Directions: Read the research report below.

b
Effects of Social Networking Media to the Academic Performance of the Students
I. INTRODUCTION
Social networking media is about sharing or communicating with other people. It has
spread its wings to various other fields and education is one of the new sectors where the
concept of social media is making a great role (Anonymous, 2014). They are communication
channels or tools used to store, aggregate, share, discuss or deliver information with friends
and colleagues using the internet (Reynolds, 2015). They involve the use of web-based
technologies to transform one-way communication into an interactive online dialogue (Dixon,
2012). It is a creation and exchange of user-made content. At school or in any office, social
media is used by students and teachers to share original content the articles or the
publications. Students, in particular, use it and provide an opportunity to seek to questions
they may have related to their course. Thus, the use of social media has extended
throughout the community (Roblyer, et al., 2010).
In the previous years, social media websites have become common. It gives young
people a new way to interact with each other and communicate with the world. Social media
networking became popular between 2004 and 2006, after Facebook and MySpace were
created. Facebook, for example has over 500 million members and it is still growing and
approximately 85% of undergraduate students are Facebook users (Schneider, 2009).
During the second quarter of 2008, 75% of Internet surfers used “Social Media” by joining
social networks, reading blogs, or contributing reviews to shopping sites. This represents a
significant rise from 56% in 2007. The unlimited growth is not only limited to teenagers or to
one of the members of Generation X. Today, 35 – 44 years old people have increasingly
joined the population and counted as joiners, spectators, and critics. Therefore, it over the
past years. They have helped many people feel as if they belong to a community and make
connection not only on campus but with friends outside of school. Due to the increased
popularity of social networking media, economists and professors are requesting the
clientele to go to different websites for efficient paper works ignoring how much time spent
on these different sites (Choney, 2010).
Moreover, college students nowadays (which consist of Baby Boomers, Generation
Xers, and Millenials) are exposed to all types of technologies in many aspects of their live
and form of large proportion of users on social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram, MySpace and many more (Guy, 2012). In particular, in the University of New
Hampshire, the students use Facebook and YouTube than any other social media platform.
Blogs, Twitter, MySpace, and Linkedln had significantly lower amounts of student users. The
students from the while Liberal Arts students were the highest percentage of My Space
users (Martin, 2013).
With the above data, one could say that social networking media sites have become
a habit for some students and it was found out that it is difficult for them to study for one hour
without logging in to one network site. They become very smart because of the information
they get from these sites and it easy to get almost any materials for school assignment. But
some students become very poor academically (Egedegbe, 2014). According to the research
of Brubaker (2013), the current generation of college students has been exposed to a
technology which led them to rely on social media such as Facebook and Twitter. It has an
impact on the academic performance when students overuse or multitask while doing their
school work.
 A study found out that 90% of college students visit social media networking sites in
a regular basis using desktop computers, laptops, e-readers, tablets, and cell phones to
actively engage in social networking, text messaging, blogging, content sharing, online
learning, and much more daily (Guy, 2012). As an effect, most of the users have the good
quality of communication skills through the use of social networking media over the
computer [Sponcil and Gitimu (n.d.)]. They were able to communicate with friends and family
by posting information and they spent much of the time viewing information. The face-to-face
interactions via the computer facilitate communication which allows users to keep in touch
with family and friends in a convenient way and to learn about social events and issues.
Said finding was corroborated by the work of Anonymous (2014) who maintained
that creating Facebook Group has good effects to the students. They can share topics
online. Study groups and students can use it to connect with each other outside of the
classroom while the bad effect is that students may want to add as friends to make trouble or
some personal reasons. Also, the students can also access to a world of knowledge through
the use of social networking media and other forms of digital communication. Slaughter
(2007) said that social networking media have deeply transformed the learning. When
students are connected to social networking media it will helps them to earn better grades at
school (Skiera, Hinz & Spann, 2015).
