AN ASSESSMENT OF THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON STUDENTS ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS IN NIGERIA

CHAPTER ONE

 INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Alfred (2006) and Andrew (2005) says communication is a basic human need and for that reason, man has always found a means of meeting this need either through personal or mass communication.

Unlike in the part, the people of the world are today living in a global village because of various break through information technology.

According to a Canadian professor of English Marshell Mcluhan, “The world is now compressed into a single electronic chat room.

Katz (2009) opines that information that usually takes many days or weeks to dimension now takes seconds or minutes. It is now possible for people to make interpersonal communication with others to get desired information as quickly as possible from other areas of the country or form other countries with the use of social media without leaving their immediate environment.

The growth of technology towards the end of 20th century propelled by the emergency of the internet, satellite etc led to what is called social media. While social media on the other hand is a term in this present, world which means the encompasses of the emergency of digital, computerizsed or networked interactive information channel. It should be noted that because, also social media is a form of electronic communication which facilitates interaction based on certain interests and characteristics.

Social media are made for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publiching techniques. Social media use web-based technologies into social dialogue and one of such are facebook, twitter, eskimi and 2go social networking.

According to Harvard, sophomore and work Zuckerberg (2006) facebook was actually made by hacking Harvard’s data base containing identification images of students. facebook started as a local social network made for the students. the initial idea was actually to compare the faces of students with images due to potentially damaging contents of the site, the creators decided to put it down before it caught the attention of school authorities.

The application was shut down, but the idea of creating on online community of students came to existence. The plate form was then improved and sooner than they expected, face book was released in compuses other than Harvard.

Therefore, high schools were already starting to get attracted to the idea of having online communities, thus opening the website to the younger offered the opportunity to the rest of the world.

As 2007 approached, the registrants reached an overwhelming digit-roughly a million dozen. Facebook has grown to become the biggest and most popular social networking site today with a population of above 500 million active users (Facebook statistics, 2012). According to Harvard (2012) also, 2go, formally 2go travel, is a ferry company which is based in Manila, Philippines with its main hub located in eva macapagal super terminal in pier is in the manila south Harbor. Until 2012, 2go was known as Negro navigation. It changed its name following a significant realignment of ferry transportation in the phillippines which saw long-standing companies super ferry, cebu ferries and super cat first merged into super ferry, under the Aboitiz transport system and then purchased by Negros navigation.

According to Andrew (2005) information travels over the internet through a variety of language known as ‘protocols’. The term internet is actually a short form for internet network, which implies that internet is a networks, which implies that internet is a network of computer networks.

Computer accepts, data, process it, stores it and give it out when required. It became possible for people to chat from terminals which led to networking.

The worlds first commercial space communication company created by the United state congress in 1962 was the communication satellite corporation (COMSAT). In 1964, the United state government and eleven (ii) foreign nations signed a space communication pact. The partnership was known as international telecommunication satellite organization (INTELSAT). The internet known as the world’s information super high way” is a world wide inter-connected computer Network (Andrew 2015).

In the view of Paul (2010) intenet is a massive network of network”, a networking infrastructure which connects millions of computers together globally, forming a network in which any computer can communicate with each other as long as the are both connected to internet.

The internet consist of local area network (LAN), connecting computers in the same building while wide area network (WANS) connecting several LANS in different locations. It consists both private, commercial, government and academic network including a grown number of home computer.

History of the Internet

There are conflicting versions about the origin of the internet but the common story is that the internet is a product of cold war. (Hafner and Lynon, 1996). It origin is traced back to 1957, when the soviet union launched “Sputhik1 into space, as a reaction to this in 1958, the united state founded the advanced research project agency (ARPA) , a special agency under the department of defense whose mission was to develop along term highly innovative and hazard research projects (Cartoni and Tarding, 2006). Leonard Llein rock of UCLA successfully developed the first computer network through “packet switching” to the concept to distributed network”, two fundamental science, packet switching is a process that allows division of messages into packets and sending them to their destination following different routes, once they arrive at their destination, there are all recomposed into the original message. Paul in 1960 developed the concepts of distributed network funded by United States Air force at the research and development corporation (RAND) which is aimed at developing a telecommunication network which can stand a nuclear war, Paul (1964).

