Social Media Networks and Their Impact on University Students’ Academic Performance: A Case of Kibabii University, Kenya
- August 27, 2020
- Posted by: RSIS
- Categories: Education, IJRSI, Psychology
International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation (IJRSI) | Volume VII, Issue VIII, August 2020 | ISSN 2321–2705
Hesborn Chonge
Department of Educational Psychology, Moi University, Kenya
Abstract: Improvements in communication technology especially in social media has greatly broadened the scope of communication helping people to be better informed and keeping abreast with world development. The social networking sites among others include: WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook and Skype which use gadgets like smart phones and tablets. The popularity of use of social media has been felt in learning institutions. Certainly, this creates a direct link between the use of social media and academic achievement in learning institutions. These sites remain in use continuously by students on a daily basis. Therefore, as to whether many social networking sites displayed on the internet cause students to be tempted to abandon their academic work and reading times in preference for chatting online with friends or they enhance academic performance is a question that this paper has attempted to answer. Consequently, this paper aims at discussing the impact of social media networks in terms of promoting or negating academic performance among university students. At the end of the paper, the author has recommended on how learning institutions can maximumly benefit there students from the exposure to social media to enhance academic performance.
Key words: Social media networks; Academic achievement
I. INTRODUCTION
The study of social media networks has received significant interest from researchers in various domains such as psychology and education. Hansen (2017) defined social media as a set of online applications and tools that provide ways of social interaction and communication between digital media users by facilitating and creating knowledge, sharing and ultimately transforming a monologue into a dialog. On the other hand, Baltaci (2019) defines social media as online environments accessed via internet that individuals use when they want to share their instantaneous thoughts and feelings and even their behaviors with others by means of photos and videos.
