THE INFLUENCE OF SMART PHONES AND SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Background of Study

The world is a comprehensive cyber community that has been connected by a network of wired and wireless devices through the World Wide Web (WWW). Today most of us have secured a room in cyber space by having email accounts, doing online transaction and through e-learning.

Social networking sites are the main application under the umbrella of social media, which comes with the Web 2.0 era. Social media is the fastest growing web application in the 21st century.

Technology addiction problem has been treated important, especially in the education field of secondary schools, because adolescent is more vulnerable to the addiction. However, smart phones addiction has become a more serious problem recently.

Smart phones are the new generation of mobile phones; they have emerged over the last few years and already have conquered the market. Smart phones with their mini keyboards are not just phones, but have computer functions as email, calendar and address book and office programs for reading and editing. The multimedia phone features such as camera, video, sound recordings or podcasting is advanced and can compete with specialized equipment.

With the growing of gadgets embedded in modern mobile phones (particularly 3G and 4G phones) such as MP3,Internet and the decrease in the size and price of such devices, mobile phones has become omnipresent. The mobile phone is an anytime and anywhere tool, boosting the tendency to the things discretely as well as openly. The fact is that with the use Of cell phones, people sometimes lose the capacity to manage the boundaries between appropriate and inappropriate usage. (Ling. 1997)

In this current technology, the use of social networking sites(such as Face book, twitter, WhatsApp, Skype, Instagram, e.t.c.) has become a common place for this generation of college students (Hanson, Drumheller, Mallard, Mckee & Schlegel,2011). Connecting to these social networking sites has become easier and more convenient with the increased popularity of wireless technology. This has contributed to an increase of more than one billion people logging on to these sites daily. Young adults, 18_29 years old, are the most active user of wireless technology, 81%are active users (Lenhart, Purcell, Smith & Zickuhr, 2010). The demand for social networking sites among college students is significant.92% of all under graduates students are members of social media (Junco & Cotton, 2012). As college students are increasingly adopting social media, it is important for faculty and administrators in higher education institutions to understand how this is influencing student’s academic performance.

1.2 Statement of Problems

The invention of technology such as mobile phones has no doubt brought about immense positive progress to human societies, but this invention equally brought about in its wake some observed attitudinal problems among secondary schools students. However, this is not to say that these problems are solely caused by the usage of these phones as there are other causes, but that the attitudes of the users and the modes of the usage are significantly the contributing factors especially in the 21st century. Scholars have identified the problems associated with the phone usage and time (Junco, Merco and Salter, 2010_Wei and Lo, 2006), the attachment to phones (Gaser, 2006), in the face of this, therefore, there is the need to establish the link between these observations and academic performance. In analyzing the problem of these internet phones, and in order to synchronize and have a clearer understanding of the problem as it is related- to this study, it must be borne in mind that other varying platforms of distractions towards the academic performance of the secondary school students are also implicated, such as the computer usages, which generate internet social networking sites, and the visual display devices for relaxation such as televisions.

In addition to this, there is high tendency of students to interact with their phone in the class in the course of lectures, either to respond to received messages, or to browse the internet. These, no doubt, take a heavy toll on the level of concentration devoted to the lectures. Even while outside the classroom environment, most students who use internet enabled phones devotes much time interacting with their phones by chatting on Twitter 2go, Facebook, Instant messages (Bbm, Yahoo messenger). Consequently, the time that ought to have been devoted to study and other useful academic endeavours are thus frittered away.

In the light of this problem and in locating the root cause of the problems posed by the relationship between the students use of internet phones on their academic performance, it is pertinent and imperative to carry out a study of this kind,

1.3 Aim and Objectives of Study

The aim of the study is to determine the influence of smart phones and social networking sites on the academic performance of secondary schools students. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:

1. To determine the influence of smart phones on academic performance of school students.
2. To ascertain the influence of social networks on the academic performance of students.
3. To determine the influence of social networks on student study habit.
4. To ascertain the influence of smart phones on students level of concentration in class.
5. To determine the influence of social networks on students access to learning materials.

1.4 Research Questions

The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:

• To what extent does smart phones influence academic performance of students?
• To what extent does social networks influence students’ academic performance?
• To what degree does social networks influence study habits?
• To what extent does smart phones influence students’ level of concentration in class?
• To what extent does social networks influence students’ access to learning materials?

1.5 Research Hypothesis

In order to pursue the objective of this study, the following generalized statements have been designed to guide and aids in obtaining the result for the experiment to be conducted. For this work, the null hypothesis will be represented with H0 while the alternative hypothesis will be represented with hypothesis H1.

• H₀1: There is no significant influence between smartphones and students academic performance.
• H₀2: There is no significant influence between social networks and academic performance of students.
• H₀3: There is no significant influence between social networks and study habits of students.
• H₀4: There is no significant influence between smart phones and concentration level of students in class.
• H₀5: There is no significant influence between social networks and students’ access to learning materials.

1.6 Significance of Study

As said earlier, this study is about the influence of smart phones usage and social networking sites on academic performance of secondary school students. This study will be useful to students, parents, teachers, school administrator and school counselor. The students as the receiver of knowledge in the school will understand the ways by which usage of smart phones can affect their learning performance.

Teachers in schools will find these work useful as it will provide the rationale for ensuring that students are been told how and when to use smart phones and the ways they can benefit from social sites.

The school administrator will see this work as one that can be relied on and as such come up with rules that can put the commendation of this study into action.

The counselor as a professional will apply knowledge gain from this work by putting students through the use of smart phones and social networking sites, thereby assisting them to perform well in their studies.

1.7 Scope of the Study

The scope of this study will be limited to Senior Secondary Schools in Educational Districts (iv) of Mainland Local Government Area of Lagos State. It is worthy to note that smart phones and social networking sites will be treated as two separate variables affecting academic performance.

1.8 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:

1. Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
2. Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
3. Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
4. Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).

1.9 Operational Definition of Terms

Smart Phone: Any mobile communication device capable of accessing the Internet.

Social networking sites or Social media: A group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0and that allows the creation and exchange of user generated context (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010).