In 1995, the internet was just one networking system among many others such as Usenet, Fidonet, Mintel, ATST, but with advent of the web, the internet became by far the most important networking system. That led to what is now know as internet , a global network of inter connected computer that communicate freely, share and exchange information (Paul, 2010). The younger a person, the greater the likelihood he or she has access to the internal (Kim, 2004).

Social Network

Early 1990s, chat rooms and bulletin boards were forms of social networking in a way, they help people to connect with others and share interest. A little cate, dating sites hooked those looking for partners and classmates.

Communicating allows people to connect with people they had known in high school and colleges and enable them to meet others.

In the early 20s, a site called friendster was set up where people invited their friends and their friends also invited others. The site was popular for a while, but suffered from technical difficulties and fake profiles and began to loose members.

In 1999, my space took over but became popular in 2003. its roots a bit muddy because it received financial and logistics support from another company called the E-universe and most of the early users where employers of e-universe but Tom Anderson and Chris De work       are given credit for much of the innovation and success of the site, which built up to one hundred and fifteen million users worldwide. Some television programmes had started producing programmes to air on my space in (2005)

Rupert Murdoclis News corporation (parent of fox broad casting) bought myspace for five hundred and eighty million dollars ($580). A competitor to myspace is facebook which started in about 2004 by Mark zuckerberg which he was a student at Harvard and grew rapidly in 2007.

At first, facebook was solely for college and tertiary institution students but mark open it to everyone and like myspace, it encourage all types of member postings. There are also smaller social networks like 2go, You-tube, and blackberry chat for people to have access top.

Blackberry Messenger

Blackberry is propriety internet-based instant messenger application included on blackberry devices that allows messaging between blackberry users. It was developed by the manufacture of the blackberry research in motion (RIM), messages sent via blackberry messenger sent over the internet and use the blackberry pin system, so communication is only possible between blackberry devices.

2go Logo

2go is a social networking site, chat, and instant messaging (IM) application. It enables users to chat on their mobile phones free.

People can meet users and 2go users as friends chat rooms on different topics are opened where people can chat in the discussion and socialize with others and also, 2go have gateways that enable users chat with friends on Gtalk, Mxit, and facebook.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Since the advent of social media sites in the 1990s, it is assumed in some quarters that the academic performance of students in facing a lot of neglect and challenges. There is a deviation, distraction and diving, attention between social networking activities and their academic work. it is observe that students devote more attention to social media than they do their students.

Advance in technology in this era has reshaped all human activities on earth to include communicant. The world has become a global village as prostituted by Prof. Marshall Mcluhan where the use of computer and internet facilities in indispensable. Social media is among the numerous means which the people interact and communicate online.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

i.                    To examine whether students make use of social media

ii.                  To study how much time to students spend on social media

iii.                To find out the usefulness of social media to students

iv.                To know the nature of activities which students engage on social media

v.                  To examine if social media influence students academic performance

vi.                To know the impact of social media on the social lives of students

vii.              To study the type of social media which students prefer to use.

 RESEARCH QUESTION

1. Do students make use of social media
2. How much time do students spend on social media
3. Of what use is social media to students
4. What activities do students engage on social media
5. Do social media influence students academic performance
6. What is the impact of social media on the social lives of student.

 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This study will be immense benefits in the following ways;

1)      It will provide opportunities fro the  students to learn through the using of social media

2)      Social media provide opportunities to develop social and technical skills that students need to function in today’s society

3)      It can improve their communication skills and offer opportunities to make new friends

4)      Parents should be vigilant when their children are getting involved in online social media but its also good to encourage positive through various internet.

5)      Social media can improve how society interact.

1.6              SCOPE OF THIS STUDY

This study is restricted to AAUA students.

DEFINITION OF TERMS

i.  Social media: They are forms of electronic communication which facilitate interactive base on certain interests. Social media include web and mobile technology. Kaplan and Helen (2010) defined social media as a group of internet based application that allows the creation and exchange of user-generated content

ii.                  Academic performance: Academic performance is the outcome of education i.e. the extent to which students teachers or institutions have achieved their educational goals.