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Clanesha Munford
Professor Sam LaMura
English 102
12 March 2016
The Correlation between Social Media Usage and Academic Performance
Many can agree that social media has had different effects on the lives of many people.
There is a widespread debate amongst the population whether social media has a more positive
impact or a more negative impact. Has it become a distraction in the lives of young adults? Is it
more helpful than harmful? Social media has both good and bad things about it. It can become a
distraction at times, so students should learn how to balance it between their social life and
work/academic life. Factors that can affect academic performance includes blogging, tweeting,
cyberbullying, watching videos, and more.
The most used social media sites are Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. These sites are
used mainly by young adults. Social media is a distraction for many students. I feel this way
because I’ve experienced this on my own since I am a young adult. I feel like young adults and
students use social media the most so we can relate more to this topic rather than a middle-aged
adult. What do students do when they’re bored? They get on social media for hours on end. I do
feel as if social media should never be a priority in a student’s life when they are in school. The
use of social media should be more of a privilege than a priority.
Social media has become a distraction in the classroom as well. Many students, including
myself, have all been guilty of surfing the internet in class. Honestly, though, social media only
really becomes a distraction when a student’s grades or GPA starts to drop. Students who didn’t
use Facebook were found to have GPAs 20 percent higher than their Facebook-using colleagues
(Fleming, 2010). Although Facebook seems to be a leading factor in grades dropping, there are
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also other factors in addition, such as personality traits. Even without Facebook, students
sometimes find themselves distracted by other things such as music and television. Study author
Professor Paul Kirschner at The Open University of the Netherlands held a study at an American
university. Professor Kirschner and his team studied 219 students and reported that Facebook
users had an average GPA of 3.06 and non-Facebook users had an average GPA of 3.82. Three-
quarters of the students who used Facebook stated that the site was not a distraction in their life
(Fleming, 2010). Kirschner stated, “The problem is that most people have Facebook or other
social networking sites, their emails and maybe instant messaging constantly running in the
background while they are carrying out other tasks” (Kirschner, 2010). In addition, I also believe
that many students are distracted by social media because they fear that they will “miss out.”
