Impact of the use of social media on students’ academic performance and behavior change

Abstract

The purpose of this research study is to examine the impact of social media on students’ academic performance. A structural questionnaire was constructed to elicit information from 345 randomly selected students of Mawlana Bhashani Science and Technology University (MBSTU), Tangail, Bangladesh. Both univariate and multivariate analysis were used to meet he objective. The descriptive statistics were used to analyze the demographic data and educational information while a multiple regression model was applied to show the influence of social media on students’ academic performance. Research findings showed that a large number of respondents experienced negative effects such as late submission of assignment, less study time and poor academic performance due to the heavy participation on social media networks. A portion of the students provided positive feedback about the involvement with the terrorist and militant activities and the tendency to the predisposition with the political issues due to social media. To this end, the study suggested that social media should be used for educational purposes as well; social networking sites should be expanded and new pages should be created to enhance academic activities, avoid setbacks in the students’ academic performance; and students should be monitored by teachers and parents on how they use social networking sites.