Social Media is being expanded mercurially during recent couple of decades, however, the aim of the research is to know the increasing effects of the social media networks on the academic performance of the student at University of Sindh, Larkana campus. To meet the objectives of the study, we adopted questionnaire and distributed among 130 students of the campus who are enrolled in BBA, BSCS, BS-English, MA-English, & MBA programs. Random sample and SPSS-21 software were employed. Our finding shows that the most of the students are spending their essential time over the use of social media such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Snap chat, and their purpose behind the usage is to enhance their knowledge, gaining updated information and career development. Using ANOVA and Regression Analysis, we did not find any significant difference among diverse academic groups and statistically, there is no any significant negative impact of usage of used in social media on academic performance respectively. We conclude our study that every technology or internet application has dual purpose, i.e., negative as well as positive. This study may help out the management as well as teaching faculty of the campus that how to design their interactive class lectures, assignments, projects etc. for students to upgrade academic excellence.

Keywords: social media, academic performance, university students

The 16th century is regarded by historians as the century in which the rise of numerous technologies, though, it has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded on humanity.¹ These days, social media is one of the most important sources which plays a crucial role and having aims to connect people, develop relationships, and provide optimistic opportunity to enhance services. Social media comes in a variety of forms including social networking sites, blogs, micro-blogs, chat platforms, open-source mapping, and photo & video sharing Simply, it is the form of electronic communication such as web sites through which people can create online activities to share information, ideas and personnel messages. Day by day it is being advanced and enormously intensive technique in the global world.²

Studies have shown that there are various positive and negative images of social media, depends upon the students whether they are using in right attention or wrong attention. However; it provides a track to reduce communication barriers and to develop a vital knowledge and social skills among the students of different eras.³

According to the Ahmad,⁴ it was observed from his research that the many users of internet are using social sites which have many numbers of advantages, such as it connects people living in different societies with each other around the world.

Since last many years technology has created a biggest social network, which is increasing rapidly at present. Social media is an internet-based variety of communication, where people around the world exchange their ideas, views and opinions internationally. We are living in 21^st century which is totally related to internet and in last 2 decades there is a huge growth have to see in internet because everyone wants to interact with the whole world to see, what happened in the rest of the world? Which is quite important to know to make ourselves up-to-date? That’s why the ratio of the social media users is increasing day by day.

About 2.5 billion people are using social media to interact the rest of the world. The impacts of the social media are various in our lives but it mainly impacts on student’s life. (State Council of Educational Research & Training, 2019).

Further, more we cannot say that the impacts of social media are always negative, But also positive. There are many positive impacts of social media which are really beneficial for students in their studies. While usage of social media they can communication with different country students to know about their methods and new study logics are to understand their concept of study.⁵

In one of the researches conducted by a researcher named Tamayo & Dela Cruz⁶ they stated that there is association between usage of social media and academic performance of students who are studding in colleges and universities. The study shows that social media sites affect the student’s performance and attendance at colleges and universities. The result was analyzed by plotting into scattered diagram to view the clear association or correlation between the variables.

Academic performance and social media have influence to one another. Means when the students visit too much social media websites than their academic performance is affected in shape of class activities and performance.⁷

If a student interacts with decent people to make his character or personality, by liking study related different pages to study about general knowledge, to make learn new words, to clear the concept of the topic or minimize his grammar mistakes to make perfect himself. By watching different videos which relate to study material to improve his listening power, spoken power or understanding the pronunciation. The major advantage of social media is group learning while is quite beneficial for the students, because in group learning, there are couples of minds which works in different from the other in this way all the points will be cleared and memorized.⁸

This kind of platform is an advancement in technology which provides us with better communication easily for many of the education purposes. It helps in many ways such as in research, communication online articles, and secondary collection of data from the internet. Social media is very much useful in the education field no one today can get good information without social media. It has made education simple and better.⁹

Even though the benefits being offered by the social media are multiple and noteworthy, but it also contains the negative side effects that harms the daily life of a common man. At present mostly the youngster is being affected by the social media. Social media includes many of the positive and negative impact on the student’s academic life.

Positive impacts of social media

Social media being an easy access to the present population provides an online chatting. It spares the online chatting wherein the communicator exchanges their ideas, sentiments and perspectives about a particular subject. The online chatting also comprises of various syllabus which showcase the feelings, keenness and anger of the communicator. However, being miles away in terms of geography, the online chat removes this gap and established a good means to communicate their message. At present online chatting is possible many androids’ apps such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Skype, Snap Chat and with many others etc.

Another positive impact of social media is the provision of updated information. The latest information is uploaded at various websites and is made easily available to the readers. The updated knowledge takes few seconds to be dispatched to the targeted destination. This feature of social media makes it more important for the modern busy life in which individuals don not have sufficient time to read newspapers or other current affairs digests.

