Social Networking: How Facebook Impacts on the Students Performance - Research Paper Example

Abstract The paper conducts a research through the use of questionnaire to find out the manner in which Facebook has an impact on the student’s performance. To find out the effect on student performance a research is carried over 555 students which will help to find the impact social networking sites have on their academics and development. The research was carried in the university and the data selected for the research was a random data. The findings from the research show that females’ student as compared to male students spends more time over the different social networking sites. The same got reflected in the performance of students’ especially young students whose performance was affected due to social networking sites. The findings also highlighted that the ranks of students who devoted more time on social networking sites like Facebook was affected in comparison to people who didn’t devote time on it. A look at the purpose for which Facebook was used highlighted that it was used for communicating with friends and developing social circle. The correlation was negative when the use of Facebook for productive purpose like finding out something was searched for. The overall research thereby highlighted that the effect on Facebook on students’ performance was negative and students who used more and more social networking sites were affected adversely as their performance showed a dip and was not able to deliver on the required standards. Table of Contents Introduction 3 Literature Review 4 Research Objective 7 Methodology 8 Ethical Consideration 9 Proposed Time Table & Budget 10 Result 11 Conclusion 15 References 17 Introduction The use of social networking sites has seen a huge jump as more and more people have started to use it. The different social networking sites which people use are Twitter, Facebook and so on. A look at the statistical data shows that around 90 million of the people use social networking sites out of which 85% are students and college goers (Hendrix, Chiarella, Hasman, Murphy, & Zafron, 2009). The rate at which social networking sites will increase the number of customers using the sites in the future and is estimated to be around 115 million users shortly. It has been seen that people use social networking sites for different reasons like news feed, personal updates, and socializing with people and purposes which people find fit. This is backed by a finding which states that 49% of the students belonging to the age of 8 to 17 years look to use social networking sites and the purpose for which it is being used depends on the personal requirements of the people. This brings forward a question regarding the manner social networking sites has impacted students and changed their academic performance and development? This also helps to develop a proposition and find out the manner in which communication is taking place between people within the people and the manner in which social networking sites is being used. This report presents the manner in which the performance of a student gets affected due to the use of social networking sites. This will also help to understand the manner in which the performance and development of a students gets affected in comparison to students who don’t use social networking sites. This will thereby help to develop strategies based on which the future strategy for the students can be developed. Literature Review Different studies conducted in the direction to find out the impact social networking sites has on the performance of students shows mixed reactions. Baran (2010) carried out a research which brings forward the fact that the performance of a student using social networking sites like Facebook gets affected but also helps to create a better social relations with the teacher (Baran, 2010). The student can use these positive relations to further improve his carrier and can use the social networking sites as a platform through which knowledge is shared thereby giving it an educational edge and will help to multiply the effectiveness of social networking sites. A research carried out by Churchill (2009) supports the claim as it puts forward the fact that using social networking sites in a productive manner will help to create an environment where the students can develop blogs and communicate positively (Churchill, 2009). The students can use it as a platform where important posts related to their studies can be posted and the overall efficiency of the students can be improved. This will require a transformational change as students will have to move away from the present method of using social networking sites just for fun to a more educative purpose. Social networking sites due its wide popularity have seen a growth in people using it for purposes like discussing different social issues. People have started to develop different blogs and discuss different issues which have helped to spread awareness and make people understand the different social issues which the world in undergoing (Bassford & Ivins, 2010). Students by using those in a productive manner will be able to develop their profile and ensure development which will facilitate their development. Instead, students have started to use social networking sites for different purposes which have thereby affected their performance and have created a negative impact on the growth. This has been matched by another study which shows that students who are young and fall in the age bracket of 13 to 18 find problems associated with identity and role crisis which further gets aggravated due to the use of social networking sites (Boon & Sinclair, 2009). This makes the students spend time on social identify, sexual identification and similar other purpose. This has an impact on the peace of mind and the student is not able to concentrate on the studies. At times the situation becomes so grim that students start to stay away from schools and look to spend all the time they have on social networking sites so that they can improve their