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Impact of Social Networking on Academic Engagement and Performance: A Literature Review

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Hettiarachchi H.A.H. at University of Kelaniya
Hettiarachchi H.A.H.
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Abstract

There is no question that social networking sites (SNS) has gained wider acceptance and usability and becoming probably one of the important interacting tool among students specially at the higher level of educational pursuit. SNS can be defined as: web based services that allow individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). According to the eBizMBA rank (May 2014), the five most popular SNSs starting from the highest are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google Plus. The quick rise in popularity of SNSs began in the second half of the last decade partly because of their extensive usage by school and university students (Kirschner & Karpinski, 2010). Therefore it is essential to discover the impact of the SNSs usage on student academic performance and the engagement. Hence social networking is a tool, with both its advantages and problems for usage and in teaching and learning (Hoffman, 2009). This sentiment was echoed by Hamid, Waycott, Kurnia, and Chang (2010) who studied the use of online social networking for higher education and conclude that, despite the potential benefits they have identified, harnessing social technologies offer both opportunities and challenges. The impact can be segregated in to two main aspects such as positive impact and the negative impact arise in terms of the academic performance and engagement due to extensive use of SNS by the students, especially undergraduates. The aim of this literature review is to bring such consequences into surface from the previous studies to examine the contradiction between positive and negative impact thus to build a conceptual model to inspect which aspect significantly influence most and to propose solutions to mitigate available negative consequence. Keywords: Social Networking Sites (SNS), Students, Positive Impact, Negative Impact
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216
Impact of Social Networking on Academic
Engagement and Performance: A Literature
Review
H.A.H. Hettiarachchi
1
Abstract
There is no question that social networking sites (SNS) has gained
wider acceptance and usability and becoming probably one of the
important interacting tool among students specially at the higher level
of educational pursuit. SNS can be defined as: web based services that
allow individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile within a
bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share
a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those
made by others within the system (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). According to
the eBizMBA rank (May 2014), the five most popular SNSs starting
from the highest are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google
Plus.
The quick rise in popularity of SNSs began in the second half of the last
decade partly because of their extensive usage by school and
university students (Kirschner & Karpinski, 2010). Therefore it is
essential to discover the impact of the SNSs usage on student
academic performance and the engagement. Hence social networking
is a tool, with both its advantages and problems for usage and in
teaching and learning (Hoffman, 2009). This sentiment was echoed by
Hamid, Waycott, Kurnia, and Chang (2010) who studied the use of
online social networking for higher education and conclude that,
despite the potential benefits they have identified, harnessing social
technologies offer both opportunities and challenges. The impact can
be segregated in to two main aspects such as positive impact and the
1
Department of Commerce and Financial Management, Faculty of Commerce and
Management Studies, University of Kelaniya. (email: harshaka@kln.ac.lk)
217
negative impact arise in terms of the academic performance and
engagement due to extensive use of SNS by the students, especially
undergraduates. The aim of this literature review is to bring such
consequences into surface from the previous studies to examine the
contradiction between positive and negative impact thus to build a
conceptual model to inspect which aspect significantly influence most
and to propose solutions to mitigate available negative consequence.
Keywords: Social Networking Sites (SNS), Students, Positive Impact,
Negative Impact
Positive Impact
There are enormous previous literature available which emphasis the
positive consequences and benefits of using SNSs by the students.
Hence such literature can be identified in different contexts as
mentioned below.
SNSs were originally built with the purpose of enhancing social
interactivity. In fact communication is vital for such interactivity.
Hence SNSs are apparently become a medium of communication,
especially among college students and undergraduates. Liccardi, et al.,
(2007) reviewed that the students are socially connected with each
other for sharing their daily learning experiences and do conversation
on several topics. So it is a fact that SNSs would enhance the
connectedness among students in terms of their academic activities.
Further it will bridge the gap of academic connectedness among
students and instructors. Madge, et al., (2009) and Salaway, et al.,
(2008) argue that often students use social networking web sites to
discuss their academics issues formally and informally and also to
interact with their instructor, teachers and professors. Further as a
result, SNSs are encourage to use as a collaborative learning tool.
Griffith and Liyanage (2008) suggests that the positive aspect of SNSs
and their use is starting to be seen, as students are using SNSs in their
academic studies for group and team based work. Similarly social
218
networking sites are also seen to be in use in various academic
activities, including communicating with faculty, and lecturers, and
discussing academic issues with class mates (Helou & Ab.Rahim, 2011).