 Negative impacts of social media

Social media is impacting negative influence over the youngster or students, today the many students are wasting their precious time on using social media applications such on Facebook, WhatsApp, and Snap chat and so on. It impacts negatively on their academic performance.

Social media is also wastage of money because students are utilizing lots of their pocket money over the different packages. While using social sites students have been seen less social because of the more usage of social media. In addition to, it also affects the eye sight of human. At present many students have been founded with glasses due to more usage of social media networking sites. Another drawback of social media is that students are having less charm of book reading due to the usage of social media.

Purpose of the study

The objective of the research was to examine the impact of social media usage on the academic performance of the students of the University of Sindh, Campus Larkana. In addition to, it was also aimed to find out, what is the reason behind usage of social media.

Research objectives

1. Determine the impact of social media usage on academic performance of students at Sindh University Larkana Campus.
2. To examine the social media networks mostly used by the students nowadays .
3. To investigate the time spent by the students on social media usage.
4. To identify the reasons of social media used by the students of University of Sindh, Campus Larkana.

Research hypotheses

Ho1: There is no impact of social media on academic performance of students.

Ha1: There is impact of social media on academic performance of students.

Ho2: BBA students are more influenced by social media as compared to others.

Ha2: BBA students are not more influenced by social media as compared to others.

Literature review
A number of research studies have been conducted around the world investigating the impact of the social media on student’s academic performance. According to the Nicole E⁹ he said that social is wide channel for youngster for sharing information with their colleagues, relatives for improving their social contents. WhatsApp and Facebook users have been founded with poor academic performance in higher institutions of education all over the world.

According to the Karpinski¹⁰ he said that social media usage has negative relation with the academic performance of students that is greater than the benefits received through the usage of social media. All the people have been addicted to the social network sites. Nowadays the ratio of social media users is consistently increasing day by day.

Researchers have founded through studies that the influence of social media networking sites have brought destruction for the student’s education life. Social media applications such as Facebook, WhatsApp, IMO and snap chat users have been seen that they are giving less time to their study, so that they have less CGPA than the non-users of social Medias around the world. It was described by Karpinski,¹⁰ According to the impact of social media results, student’s academic performance is influenced more by social media applications which currently used by the students, such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Skype, twitter and snap chat etc. these applications are mainly used for the purpose of social activities more than the academic purposes. Moreover, he mentioned in his research that great ratio of students feel that social media have positive result on academic growth. In many researches made by Shana, in one of his research he stated that mostly students use social sites for making new friends and chatting with them.¹¹ According to that it was examined through the research that many respondents that uses smart phones, tablets and laptops are fond of using social networking sites (SNS) and they have an easy access to them. In addition to, it resulted that majority of students were interested in using Facebook, snap chat, WhatsApp, twitter, LinkedIn and many other social sites.

According to the Lenhart¹² it was seen that the ratio of age group 21-25 years old students was using more networking sites such as (Facebook, WhatsApp & snap chat) than the age group 26-32.

Zahid¹³ He said that many students are engaged in using social media networking sites and its effects on academic performance of students of colleges and universities growing high over time. In addition to, he also said that many students are facing problems by using social media.

Social media is therefore related with high frequency of people, who are using social media sites for multipurpose such as advertising the business activities, services, products and they are introducing themselves over the social media.

A research made by Englander et al.,¹⁴ they stated that most of students are utilizing their time on social networking websites and it was also observed that most of students were not using social media education purpose. In addition to, another researcher stated in his research that students are using social media for their own interest; hence their academic performance was being affected.¹³

Moreover, a new research was made by researchers named Robear, their research states that social networking sites are medium of communication among the students and instructors in their respective fields. It was seen that Students were gaining knowledge from their teachers with the help of social media. In addition to, in another study made by a researcher named Karpinski in 2009, in which he said that students who are wasting their precious time on social networking sites, they have been founded with lower CGPA results than the students who were not engaged in social media networking sites.¹¹

Data collection and sampling

As the main objective of his study is to test impact of social media usage over the academic performance of Students at the campus. Following the questionnaire used by Waleed Mugahed Al-Rahmi,¹⁵ distributed among the students of Sindh University Larkana Campus for collecting primary data. The questionnaire has 5 points Likert scale, whereas 1 indicates the “strongly disagree”, 2 designates “disagree”, 3 highlights “neutral”, 4 referred as “agree” and 5 shows “strongly agree”.

Population

The population size for the research was total students of University of Sindh, Campus Larkana. They are enrolled in three departments namely Business Administration, Computer Science and English. As the campus offers morning and evening programs the total Population of students in all programs and shifts are almost 500.

Sample size

In this research, sample size has been chosen from the whole population for collecting primary data. The sample size was consisting of 130 respondents out of 500 students from different departments of Sindh university campus Larkana. For our own satisfaction and time constraint, we select random sampling method.

