility. This can help the students to better interact with their
instructors and other peers, which accordingly can improve their social well-being and
academic performance.

Table 6 The final results of hypotheses testing

Hypothesis Influence value (T) Result

Social wellbeing→ Student academic performance T = 1.053 Supported

Comfortable interaction→ Social wellbeing T = 0.226 Supported
Comfortable conversation→ Social wellbeing T = 0.176 Supported
Affective expression→ Social wellbeing T = 0.214 Supported
Continuing a thread→ Social wellbeing T = 0.226 Supported
Vocatives→ Social wellbeing T = 0.220 Supported
Comfortable participating→ Social wellbeing T = 0.227 Supported
Comfortable conversation → Comfortable interaction T = 0.197 Supported
Comfortable participating → Comfortable interaction T = 0.202 Supported
Affective expression→ Comfortable interaction T = 0.185 Supported
Continuing a thread→ Comfortable participating T = 0.181 Supported
Vocatives→ Comfortable participating T = 0.184 Supported
 Education and Information Technologies

8 Conclusion

This study attempted to find the relationships between the social presence factors,
students’ social wellbeing and their academic learning performance. Accordingly, we
proposed a new model and developed several hypotheses based on the identified
factors. We conducted a survey on 366 female students of a Malaysian research
university for hypotheses testing and model verification. For data analysis, we used
Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory system to find the casual relation-
ships among the factors of the proposed model. This technique effectively helped us
finds the interrelationships among the factors and their influence size. The results
showed a positive relationship between the students’ social wellbeing and their learning
performance. In addition, we found that students’ social wellbeing can be significantly
influenced by social presence factors. We also found some casual relationships among
the factors of social presence. We found that comfortable participating in social network
sites can highly be influenced by continuing a thread and vocatives. In addition, the
results further revealed that comfortable interaction is influenced by affective expres-
sion and this factor also receive positive impacts from the comfortable participating and
comfortable conversation. These findings are ignored in the previous research.
This research is not without theoretical and methodological limitations. This re-
search only considered female students as samples for model verification. Other groups
should also be investigated and the comparisons between the results can better reflect
the impact of social network sites on students’ social wellbeing and their learning
performance. In addition, we only considered some of the social presence factors to
measure the students’ social wellbeing. Hence, other factors such as self-disclosure,
complimenting, salutations and use of humour should be also devalued for students’
social wellbeing in social network sites. Furthermore, based on social learning theory, it
is highly suggested that the outcome of the social wellbeing is investigated from three
perspectives, self-esteem, satisfaction with university life and performance proficiency.
This paper used DEMATEL for hypotheses analysis. To uncover the relationship
between the variables in the model, the use of PLS-SEM is also suggested for the future
studies. In addition, this paper used a quantitative approach for revealing the impor-
tance level of factors for the impact of social networking sites on student academic
performance. Accordingly, it would be beneficial to collect the data through interviews
with the students and employ the qualitative research approach for data analysis and
interpretation.

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institutional affiliations.

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