Later SNSs became a tool that permits the distance learning, to be
more precise as an e-learning platform where students can do things
far beyond communication. Bradly et al. (2010) reported that, for a
majority of students, social networking sites provide significant e-
learning benefits in their courses. Ellison et al (2007) analyzed that
there is a strong link between social networking web sites and
students as social networking web sites helps to maintain relation with
people when they move from one offline community to another. Such
connections could help students in term of home assignments and
projects in terms of job, internship and other opportunity.
As the evolving benefits of SNSs, students are no longer stick in to the
traditional teacher centric learning environment thus they would
encourage to learn by themself and up-to-date their knowledge as SNS
are mostly providing latest findings, news, etc. Tinto (1997) reviews
that new information on social networking web sites encourages
growth and provide students with an ever growing learning
community which in turns substitute both academic and social
success. Despite of the interactivity, SNSs are capable of enhancing the
students’ educational skills. Yu, Tian, Vogel, and Kwok (2010)
determined that online social networking can improve students’
psychological well-being and skill development; desired learning
outcomes. Ubaidullah (2010) indicated that social networking sites can
enhance language, particularly second language, learning since the
social integration, authenticity, feedback, and learner autonomy
found in a SNS are also the key characteristics of successful language
learning, and teachers should consider SNSs as an engaging option.
Negative Impact
Despite there were vast previous literature found with relating to the
positive impacts in terms of the student SNS usage and their academic
219
engagement and performance, yet there were previous studies
pertaining to emphasis the negative consequences. Such literature can
be recognized from different contexts as mentioned below.
Internet is a very important element of life which cannot be ignored.
Internet is used for educational purpose by a large community but
unfortunately we have a large community including majority of youth
and teenagers who use internet only for social networking sites (Boyd,
2006). Though SNSs were considered to be interactive and learning
medium, it was proved that SNSs are distracting the learning process
significantly for a certain extent. This is mainly due to multitasking,
procrastination and lack of concentration etc. Mainly, as a result of
that students are unable to balance a strike between SNSs usage and
their respective academic engagement, leading to lower academic
performance. Among various unique distractions of every single
generation, Facebook remains a major distraction of current
generation (Karpinski & Duberstein, 2009). According to the
Kuppuswamy and Narayan (2010) social network websites grab
attention of students and then diverts it toward non-educational and
inappropriate actions including useless chatting. Kirschner and
Karpinski (2010) claims that students tend to participate in such web
site activities while doing their homework so that it may have negative
effect on their academic achievements by interrupting them from the
learning process. Therefore it is apparent that there is a direct
correlation between SNS usage and undergraduate academic
performance. Negative impact can be seen from numerous reasons
such as multitasking, procrastinating, etc. Even though several
attempts have been made to prove the fact that teenagers seem to
possess skills, most empirical studies suggests that they either lack
multitasking skills or act in the way that has negative influence on their
concentration.
It was evident that most of the students have lack of awareness on
using SNSs for educational purposes while they rely only on social
interactions and entertainment. Despite the fact that relatively large
number of SNSs including Facebook was initially created for learning
220
purposes, there is some evidence that most SNS users show almost no
attitudes towards finding academic information (de Villiers, 2010).
Thus it is possible that students are spending their time on visiting SNS
instead of doing their academic subject requirements. Furthermore,
these studies imply that the main issue contributing to academic
procrastination is the fact that students consider SNS mostly as an
entertainment or social system (Lampe, 2011). In other words,
students tend to pay more concern towards social options of SNS
rather than academic.
Internet addicted people and SNS users particularly, may experience
several problems with their motivation that can possibly lead to the
low academic performance (Ishfag & Tehmina, 2011). Thus, it could
conceivably be hypothesized that achievements of these students that
were obtained in the real life become less important for them than
those in the SNS thus leading to low academic performance. Students
that were involved in the extensive usage of SNS did not pay attention
to their academic conditions in most cases (D’Agostino, 2010). Due to
the lack of concentration and multi-tasking, it was found the student
SNSs users are unable to manage their time available to their studies.
Facebook users devoted lesser time to their studies in comparison to
non-users did and subsequently has lower GPAs (Karpinski, 2009).
Similar findings were reported by Paul, Baker and Cochran (2012), the
relationship between time spent on online social networking sites and
academic performance, stating that time spent on SNSs is shown to
negatively impact academic performance.
Neutral Impact
While many researchers weigh in on the positive and negative
influence of SNSs on academic engagement and performance, certain
literature reported as being significantly neural. The relationship
between students who are actively involved in social networking and
their academic performance is inconclusive (Flad, 2010).
221
Nevertheless, in this study neural impact is not considered since it isn’t
significant comparing to the positive and negative impact arises due
SNSs usage of students. Thus this study attempts to explore the most
influential aspect; whether positive impacts are higher than negative
or vice versa.
References
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