Tool for data collection

A structured set of questionnaires has been used for collecting primary data and for secondary data many articles, research papers and journals were referred.

Software employed

To test the hypotheses as well as meeting the objectives of the study, we used MS Excel and SPSS-For Descriptive statistics, frequency and graphs, MS Excel has been used whereas testing hypotheses of group comparison and effect, ANOVA and Regression tests were used.

Data analysis and findings

A structured questionnaire has been distributed among 130 respondents and 100% questionnaires were returned. The questionnaire was handed to the students of different faculties. In accordance with the descriptive statistics, out of 130 respondents 38.5% were from Business department, 19.2% were from computer science department, 15.4% were from English department, and 7.7% were students of M.A English while 19.2% were MBA respondents from Business department. The research finding is given below (Table 1).

The above table shows the reliability of scales; the reliability was measured by using Cronbach’s alpha to make sure the internal consistency of the items. In this study, Table illustrates the reliability statistics showing Cronbach’s alpha coefficient value 0.710, indicating very good internal stability of the scale as it was higher than 0.6 which is the suggested value for Cronbach’s alpha. The reliability was measured by SSPS software 2.1, in which data of seven scales was put to see the consistency among the items (Tables 2–4) (Figures 1–3).

Figure 1 Gender.

Figure 2 Religion.

Figure 3 Age of respondents.

The above table indicates the number of respondents belonging to different age groups. The result discloses that 63.1% of respondents 82belongs to the age group of 18-25 Years, 30.8% of respondents 40 in number fall into the age group of 26-32 Years, and 6.2% of respondents 8 in number belong to the age group of 32-39 Years. The ratio of respondents having age group 18-25 is dominant over the other age groups (Tables 5,6) (Figures 4,5).

Figure 4 Previous qualification of respondents.

Figure 5 Present qualification of respondents.

The above chart shows the number of respondents studying in different faculties (Table 7).

The above table indicates number of respondents studying in different semesters. The results showed that out of 130 respondents, 7.7% of respondents are studying in 1^st semester, 19.2% of respondents are belonging to 2nd semester, 3.8% of respondents are studying in 3^rd semester, 24.6% of respondents are studying in 4^th semester,11.5% of respondents are belonging to 5^th semester, 23.8% of respondents are studying in 6^th semester,3.8% of respondents are belonging to 7^th semester, while 5.4% of respondents are studying in 8^th semester. The result indicated that respondents belonging to 4^th semester are in majority (Table 8). The above chart indicates the number of respondents belonging to different semesters (Figure 6).

Figure 6 Semester wise frequency of respondents.

The above table shows the results of respondents in shape of CGPA taken by respondents during their academic career. The table expresses that 4.6% of the respondents belong to 2.1-2.5 CGPA group, 29.2% of the respondents belong to 2.6-3.0 CGPA group, and 53.1% of the respondents belongs to 3.1-3.5 CGPA group, while 13.1% of the respondents are belonging to 3.6-4.0 CGPA group. The table indicates that the respondents belonging to 3.1-3.5 CGPA are in majority than rest of the respondents (Figure 7).

Figure 7 Academic performance of respondents.

 Academic performance of respondents

The above pie chart shows the percentage of respondents belonging to different CGPA groups (Table 9).

The above table shows the social media applications usually used by the respondents on daily basis. The result indicates that out of 130 respondents, 7.7% of the respondents use Facebook, 30.8% of the respondents are using WhatsApp, 2.3% of the respondents are using messenger, 1.5% of the total respondents use Twitter, 2.3% of the respondents are using IMO and Skype and 3.8% of the respondents are using snap chat while 49.2% of the total respondents are using all of the above application means the majority of the respondents are using multiple social media applications (Figure 8).

Figure 8 Social media applications used by respondents.

Social media applications used by respondents

The above chart indicates the percentage of respondents using different types of social media applications

(Table 10).

The above table shows the purposes of social media used for by the respondents. The result shows that out of 130 respondents, 3.8% of the respondents use social media for entertainment, 1.5% of the respondents use social media for academic purpose, 12.3% of respondents use for career growth and information, 2.3% of respondents use for meeting new friends, and 23.8% of respondents use all of above purposes, while 43.8% of the respondents were using social media for multiple purpose. The result indicates that majority of respondents use social media applications for multiple objectives (Figure 9).

Figure 9 Social media purposes.

Social media purposes

The above figure indicates the percentage of respondents using social media for different purposes (Table 11).

The above table explains the number of hours spent by respondents over the social media usage. The result indicates that out of 130 respondents, 40% of the respondents spent 1-2 hours, 43.1% (Figure 10). The above figure shows the percentage of respondents spending different time on the usage of social media networking sites.

Figure 10 Hours spent by respondents.

