Perceived Effects of Social Media on the Behaviour of Grade 8 Students

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Social media nowadays have a great impact on the students' behavior as they use them as a means of communication in gathering data and information. This study aims to examine the influence of social media, especially Facebook, on students' behavior. Whether there is a positive relationship between attitudes of the learners, social participation and social media related behaviors will also be examined concerning Facebook usage.

METHODS

A validated set of questionnaires with two categories was prepared by the authors to evaluate the behavior and its effect on the academic performance of Grade 8 students of Looc Integrated School. To achieve this, the descriptive survey research design was adopted. The simple random sampling technique was used to select 180 students. A four-point Likert Type Rating Scale Questionnaire was used to collect data from the respondents where reliability and validity were calculated for the whole scale.

RESULTS

The majority of the respondents have smartphones. Out of 180 respondents, 142 (79%) students have a Facebook account and active users. The most used Operating System was Android (47%), followed by iOS (38%) and windows (8%). The rest answered none stating that they have no smartphones. The authors argued often used of Facebook might due to respondents' lifestyle. It has been observed that these days, students are so attached to social media that they are almost 24 hours online. Even in classrooms, it was observed that some students had been busy with their Smartphones-Facebooking, while lectures were ongoing. They sneaked time, chatting irrelevant issues and meeting new friends online hence, the students' eagerness learning and other academic performances had been descending due to addiction in social media.

DISCUSSIONS

The perceived effect of this study shows that Students' addictiveness to the social network has a significant influence on their behavior. Social media have become a major part of the students' lives today. As a result of the findings of this study, though Social media have negative effects on students' behavior such as lack of privacy, distraction on academic works and lack of time management. On the other hand, they can also be benefited when they used Social Networking Sites (SNS) properly. For instance, students can create an online group to plan a project, have group discussions about class materials and updating one another in all subject matters which can also help their classmates who have been absent for many reasons.