THE EFFECT OF SOCIAL NETWORKING ON THE ACHIEVEMENT OF JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN BASIC SCIENCE

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1               BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

  For many around the globe communication have turned the entire world into a global village through the internet, electronic media and portals. The social networking sites have become one of the most popular ways for people to be better informed, enlightened, exchange messages and keep abreast with almost all of the electronic educated youth student or youth.

In the ancient days, teens spent years alone in their rooms or with close friends playing outside their house, trying different outfits and modeling around the corner. Now social networking could be seen as a way of describing the display of everyday practices of social interactions that have played a crucial role in enabling people to communicate on a plat form.

Furthermore, social networking sites have become a global phenomenon in the past few years. What started out as a hobby for some computer literate people has become a social norm and way of life for people around the globe (Boyd 2007).

Social networking is the social relation among people who share interest, activities and background connections for users to interact over the internet (Living Stone and Brake 2010).

Presently around the world, the use of social networking has enabled networking around the world very simple, students in particular have made browsing social networking sites a daily practices and has reduced the way most students stay connected to their academic activities as many prefer to chat online while many think that social networking has no effects on their academic performances. In other to enhance positive influenceof social networking on studentacademic, care should be taken about avoiding the wrong information from reaching the users, the extent to which the accessibility of information available in social network and web in general should be limited for reading and research purposes alone. This made me the researchers to study the habits of students and carefully look into the effect of social networking and how they affect the academic achievement of junior secondary school students in Abeokuta, Ogun State.

1.2       STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

            Since, the advert of social media sites in the 1990s, it is assumed in some quarters that the academic achievement of students in facing a lot of neglect and challenges. There is a deviation, distraction and divided attention between social networking activities and their academic work.

            The site have led to the biggest problems in our academic environment in which average student spend 9 (nine) hours a week on social networking sites (Willard 2009). Also, it is observed that students devote more attention to social media than they do to their studies. Therefore, the question this study is out to answer is: What are the effects of social networking on the academic achievement of junior secondary school students in Abeokuta, Ogun State.

1.3        PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The purpose of the study is to determine the effect of social networking on the academic achievement of junior secondary school students. specifically the study sought to find out:

(i)                 The most patronized social networking by junior secondary school students.

(ii)               The positive effects of social networking on the academic achievement of junior secondary school students.

(iii)             The negative effects of social networking on the academic achievement of junior secondary school students.

(iv)             If there is any significant relationship between the academic achievement of students and social networking.

1.4           RESEARCH QUESTION

(i)                 Which social networking sites is mostly patronized by students of junior secondary school students?

(ii)               What are the positive effect of social networking on the academic achievement in junior secondary school students in Basic science?

(iii)             What are the negative effect of social networking on the academic achievement of junior secondary school students in Basic Science?

1.5       DELIMITATION OF STUDY

The essence of this research work is to primarily study the effects of social networking on the academic achievement of junior secondary school students in Abeokuta, Ogun State. The research highlighted the concept, history and forms of social networking sites and their effects in academic achievement which intends to focus on junior secondary school students.

1.6        SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The study upon completion will acquaint students, teachers and other stakeholder with moreinformation on the positive and negative impacts of social networking on their academic performances.

The teacher of students in Basic Science will find the study useful as the research will help them with more information on the influence of social networking on the academic performances of the students.

In Addition, parents and guidance will find the study useful as the findings will reveal to them some factors influence on the academic performances and their activities on the social networking sites and why they need to properly monitor and help their children.

Lastly, the study will provide relevance materials for the benefits of other researchers undertaking similar research.

1.7       OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF TERMS

Academic Achievement: This is the outcome of education on how students deal with studies and how they have achieved different tasks given to them by their teachers.

Education: This is a social process in which individual achieves social competence and individual growth, carried on in selected controlled setting which can be instructionalize as a school or college.