public image. This has been supported by evidence which shows that students spend the highest amount of time on different social networking sites which thereby has an impact on their academics and performance. Haridakis & Hanson (2009) shows the manner in which the time spent by students on social networking sites has grown considerably. This has impacted the time they can devote on productive activities and has thereby resulted in being an obstacle for their personal development. This has been matched by the fact that social networking sites provides the use of different application sites and Facebook has seen a wide increase in the different applications which can be used through their site (Bosch, 2009). This has thereby resulted in more and more time being spent on different activities on Facebook which could otherwise have been used for other productive purposes. This has thereby impacted the performance of students and created a gap which is difficult to fill. A research conducted in the manner Facebook is being widely used by people all around the globe and specifically by students shows the following Facebook started in 2004 and since then the social networking site has seen a continuous growth in the number of users using it. Presently, Facebook is being used by over 800 million users and the increased usage of Facebook has made marketers use it as a medium or tool to market their products and services. Since, Facebook is used by all people within the society it enables the marketers to target the correct audience. A further breakdown of the statistics shows (a) 50% of the users are always online and are available; (b) on an average a person has around 130 friends on his friends list; (c) Facebook has over 900 application and objects which the users can easily use; (d) Facebook is available in over 70 translations which has ensured wider coverage; (e) the use of smart phones and similar other phones has further increased the use of Facebook and is used by over 350 million people through their phones. The manner in which Facebook is being used is increasing continuously and has more than 26,075,960 users in 2010 (Corbett, 2010). The manner in which people have increased the use of social networking sites like Facebook has impacted their growth and development and has created both negative and positive impacts which will thereby have an impact on the overall lifestyle of people. Research Objectives The research focuses to achieve the following objectives RQ 1: Does a relationship exist between the performance of students and the use of social networking sites like Facebook? RQ 2: Does a relationship exist between the personal development of a students and the amount of time that the students spends on social networking sites like Facebook? This will consider the different facets through which personal development of a student takes place. Methodology The research is carried out through the use of questionnaire where the research was carried over 555 students who were chosen on a random basis. The research was conducted to find out the effect social networking sites have on students’ performance and was conducted in the university itself. The sample size selected for the research ensured adequate representation of students and had freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors, and graduate students of all ages. The research was carried through a questionnaire which had 13 close ended questions and 2 open ended questions. The students taking part in the survey had to fill the questionnaire at the same point and were not allowed to take it. The research was descriptive and provided complete description regarding the different variables which were present in the paper so that the students appearing for the survey didn’t have any difficulty in filling the questionnaire (Hew, 2011). Some of the different variables which were discussed are as Social Networking Sites Usage Rate: The rate identifies the time which a user spends on social networking sites for different purposes like chatting, browsing, playing games or for any other purpose (Maranto & Barton, 2010). Students were asked to fill the amount of time that they spend on different social networking sites during the different time period when they were using the social networking sites so that the purpose for using the social networking site can be understood. Academic Performance: This is the CGPA/GPA that the student had got in the last academic performance and the future expectations of the students Personal Development: This identifies the different facets which will help in the development of a student like communication skills, internship programs and others which will help in the development of a student Ethical Consideration While conducting the research special efforts was being laid to ensure that the different aspect in accordance with the ethical requirements were adhered. The questionnaire was drafted and students sampling was done in a manner which ensured that the sample had proper representation of the different population. The questions were drafted in such a manner that it would provide justification to the research and facilitate the research. The entire research gave emphasis on ethics and looked to be conducted in a manner that all aspect of being ethical was adhered. This helped to ensure that the data was properly monitored and the entire process was not rigged so that the final result based on it would be correct. The result was therefore vaildated and ensured to meet the different requirements through which evaluation was better (Light & McGrath, 2010). To ensure proper validity of the research it included people of different ages and had proper representation of all people. Providing complete description of the different variables further ensured uniformity in the research and highlighted the manner in which the research was able to achieve its assigned objectives. Thus, the overall process ensured that ethical requirements were considered and provided the required impetus to be actually fair and correct. Proposed Time Table & Budget The objective of the research is to evaluate the manner which the performance of a student gets affected due to the time spent on social networking sites. The research thereby looks to be completed within a period of 1 week. The results will then be analyzed and the total outcome of the study will be present within a period of 2 weeks. The research has been further timed to be conducted after the results are declared so that better identification of the factors which has an effect on the students’ performance can be analyzed. The research didn’t propose any budget as the research was conducted through the questionnaire within the university. The only cost that has to be incurred is the amount that has to be invested for photocopying or getting print out of the questionnaire. Further, since the research has to be conducted within the university it will ensure that no additional cost has to be incurred in travelling. Since, no major cost are involved thereby no budget has been determined for the research. Result The research was analyzed through the use of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) which will help to provide very detailed analysis and help to achieve the objective of the research. The analysis on the whole showed that 90% of the respondents filled the questionnaire completely. The total sample consisted of 54% male and 46% of the respondents were females. A look at the different category of students who filled the questionnaire shows that 20% were freshmen, 15% were sophomores, 18.3% were juniors, 28.2% were seniors and the rest were post graduate students. The result which was achieved through the analysis is as The analysis of the entire respondents showed that 187 males used Facebook whereas 170 females used Facebook. The other respondents didn’t use Facebook but was part of other social networking sites. The above chart shows the amount of time that male and female students devoted on Facebook. The analysis shows that 43% of the male students surfed less than 1 hour on Facebook compared to 24% for females. A further breakdown of the time spent on Facebook based on the age is shown below The analysis clearly highlights the different which exist between the number of hours that men and women spent on Facebook. The same was reflected when the time spent by students on revising the academics was considered. The analysis highlighted 44.8% of the male spent around 1-2 hours for revising their academics substance outside the classroom where as more than 41% of the females spent around 3 to 4 hours per day to revise academic related substances. This clearly highlights that both male and female spends a considerable amount of time on studying academic related substance outside the classroom. The above chart shows that the people below the age of 20 years spent less than 1 hour on facebook compared to those above 21 years. This further translated to the fact that more and more hour is spent by students who are younger showing the high increase in the usage rate of Facebook by young students. The analysis highlights that around 96.3% of the students belonging to the age below 20 years use social networking sites where as 94.8% of the respondents aged above 21 years and above use the same. The break up of the respondents based on age further shows that as students become matured and older the time spent on social networking sites reduces and the students start to use those time for some educational and productive purposes. This brings to the notion that as people grows in age they start to devote less time towards social networking sites. The research also focused on finding out the manner in which the academic performance gets affected due to the use of social networking sites. The result looks to calculate the effect social networking sites has on the CGPA of students. Out of the total respondents who filled the survey questionnaire shows that 37% of the respondents spent less than 1 hour on social networking sites. The result of that student was 3.01 on a rating of 4. Similarly 4.4% of the respondents spent more that 6 hours per day on social networking sites but had got a similar rating of 3.01 out of 4. This thereby didn’t provide any conclusive evidence on the manner the performance of a student gets affected due to the time the students’ spends on social networking sites. In a similar manner students who had performed poorly showed no correlation with the time spent on social networking sites and the CGPA they got as people who didn’t use social networking sites also performed poorly. The analysis highlighted a positive relation between students who used social networking sites and the rank the student got. This was primarily due to the fact that students who used social networking sites used it to improve productivity by building better social relations and ensuring that their academic performance is supported. This helped them positively as it brought the required transformation through which the performance of the student improved. This highlights that students who are able to use the social networking sites positively and develop social relations which helps to build positive relations ensured that the rank of the students improved. The analysis also highlighted that social networking sites helped juniors and seniors more compared to freshmen and sophomores as using the different social networking sites helped them to develop positive relations. The analysis further showed that freshmen were involved in cyber bullying activities which had an impact on their personal development and thereby had an impact on the academics. The result also brought forward that the field of study that the student is pursuing has an impact on the use of social networking sites as students look to devote the time in other areas. The research substantiates a point that people use social networking sites for contacting with friends, relatives and developing a social circle instead of using to search relevant information which would help in the personal development. This shows that the time students spent on social