In studying the total number of hours spent by the users, Wang, Chen and Liang
(2011) disclosed that 45% of their samples admitted that they spent 6 – 8 hours per day
checking social media sites, while 23% spent more 8 hours; 20% spent 2 – 4 hours and only
12% spent less than 2 hours on this task. Results showed that social media is a college
interest in the Wales University. Students consume a lot of time on social networking sites
especially the adolescents. They are involved in uploading/downloading, getting information
related to their academic or future career, chatting with friends and watching online movies
(Kanagarathinam, 2014). Twitter is one of the most important media companies in the world.
It is now one of the top 10 most visited sites. With more than 500 million users, the students
can find teachers, schools, and perhaps more important professionals, lead publications in
their areas of interest (Anonymous, 2013).
Blogs can be used in classroom environment for diary entry; it also can be a useful
tool to link communication between study groups within a class or other classes or even
schools. Blogs can highly motivate the students, especially those who otherwise might not
become participants in the classrooms. It gives excellent opportunities for students to read
and write effective forums for collaboration and discussion, and powerful tools to enable
scaffolding learning or mentoring to occur (Nguyen, 2015). According to the study of Head
and Eisenberg conducted in 2009, Wikipedia provides the students with a summary about a
topic, the meaning of related terms, and also got students started on their research and
offered a usable interface and one of the expectable workarounds that many students use,
especially during the first stages of their research process. In University of Washington’s
Information School, most of the college students use Wikipedia and they know its limitation.
Because of its quick way to get started, they use Wikipedia just as most of people do but not
deep and credible.
In other words, knowledge on the social networking media is a basic asset that a
college student nowadays must possesses in order to survive in his chosen volition. In this
regard, a question may be asked: Is any use of social networking media beneficial to
students? Unfortunately, studies revealed different results. Accordingly, the use of
technology such as internet is one of the most important factors that can influence
educational performance of students positively or adversely. The effect of SNS usage will
depend on the type of SNS the student is using, if student uses the internet for the purpose
of leisure activity that interferes with academic, it will affect the student academic
performance negatively (Egedegbe, 2014). According to the study of Tayseer, et al., (2014),
result showed that most of the students who spend many hours in using social networks
have a high GPA at the Petroleum University.
In short, social media has several effects on academic work, some are more positive
than others. But with around 96% of all college students on Facebook, only the most
dedicated academics would consider giving up social media for a slightly better GPA. Also,
social media may have a positive impact on students’ sense of themselves in the community.
Social media-using students were twice as likely as other students to feel well-liked by their
peers and to participate in extracurricular activities. However, negative effects abound.
Students who use social networking media sites and hit the books simultaneously
found their multitasking led to 20% lower grades that those of their more focused peers. It
also made less money during school from part-time work, putting in around five hours per
week as opposed to 16 hours per week for a typical, unplugged counterpart (O’dell, 2011).
According to the research of Ferrer conducted in 2013 at the University of Southern
Mindanao, 93.8% of Bachelor of Arts in English was a member of social media networking
and 48.94% got an excellence General Point Average.
A particular study by Kumar (2014) revealed that social networking media gave a
sense of belonging to an academic community, as the students online with their friends were
mostly, they met in college. Two step flow interactions, student to student and teacher to
student favored academic learning through social networks. The use of these networks has
to be disciplined as it can lead to distraction from education. The social networks used for
educational tutoring and social networking sites that students used for academic purposes
are the YouTube, WhatsApp and Facebook. Meanwhile, not only the students are benefiting.
For example, the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC)
discovered that 85% of college admission offices reported using at least one form of social
media to recruit prospective students in 2008 and increase from 61% last 2007 (Anonymous,
2014)
In sum, we can say that there are benefits and risks associated with using any social
network even though there have been reports regarding its effect on students’ academic
performance. Accordingly, some researchers found a poor effect and influence when the
media is overuse in such a way that do not academically improve learning or its process.
There are still other researchers who examined this same problem but have found no
conclusive data affirming the significant relationship between using social networking and
student academic performance (Al- Rahmi and Othman, 2013).
