Students’ use of social and its effects on academic performance- a case of students of Walewale Senior High Technical students

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to investigate students’ use of social media in senior high school level and how it affects their academic performance in the Walewale Senior High School. The design for the study was a survey and 100 students were conveniently sampled for the study. Data was collected through semi-structured questionnaire. Key findings of the study were that, majority of the respondents have subscribed to either one or more social network sites. Facebook and Whatsapp are the major social media sites that respondents have subscribed to. The main reason why respondents use or sign up to the social media sites is to chat with friends; most of the respondents engaged in social media sites mostly after school; majority of the respondents browse for entertainment related activities on social media sites; majority of the respondents use jargons and shorthand in their writing on social media sites and sometimes in formal writing; and that the use of social sites has not improved respondents’ English Language-grammar construction and spellings. Following the findings of the study, it was recommended, among other things, that school counsellors should advise students to stop participating in these social media. Again, school counsellors should build upon the positive attributes of the sites such as the ability for students to join student groups.