Social Media Usage and Its Perceived Degree of Effect on the Academic Performance of Students

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

The innovation of social media has changed the online world over a decade.We can now easily interact with each other by exchanging ideas, feelings, personal opinions, picture, and videos online (Oberst, 2010). It has been published by Camus (2017) that the Philippines has been leading in the global world when it comes to the average time spent on social media. He also cited a publication entitled “Digital in 2017,” where it was reported that Filipinos spend an average of 4 hours and 17 minutes per day on social media sites such as Facebook, twitter and SnapChat. Unfortunately, Owusu-Acheaw and Larson (2015) cited San Miguel's findings in 2009, which states that there is a relationship between the time spent on Facebook and the academic performance of students.

METHODS

Descriptive survey design was utilized. Using descriptive approach, the proponent was able to determine the social media usage and respondents' perceived degree of effect on the academic performance of students. Forty-four grade 11 students across different strand were the respondents of the study who answered a validated self-made questionnaire. With the data gathered interpreted through quantitative analysis the social media usage and its perceived effect on the academic performance were determined.

RESULTS

The results explained that Facebook is the most popular social media site used by the student-respondents, intended for communication purposes. Among the social media sites identified, the Messenger was found out as the most frequently used by the students with 1 to 2 hours per day. Among the indicators, social media usage was perceived to have a high to a very high effect to the indicator gained more vocabulary. It has also been revealed that the student-respondents perceived that social media usage has a moderate effect to higher academic performance and a slight effect to lower academic performance. Lastly, the respondents' perceived that social media usage has no effect in terms of the indicator (please supply missing word/s).

DISCUSSIONS

This study is strongly recommended to gather data from larger sample size and measure the relationship between the said variables rather than determining the perceived degree of effect alone. This is to directly assess its effect on the academic performance of students. This paper further encourages the students to either use social media sites that can postively contribute to their academic work and research rather than by chatting all the time.