ABSTRACT
Social media has become ubiquitous in today’s globalized world as a result of its valuable role in communication and information sharing. It appeals to people from all walks of life, particularly students, for a variety of purposes irrespective of some negative effects that their use may have on their academic performance. This study investigated the effects of social media use on the academic performance of students of public tertiary institutions in Ghana, with University of Education, Winneba (UEW) and University of Cape Coast (UCC) selected for case study. The study investigated social media platforms and their usage among students, the reasons or purposes for students’ use of social media, the time students spent on social media and the amount of time they spent studying, students’ GPA and the number of social media platforms they subscribed to, the difference in social media usage rate in terms of faculties and the effects of social media use on students’ academic performance.
The theoretical frameworks adopted for the study were Bandura’s Social Learning Theory and Katz’s Uses and Gratification Theory. Using a survey research methodology, a sample size of 400 Level 300 students were selected, out of which 390 (97.5%) responded to the questionnaire that were used to collect data. Stratified random sampling technique was used to select respondents from three faculties in each university – Social Sciences, Sciences and Education. Data was analysed using SPSS, while some hypotheses were tested using chi-square to find out relationships among variables.
The study revealed that all the students who participated were social media users and there was no significant difference in social media usage rate in terms of faculties. Also, the time students spent on social media affected the amount of time they spent studying. Furthermore, the findings showed
that the number of social media platforms subscribed to did not affect students’ GPA, while the amount of time spent on social media platforms did not affect students’ academic performance.
The study recommended to university management the integration of topics on the pros and cons of social media use in the classroom in various courses of study by instructors and implementers, restriction of social media use during class sessions by students, and provision of facilities that support the use of technology including social media. It also recommended to students to allot quality time for studies and use of social media for the right purposes, especially their academic studies.
CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
Background to the Study
The information revolution is making significant impact in all spheres of our lives. It offers easy approach to methods and means of doing things. Massive transformation is experienced in terms of communication and interactions between individuals, organisations and groups of people all over the world. Our current means of communication and information sharing can never be compared to what it used to be some years back. In fact, it would sound mythical and incredible to envisage or forecast the likely existence or usage of the instant messaging or information sharing techniques we are enjoying today. This is due to the fact that some of the information sharing techniques available some few decades ago which included telegrams, postal services, landline telephone calls, etc. were relatively costly, quite cumbersome or time consuming, and also unreliable. Technological advancement, especially social media, is the order of the day and serves as an antidote to the challenges associated with the former means of communication and information sharing. Recent statistics indicate that over two-thirds (2/3), that is 66.7% of internet users and about one-third (1/3), 33.3% of the world’s population are social media sites users (Kemp, 2017a, b).
According to Leyrer-Jackson and Wilson (2018), social media are “websites and technological applications that allow its users to share content and/or to participate in social networking”. Social media has become ubiquitous, providing some means and enhancement of learning for users irrespective of time and location (Yang, 2006). Social media has impacted greatly how
organizations, institutions of higher learning, individuals and communities interact or engage each other. Social media are of six main types: “collaborative project (Xiang and Gretzel, 2010; Choe et al. 2016), blogs and microblogs (e.g. Twitter), content communities (e.g. YouTube), social networking platforms (e.g. Facebook), virtual game worlds (e.g. World of Warcraft), as well as virtual social worlds (e.g. Second Life)”.
According to Bamigboye and Olusesan (2017), “Social Media activities include; bloggings, picture-sharing, v logs, wall-postings, e-mailing, instant messaging, music-sharing, crowd sourcing and voice over IP, to name a few”. “It is a platform used for communication through mobile phones, smart phones, palm tops and handheld devices, computers, tablet PCs, laptops, desktops, iPad, iPod, Blackberry and Android on social network sites as Facebook, Twitter, 2go, google+, flicker (Kietzmann, 2011)”. Blogging includes some of the popular social media sites making a lot of meaningful impact so far as professional and personal relationships are concerned. One of the major characteristics of the young generation of today is the creation of blogs, tools for transmitting files and sharing media, podcasts, wikis, etc. which has changed students’ interactions and relations with instructors and also pedagogical processes (Bharucha, 2018).
The youth of today are fond of taking digital images of themselves with their mobile devices called “selfies”. They are caught up with the craze of sharing memorable images of themselves. Capturing an image of one’s self guarantees a place in history for the individual especially when the individual is in a fashionable clothing or apparel, partaking in an exercise or occasion, in an interesting or historic environment, etc. Many also take selfies in the midst of accomplishing
some daunting tasks, in class, worship centres, among others. These images are mostly shared on social media (Shah and Tewari, 2016; Jain and Mavani, 2017).
As of October 2018, some of the famous social media sites with their respective active users were Facebook (2.23 billion), YouTube (1.90 billion), WhatsApp (1.50 billion), Facebook messenger (1.30 billion), WeChat (1.058 billion), Instagram (1 billion) active users, etc. (Statista, 2018). According to statistics of the world’s internet usage, there were 4,208,571,287 estimated internet users in the world, with 55.1% penetration rate as of 30th June, 2018. Also, Africa’s population in 2018 was estimated to be 1,287,914,329 of which 464,923,169 used the internet. The continent’s penetration rate was 36.1%. By December 31st 2017, Facebook users worldwide numbered 2,119,060,152 while that of Africa was 177,005,700. Users of internet in Ghana as of December 2017 were 10,110,000 with 34.3% internet penetration. Again, 4,900,000 out of the aggregate internet users in Ghana used Facebook (Internet World Statistics, 2018).
The National Communication Authority (NCA) of Ghana reported that subscribers of mobile data in Ghana has increased tremendously with a 75.54% penetration rate. As of the end of July 2018, mobile data subscriber base appreciated to 22,044,592 (NCA, 2018). The consequences of the statistics is that the number of people that subscribe to the internet and possess or use mobile devices will keep increasing, resulting in increase in mobile data subscription. That will in turn translate into more people joining the use of social media worldwide day by day.
