Impacts of social media on students’ academic performance
Impacts of Social Media on Students’ Academic Performance
Sarah Hamidaddin 218410104
Prince Sultan University
ENG103: Research writing
Dr. Norah Almusharraf
April 4, 2020
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There’s no doubt that social media plays a significant role in our lives, but as students, does it
have a more considerable affect than on us than it does on others? As social media grows,
our interest towards it grows as well. Social media is something we use in our daily lives,
whether if it is for educational purposes or if it is for entertainment. However, is using
social media all the time resulting in positive consequences, or does it generate adverse
outcomes? Does social media help us excel or does it prevent our abilities to thrive and
present our most significant potential? There is a lot of research about this topic stating
that the effect that social media on our education now can have a considerable impact on
how our future careers turn out. The research aim is to see how much social media affects
student’s educational performances and how we can find ways to limit the impact social
media has on us. Many studies (Al-Rahmi, 2018; Rahitika & Selvaraj, 2013; Maqableh,
Mahmoud, Rajab, Masa, Khatib, &Huda) suggest there is a definitive correlation between
students’ academic-performance and their social media use. However, there are limited
studies that describe to what extent the students are actually being affected and how it
influences a change in their overall academic-performance.
Based on my reviews of the articles, I noticed that all the researches except one agreed
that the impact of using social media is more negative than it is positive. Most of them described
social media as an addiction that overpowers the students’ ability to divert their attention to their
academic responsibilities (Rahitika & Selvaraj, 2013; Al-Rahmi, 2018). In addition to the
inability of students to self-regulate, the researchers also agreed that the more time students spent
on social media, the more their academic performances were affected negatively. However, one
of the researchers stated that the use of social media actually had a positive effect on students
and led to an increase in the students grades. He explained that the connective environment that
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was available to the students on social media allowed for the continuous participation in social
situations that in return gave them the ability to share and connect new information, which
resulted in higher grades than those that did not use social media as much.
Social media nowadays is used in all fields including education and entertainment fields;
however, how is it incorporated in our daily lives. In a study conducted by a group of
researchers, they discovered that the use of social media plays a significant role in students’ lives,
including in their personalities, study strategies, time management academic performance and
multitasking (Maqableh, Mahmoud, Rajab, Masa, Khatib, Huda, 2015). The research suggested
that even though the negative impacts of social media are more significant than the positives, the
use of the media allowed students to discuss and share ideas about their courses. Al-Rahimi
(2018) stated that instructors reported that the use of social media in class discussions increased
the interests students had in their academic learning. In addition, Al-Rahimi (2018) added that
the use of social media encouraged students to discuss their academics outside of the classroom
zone. Research conducted by Amin, Mansoor, Hussein, Hashmat, (2016) discovered that
students using the social media application “Twitter” excelled in their communication and
thinking skills due the ability to connect to other students and discuss socially and academically.
Furthermore, the students who used twitter had a noticeable increase in their grades as well as
their GPA, compared to those who did not use twitter (Amin, Mansoor, Hussein, Hashmat,
2016).
While social media has many benefits, Rihtika, Selvaraj (2013) explained students have
difficulty directing their attention to their studies because social media grabs students’ attention
and turns it to an addiction that disrupts the student’s ability to focus and concentrate on their
studies. Furthermore, the study determined that the more time students spent on social media, the
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more difficulty they will face, because they would be dedicating less time for their education,
which will lead to poor academic-performance. Al-Rahimi (2018) expressed that students prefer
to use social media for personal satisfaction rather than educational reasons; therefore, in order
for students not to face the consequences of using social media, they must put an abundant
amount of effort in order to maintain success in their studies. On the other hand, a study
conducted by Maqableh, Mahmoud, Rajab, Masa, Khatib, Huda (2015) found that social media
did not affect students in higher-level education as much as it did to lower-level students. In fact,
they added that students at higher levels showed little to no effect on their GPA’s and that was
due to their ability to self-regulate and balance between their studies and media usage. Maqableh,
Mahmoud, Rajab, Masa, Khatib, Huda (2015) explained that the reason behind the older students
not being affected by social media was that they understood the sacrifices needed to be made in
