The impact of social media on university students’ academic performance

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of social media on university students’ academic performance. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to 200 randomly selected students of the University of Cape Coast, Ghana and MINITAB software was used for analysis. The descriptive statistics were used to analyse the demographic data and educational information while a multiple regression model was generated to show the impact of social media on students’ academic performance. Research findings using Two-sample t-test showed the following: the average time spent on social media by both males and females was the same and the average time spent studying by both males and females was the same. Pearson’s product moment correlation was used to show that age had no influence on the Grade Point Average (GPA) of a student. The study also found that a large number of the respondents had less study time due to the heavy participation in social media activities thus experiencing poor academic performance. The study also found out that age is not a factor in determining the GPA of a student. Also, the analysis emphasized the fact that in this modern era, it is not appropriate to limit the use of social media to the students. Therefore, students should be educated on the influence of social media on their academic performance.