networking sites were mainly to develop network which would help them to develop a social circle. The use of social networking sites was thereby directed towards other use instead of developing relations instead of benefiting in a positive manner. The research highlights that students who were using social networking sites knew that their personal development was being impacted due to the use of the different sites. The total number of people who participated in the research showed that 45.2% of the people believed that social networking sites had a negative impact on their personal development whereas 29.7% of the population believed that social networking sites has helped to develop their personality had created a positive impact on the students. On further asking the student the different reason which has led towards having a negative impact on their personal development highlighted different reasons. Different people provided different reasons like time consumption on social networking site, distraction, relaxation, communication, knowledge, assistance, and so on. Since, students were impacted negatively it resulted in having an adverse impact on the performance of the student and thereby affected their development The analysis thereby brought forward that social networking sites had an effect on the performance of a students as it impacts students in an indirect manner. Despite different finding so conclusive evidence was generated regarding the manner in which social networking sites had an effect on the academic performance. The perception of the students is that social networking sites creates negativity was strengthened as people who were using Facebook were able to see the manner in which their behavior were transformed and the manner in which their performance was impacted. Conclusion The study looks towards finding out the manner the performance and personality development of a student gets affected due to social networking sites. The research was conducted through the use of questionnaire to find out the manner in which Facebook has an impact on the student’s performance. To find out the effect on student performance a research is carried over 555 students which will help to find the impact social networking sites have on their academics and development. The research was carried in the university and the data selected for the research was a random data. The findings from the research show that females’ student as compared to male students spends more time over the different social networking sites. The same got reflected in the performance of students’ especially young students whose performance was affected due to social networking sites. The findings also highlighted that the ranks of students who devoted more time on social networking sites like Facebook was affected in comparison to people who didn’t devote time on it. A look at the purpose for which Facebook was used highlighted that it was used for communicating with friends and developing social circle. The correlation was negative when the use of Facebook for productive purpose like finding out something was searched for. The overall research thereby highlighted that the effect on Facebook on students’ performance was negative and students who used more and more social networking sites were affected adversely as their performance showed a dip and was not able to deliver on the required standards. The research showed that correlation existed between the age and the person using social networking sites. This was confirmed by the research as it showed that people who are grown up and have become matured reduce the use of social networking sites. The research didn’t highlight any significant impact on the academic performance but highlighted that students have a negative perception about social networking sites. Students believe that social networking sites have a negative impact on the performance and impact their overall development in a negative manner. This report thereby shows the manner in which the performance of a student gets affected due to the use of social networking sites. This will also help to understand the manner in which the performance and development of a students gets affected in comparison to students who don’t use social networking sites. This will thereby help to develop strategies based on which the future strategy for the students can be developed. This require further research and studies to conducted over an increased population from different universities so that they findings from the research is strengthened and the manner in which the performance gets impacted can be identified. References Baran, B. 2010. Facebook as a formal instructional environment. British Journal of Educational Technology, 41 (6), E146-E149. Bassford, M., & Ivins, J. 2010. Encouraging formative peer review via social networking sites. British Journal of Educational Technology, 41(5), E67-E69. Boon, S., & Sinclair, C. 2009. A world I don’t inhabit: disquiet and identity in Second Life and Facebook. Educational Media International, 46(2), 99-110. Bosch, T. 2009. Using online social networking for teaching and learning: Facebook use at the University of Cape Town. COMMUNICATIO, 35(2), 185-200. Churchill, D. 2009. Educational applications of Web 2.0: using blogs to support teaching and learning. British Journal of Educational Technology, 40(1), 179-183. Corbett, P. 2010. Facebook demographics and statistics report 2010. Retrieved April 22, 2013 from http://www.istrategylabs.com/2010/01/facebook-demographics-and-statistics-report-2010-145-growth-in-1-year/ Hendrix, D., Chiarella, D., Hasman, L., Murphy, S., & Zacfron M. L. 2009. Use of Facebook in academic health sciences libraries. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 97(1), 43-46. Haridakis, P., & Hanson, G. 2009. Social interaction and co-viewing with Youtube: blending mass communication reception and social connection. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 53(2), 317-335. Hew, K. 2011. Students’ and teachers’ use of Facebook. 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