Influence of social media on the academic achievement of public secondary school students in Orumba north L.G.A. Anambra state

Abstract

The study investigated on the influence of social media on the academic achievement of secondary school students in Orumba North L.G.A. of Anambra State. Four research questions were formulated to guide the study. Structured questionnaires were developed and validated to elicit information from respondents. The study adopted a survey research design. The area of study was Orumba North Local Government Area. The population consists of SS II students in the 14 public secondary schools in Orumba North Local Government Area, Anambra State. This summed up to four hundred and eighty nine (489) students. Simple random sampling technique by balloting without replacement to select eight (8) public secondary schools in Orumba North Local Government Area. This gave a sample size of two hundred and thirty-four (234) students. The data collected were analyzed using mean. The findings of the study revealed that students are aware of facebook, e-mail, twitter, instagram, youtube, snapchat, whatsapp and Google+ social media. The findings also shows that secondary school students in Orumba North frequently use social media as they were found to be using social media on daily basis, spending 2 hours and above on social media daily and most often, students give attention to social media even when lesson is going on in the class. Based on the findings of the study, the researcher recommends among others that; government should integrate digital literacy and responsible social media use into the curriculum in schools.