Since available research data are inconclusive of the effects of social networking
media on the academic performance of students, it is timely and an imperative necessity to
study on whether or not the exposure to social networking media of the students of the
Institute of Middle East and Asian Studies (IMEAS) of the University of Southern Mindanao
(hereinafter referred to as USM), Kabacan, Cotabato can explain their high academic
performance.
Statement of the problem
This study was conducted to determine the effects of social networking media to the
academic performance of IMEAS students. Specifically, it sought to answer the following
questions: (1) What are the different types of social networking media subscribed by the
scholar students of the IMEAS?; (2) What are the different types of IT gadgets commonly
used by the respondents in accessing social networking media?; (3) What are the perceived
effects of social networking media to the academic performance of the IMEAS students?;
and (4) What is the relationship of the social networking media and the respondents’
academic performance?
Significance of the study
The results of this study shall be beneficial to the school administration, the faculty,
the students, and the public in general. To the University of Southern Mindanao (USM)
officials, the results would guide them empirical bases in the improvement of the existing
educational policies, curriculum and strategies, or the formulation new ones, towards a more
effective delivery of learning in this information age.
To the curriculum committee and the academic affairs office, output of this research
would provide them a first-hand information on how social networking media affects the
academic performance of the students in the University, in general, and in the institute of
Middle East and Asian Studies (IMEAS), in particular, so that they would design measures to
further improve, upgrade and expand the coverage of the internet service in the school
campus. Further, for the guidance counselors, this study also gives them clear perspective
on how the specific behavior of students is affected by social networking media. To the
IMEAS students, findings of this work shall guide them on how to properly design their study
habits thereby improving their scholastic achievements. This will provide them information on
how to exploit the use social media to improve their studies. To the future researchers on
social networking media, the results would serve as a baseline data for them to conduct the
same study in order to validate the findings.
Scope and limitation of the study
Due to time and financial constraints, this study recognizes many limitations not only
in terms of its scope and focus but also in its statistical tools, time frame, sampling methods,
and others. On its scope and time-frame, it focused only on the effects of social networking
media to the academic performance of IMEAS students who were officially enrolled in the
First Semester, 2015-2016. Moreover, only basic statistics were employed since the study is
descriptive in nature. Finally, the purposive sampling was employed in choosing the
respondents of the study.
Setting of the study
The study was conducted in the Institute of Middle East and Asian Studies (IMEAS),
University of Southern Mindanao (USM), Kabacan, Cotabato during the second semester of
the academic year 2015-2016. Occupying a total land area of about 1,024 hectares, the
University of Southern Mindanao (USM) is situated in Poblacion Kabacan, Cotabato which is
about 600 meters away from the national highway. It is accessible by land transportation
from any of the four main cities in Mindanao: 104 kilometers to Cotabato City, 143 kilometers
to Davao City, 135 kilometers to General Santos City, and 196 kilometers to Cagayan de Oro
City.
USM is claimed to be the pioneering land grant University in southern Philippines. It
was formerly given the name Mindanao Institute of Technology (MIT) which was founded by
the late Bai Hadja Fatima Matabay Plang, the wife of former Senator and retired Brigadier
General Salipada K. Pendatun, which became operational on October 1, 1954. It achieved a
university status on March 13, 1978 by virtue of Presidential Decree No. 1312 signed by
then President Ferdinand E. Marcos. At present, the University is consisting of nine (9)
colleges and two (2) institutes, including the Institute of Middle East and Asian Studies
(IMEAS). At present, the Institute is consisting of only two (2) academic departments, viz:
International Relations and Islamic Studies. In the First Semester, 2015-2016, the former
had one-hundred eighteen (118) enrollees while the latter had nine hundred nineteen (919).

II. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY

In general, this study employed a descriptive research design which made use of
both the primary as well as the secondary data. In trying to look for the perceived effects of
social networking media of the respondents to the academic performance of the IMEAS
students, the study used a questionnaire method. The second type of data was gathered
from written materials available in the different libraries in the University as well as those
found on-line. Moreover, correlation analysis was used to interpret the relationship of the
socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents and the effects of social networking
media to their academic performance.
