Social Media and Academic Performance of Political Science Students in Emmanuel Alayande College of Education, Oyo, Nigeria

ABSTRACT : Due to technological advancement in recent years, social media has become popular across the globe. This avails the students in higher educational institutions the opportunity to explore various branches of knowledge. Rather than utilize social networking sites to improve and broaden their academic horizons, a good number of students get addicted to Facebook and Whatsapp for pleasure. As a result of available opportunities to be harnessed from social media, students now have divided attention to their studies. The study therefore examines the influence of social media on academic performance of Political Science students of Emmanuel Alayande College of Education, Oyo. A sample of 100 students was randomly selected from different subject combinations in the Department. The use of descriptive survey guided this study. Relying on empirical method of analysis, a self-designed questionnaire was administered to collect data just as Chi-square test was used in testing the hypotheses. The findings indicate that exposure to social media adversely affects students‟ academic performance. The respondents affirmed that positive impacts of social media appear to be significantly low. Based on this, the paper recommends that students be encouraged to use social media for educational purposes; online pages be created by the College to enhance academic activities; and the need to minimize the time students spend engaging on social media activities for them to be productive.
KEY WORDS: social media, academic performance, internet, education, computer.