A Study on the Impact of Social Media Usage on Student Academic Performance: University of Tabuk an Example

Abstract

The use of social media has met a rapid growth among the few past decades. This growth make it very popular for the communication amongst university students especially Tabuk university students.  In fact, these social websites can be a good manner to exchange the information between students and even with their teachers. However, excessive social media can affect the student academic performance and make this use in question. This research tries to investigate about the benefits and the drawbacks of the social media use on student academic performance by conducting a survey on university students in Saudi Arabia especially in Tabuk university. The survey also explored which social network is the most popular amongst Tabuk university students and which one is useful for their academic skills. The survey has received 270 responses and descriptive statistics shows the relationship between the numbers of hours spent exploring the social media sites and the academic performances for the student. The results of this paper can be useful to propose an effective plan to enhance the academic performance for the students by improving the use of the social media sites.