 Effect size analysis

To test the impact of social media usage (hours and extend to use) on academic performance; this performance is coded in different categories like Cumulative Grading Point Average (CGPA). First, we select one categorical variable as independent variable in terms of students’ performance as CGPA and social median extend to usage as dependent variable (Continuous). To test the impact of social media usage in terms of it extend to use on which category of students’ academic performance, we used One Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) test in SPSS 21 (Table 12).

The table shows the mean of different CGPA groups of students which is measured in CGPA of their semesters results. Group or category one is lowest one that is from 2.1 to 2.5. This group has very lowest numbers found in the campus whose mean is 3.09. second group or category is in between 2.6 to 3.0 CGPA students. These students are considered as normal students whose results are satisfactory. Their mean of usage of social media is 3.41 which is higher than group one. Another category who are strong enough to compete and regular they are categorized in CGPA starts which from 3.1 and end up to 3.5. Their usage mean for social media is 3.49. Another highest CGPA holder are ranked from 3.6 to 4.0, they are only 17 students who has highest mean in usage of social media that is 3.59. Overall, the table illustrates the highest number of students’ academic performance falls in 3^rd category whose CGPA is in between 3.0 to 3.5 and them extend to use the social media in skewed towards agreed that social media is very much helpful to get their good performance (Table 13).

The test of homogeneity deals with to test whether the variance in the score is same in each of three categories or not by checking the significance value of Levane Statistic. If Sig. value is more than 0.05 it means we will not violate the assumptions of homogeneity (Tables 14,15).

ANOVA table illustrates both between and within groups sum of squares and degree of freedom. To test the difference among mean scores of dependent variables of employed four categories of students, significance value is to be examined. Here in table the significance value is more than 5% i-e 55.3% which depicts there is no difference in mean scores of four groups of students ranked as CGPA categories.

To test the impact of hours consumed in usage of social media on academic performance of students, regression analysis was used in SPSS 21. From the table of co-efficient it can be inferred that there is negative impact of hours used on social media on academic performance as shown beta value i-e -0.87, but the t value is less than 02 or p value is more than 0.05 hence we cannot reject the null hypothesis which states that there is no significant impact of hours used in surfing social media has negative effect on students’ academic performance at Sindh University Campus Larkana (Table 16).

The above table expresses the number of respondents studying in different faculties belonging to different age groups. The result indicates that out of 130 respondents 82 respondents belong to 18-25 age group, 40 respondents are related to 26-32 age group, while 8 respondents out of 130 belongs to 32-39 age group (Table 17). The above table indicates the number of respondents studying in different departments belonging to different CGPA Group. The result shows that out of 130 respondents, 6 respondents belong to 2.1-2.5 CGPA group, 38 respondents possessed by 2.6-3.0 CGPA group, 69 respondents are part of 3.1-3.5 CGPA group, while 17 respondents are counted with 3.6-4.0 CGPA group (Table 18).

The above table the cross tabulation between progress study and hours. The results express that out of 130 respondents, 52 respondents from different faculties uses social media for 1-2 hours, 56 respondents spent 3-4 hours daily, and 17 respondents spent 5-6 hours while 5 respondents out of 130 spent 6-more hours daily.

Nowadays, the usage of social media is growing at a high rate due to the advancement of the telecommunication technology. At present everyone across the world is connected with one another through the social media networking sites. The main motive of our research was to analyze the impact of social media usage on students’ academic performance to test the hypothesis and examine the statistics we adopted questionnaire and distributed among 130 students of the campus who are enrolled in BBA, BSCS, BS English, and MA English & MBA programs. Random sample was used for 130 responded out of 500 populations. SPSS 21 was employed to meet the objectives of the study. Our finding exposed that the most of the students are spending their essential time over the use of social media. It was also seen that many of the students are using WhatsApp, Facebook and snap chat.

Moreover, our finding also illustrates, the purpose behind the usage of social media is to enhance their knowledge, gaining updated information and career development. Their different categories based upon their academic performance, we did not find any significant difference by using ANOVA whereas we also did not support statistically, the hypothesis that, there is significant negative impact of hours used in social media on academic performance.

We conclude our study that every technology or internet applications have dual purpose, i-e negative as well as positive. If students use social media positively, they can improve and enhance their knowledge and utilize in challenging environment and second one is negatively, which can destroy not only time but also students’ life to seek job opportunity. As this study comprises only on one campus with limited sample size, it is suggested that the researchers may increase the sample size and test the hypotheses of checking impact. Also, they can add more variable like culture, timings slot (Evening or Night), type of peers etc. to add more in literature. As this study may help out the management of the campus as well as teaching faculty that how to design their interactive class’s lectures, assignments, projects for students to upgrade academic excellence.

None.

There are no conflicting interests declared by the authors.

None.

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