Respondents of the study
The respondents of the study were the ninety-one (91) students from the IMEAS who were
taken as samples from the one thousand and thirty-seven students who were officially
enrolled in the first semester of the school year 2015 – 2016. They were chosen using the
Slovin’s formula as follows:

Where:
N = Population
n = sample size
e = Marginal error (10%)
Computation:

Sampling Procedure
Three types of sampling methods were used in this research. The first is the
purposive/selective sampling, which is employed in the choice of the respondents
considered in the study. As previously mentioned, the student-respondents are selected due
to their most accessibility. Proportionate stratified random sampling was employed in getting
the prescribed total number of respondents from the two sample academic departments, that
is, 81 from the Islamic Studies Department while only 10 from the International Relations
Department. The third and the last type of sampling method is the systematic random
sampling which is employed in the selection of the respondents from the list of enrollees
available in the Institute. This is done by selecting the names of the respondents from the list
of enrollees by having five interval names for every draw until the desired total number of
respondents from every Department had been chosen.
Research Instrument
In gathering the primary data, the only instrument used in this research was a
structured questionnaire. It consisted on two parts. Part 1 contains the socioeconomic profile
of the respondents while Part 2 comprises questions regarding the description of social
networking media of the respondents and its perceived effects to the academic performance
of the students.
Data Gathering Procedure
First, the researchers sent a letter addressed to the USM President through the
registrar asking approval to get the Grade Point Average of the students and to IMEAS dean
for the conduct of the study. Second, the researchers conducted administered the pretesting
of the questionnaire for validation of the said instrument. Third is the sampling and actual
identification by the researchers of the actual respondents. Questionnaires were retrieved
right away after the respondents have answered them all.
Statistical Analysis
The statistical tools used in the study were the descriptive statistics such as
percentage, frequencies, and averages. Furthermore, Pearson-coefficient tool was used to
determine the relationship of the sociodemographic profile of the respondents and the
perceived effects of social networking media to the academic performance of the
respondents.
III. FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION
For the socio-demographic profiles of the respondents, it was revealed that most of
the respondents were at the age of 18 to 20. This confirms the claim by Lennon, Rentfro,
and Curran (2012) that the young adults whose ages range from 18 – 20 oftentimes use
social networking sites compared to those belonging to the higher age brackets. In terms of
sex, the study gathered that female respondents dominated the samples who constituted
81.32% of them. This is not surprising since nowadays, the women out numbered men and
there is a numerical difference between the two sex’s increases with age. In France, eight
centenarians in ten are women (Anonymous, 2015).
Moreover, greater of the respondents were single whose monthly incomes range
500 to 1000 weekly which came out in form of living allowances. As to the access of
students to social media networking sites, the study revealed that the respondents availed of
the following social media networks (in descending order): (1) Facebook, (2) Twitter, (3)
MySpace, (4) Instagram, (5) Flicker, (6) Frienster, (7) Blogs, (8) Podcast, (9) Youtube, (10)
Tumblr and (11) Skype. This finding corroborated the data in research that Facebook now
has more than 1.5 billion users, more than 1 billion of which use the service daily in the first
quarter of 2015. It was revealed that Facebook has passed 1.55 billion monthly active users
and 1.39 billion are mobile users. As of last year, Facebook also shared that it had a 1.01
billion daily active users and 894 million mobile daily active users (Protalinski, 2015). This
may imply that Muslim students of the Philippines also follow with the social network trend in
the world over.
In accessing these networks, the respondents used the following information
gadgets (in rank order): (1) cell phones, (2) tablets; (3) laptops; (4) desktop computers; and
(5) e-readers. The students of the Institute used the social networking media for the following
purposes (in rank order): (1) to like the post of their friends, topics and etc.; (2) downloading;
(3) chatting; (4) uploading pictures, writings, etc.; and (5) post comments to friends. This is
found supportive to the finding of a study by Fox News’ Dr. Manny that teenagers used their
social networking media accounts to likes, comments and follow and they base their
selfworth on the number of likes, comments and followers they obtain from it (Talreja, 2013).
