Impact of Social Media on the Academic Performance of University Students

Abstract

In the 21st century development of the internet has occurred rapidly. The development of internet has highly impact on the performance of the students. Specially social media or the social networking has become very popular among younger generation. Due to the huge usage of such sites problems are arising whether their usage is affected on students' educational performances. So the aim of this study was to find out the relationship between usage of social networking sites and academic performances. The data were obtained from a cross sectional survey conducted through a structured questionnaire. A total sample size of two hundred (200) students was selected from the four faculties: Social Sciences, Humanities, Science and Management at University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka as to the quota sampling method. 50 students from each faculty were selected. Descriptive statistics and Correlation Tests were used to analyse the data using SPSS and Excel. Out of all the participants 98.5% were using at least one of the social networking sites. Majority of the students are following 4 to 5 social network sites. From them most popular sites are Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Majority of the respondents (41.5%) agreed that usage of social networks has increased their grades. And also a majority of 100 (50%) indicated they agree to the fact that they use materials from SNS to review what the lecturer taught in the class. Therefore, it can be concluded that social media have a twofold impact on the academic performance of students, and it is essential to approach youngsters' use of social media with crucial responsibility.