The Effect of Social Media On the Academic Performance of University Students: A Case Study of Kampala International University

ABSTRACT The study generally examined the effects of Social Media on the Academic Performance of students in Kampala international university. Other purposes included; examining the level of student addictiveness to social media and the effect on their academic performance, determining the social media that the students are more exposed to and the effect on their academic performance, ascertaining how the use of social media has affected the academic performance of the students in Kampala international university and ascertaining the difference in students’ usage of social media by gender. A total sample size of 378 students were randomly selected using confidence interval of 5 and confidence level of 95% (0.05) from the total population of 24,661 full-time students in the Kampala international university. This study investigated social media and academic performance of the students in Kampala international university the descriptive survey research design was adopted in the study. A sample of 378 respondents was selected from a population of 24,661 full time undergraduate students in the selected university using confidence interval of 5 and confidence level of 95% (0.05).A simple random sampling technique was used for the selection, where seventy five (75) students were randomly selected from five (5) randomly selected Jaculties in the Kampala international university A self- developed Likert-type scale titled “Social Media and Academic Performance of Students Questionnaire (KIU)” thoroughly scrutinized by the project supervisor was used for data collection. The instrument was validated and found to be reliable. It was personally administered by the researcher. The data collected were analyzed with the use of descriptive statistics of frequency count and percentage, and the hypotheses were tested using the inferential statistics of Chi-square (X2) at 0.05 level of significance. The result from the findings of this study showed that, though Social media have negative effects on teenagers such as lack of privacy, distracting students from their academic work, taking most of their productive time, and such like, they also have benefits and can be used appropriately. For instance, students can form online communities in order to plan for a project, have group discussions about class material, or use the Social networking sites(SNS) as a way to keep in contact when a student who has been absent needs to be updated on current academic information. Students should better manage their study time in and prevent distractions that can be provided by the social media. There should be a decrease in the number of time spent by students when surfing the net. Social Networking Sites should be expanded and new pages should be created to enhance academic activities and avoid setbacks in the students’ academic performance.