Although, all the respondents were students but this data show that they were not fully using
their social media activities for academic purpose but for social purpose, like connecting with
friends.
Furthermore, aside from the enumerated purposes above, the respondents used the
social networking media due to the following reasons (in rank order): (1) to communicate
with people who are away from them; (2) to be updated with latest news; (3) to gain
knowledge for academic purposes; (4) for pleasure and fun; and (5) and other similar
reasons. This finding validates the above output that student users of the Facebook are
spending much of their time for social purposes. On the question of frequency of their use of
social media, it was revealed that student respondents used the social networking media
almost daily since majority of them answered to have used said form of media 5-6 days a
week at about 1-2 hours every session. According to the survey conducted in 2013, 63% of
the students check their social networking media sites at least once a day and the 33% who
check 6+ times a day (Anonymous, 2014). This means that much of the time of the
respondents was spent in the internet usage rather than in their class activities.
On the perceived effects of social media network to the respondents, the data
disclosed the following (in rank order): (1) helps them to become updated on current issues
and events that can help on their studies; (2) helps them to improve their communication
skills; (3) helps them to share topics online; (4) gives them information related to their
academic or future career; (5) helps them to find answers for their school works; (6) helps
them to become smart because of the information they get from the sites; (7) gives them an
excellent opportunity for effective forums in class discussion; (8) helps them to earn better
grades in school, (9) helps them to improve their participation in school; and (10) highly
motivates them to become participative in the classroom with 56.04% of the IMEAS
students. This output may imply that the main purpose of the students in using internet is
different from their actual activity whenever they already accessed the sites. While their
common main objective of accessing the networks was for academic purposes (i.e., to
communicate with people who are away from them) but in practice they were using their
internet time for social purposes (i.e., to like the post of their friends, topics and etc.).
Finally, as to the relationship of selected socio-demographic characteristics and
academic performance of the respondents, the study found out that only sex was
significantly related to the social network media and to the academic performance. This
means that female students of the Institute were more exposed to the social networking
media than the males. As an effect, their academic performance is much better as compared
to the male students who seldom used said form of media. This is similar with the findings of
Lennon, Rentfro, and Curran (2012) who maintained that women are more likely than men
on the social networking media sites. Women are joining social networks even if they got
married, but married men joined the social networking media only occasionally.
IV. RECOMMENDATIONS
First, the USM, in general, and IMEAS, in particular, must implement policies and
projects designed for more easy access of the students to the Facebook network site in the
school campus. However, part of the said project must incorporate policies that must
regulate the proper time usage by the students in order not to intervene with their classroom
activities. Moreover, making the in-campus internet access available for every student shall
make them safer in accessing as compared to availing the same service outside the campus
during evening time.
Second, the USM must modify its academic curricula to incorporate more subjects
on information technology in all baccalaureate degrees to make their graduates more
competitive in the world market. Further, this educational policy may also help the students
to gain appropriate knowledge from their professors on how to use wisely their time in the
social networking so as not to affect their academic activities.
Third, there must the proper and regular monitoring of parents in the use of the
social network media by their children to protect them from obscenity, pornography, internet
bullying and addiction which tendencies may seriously affect their studies.
Fourth, the students of the IMEAS, especially those who are slow learners, must
exert more efforts on how to use and exploit all the available avenues of social networking
media in order to compete with their fast-leaner classmates. Finally, it is further
recommended that similar but more intensive study on the relationship of the social
networking media and academic performance of students be conducted. This study, being
limited in scope, objectives, purposes, tools and statistical methods used, needs to be
deepened, broadened and expanded to include all the other academic units of the USM, if
not all the universities in the entire Philippines, in order to analyze comprehensively and
understand exhaustively the more encompassing aspects of the social networking not only in
the University under study but in the context of the entire country as well.
Source: Kulidtod, R.C. & Pasagui, N.S. (2017). Effects of social networking media to the
academic performance of the students. Advances in Economics, Business and
Management Research, 45, 59-64.

1. Statement of the Problem

2. Cause of the Problem
3. Analysis of the cause
4. Proof
5. Application of the research