The Effects of Social Networking Sites on the Academic Performance of Grade 7 Students

Social media, Facebook specifically, has become one of the most successful forms of websites on the Internet. According to Facebook Company statistics (Info, 2016) there are over 1.65 billion monthly active users as of March 31, 2016. Additionally there are 1.09 billion daily active users for

Including a comprehensive literature review, she comes to conclusions about how social media has had a profound effect on the way people interact, study, and obtain information. This study is useful, even though it focuses on a particular group of people, because it includes a literature review of many of the existing studies that have been done on social media usage and the effects caused from its use.

Shortly after Myspace, Facebook began in 2004. Mark Zuckerberg, a student and computer programmer at

The World Wide Web had revitalized education by making it easier, and more efficient to teach. Before the creation of the Internet, the most popular and widely used way of teaching was mainly with books and lectures, limiting the speed and efficiency of information to learn, while also limiting the number of units given in a school year. With the Internet, teachers were able to discover and teach topics easily, leading to quicker lessons and topics as they use the web browser and online sources to benefit the speed of the lessons as well as better the students in different ways to educate. In addition to teachers using the Internet, students also greatly used it to help with homework, to fully understand a topic, to help with projects, and to communicate with their teachers. In a study from Pew Internet & American Life Project over students and their interaction with the

Facebook is the biggest social media network on the internet with a massive following which continues to expand. Mark Zuckerberg alongside his college roommates created and launched the world’s most popular social media site on 4 February, 2004. Zuckerberg previously developed other sites for fellow students to

MySpace, which was set up in 2003, has over 200m users and was bought by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation in 2005 for $580m (Randerson, 2007)

It is fascinating how the Internet is changing people's lives in today’s world. Anyone is able to promptly do research and gather information on the Internet. With the click of a button you can have the data you need in less than ten seconds by searching for it on a search engine, such as Google. Since just about anyone has access to social media in today’s society, it makes it very easy for students to get distracted while in class or while doing their homework. Our world has been given so many different aids of communication which makes its very easy for us to connect with anyone.

There are however many students who do not use social media or who do significantly well in other areas of their studies despite of social media. The authors arguments do not account for those students. Some students who use social media use it briefly

According to the video “ A vision of Students Today “ by Michael Wesch and “How Higher Education Uses Social Media” by Matt Silverman “ their is a link between social media and modern education system”. They both examine how social media and education relate to author other; in todays world people use social media for different purpose. In addition, the video and article by both authors mentioned before how we (students ) can use social media in higher education and how social media help us .

Social media also allowed students to work with new technologies. Because of this students are becoming more familiar with computers and other electronic devices. (Dunn)

This website allowed school students to connect among themselves but was later shut down due to improper maintenance. In 2002, Friendster.com was created and was an instant hit among the teens as it offered very unique features. The company was growing at a rapid pace and it became difficult for them to maintain their servers and hence turned out to be failure. In 2004, Facebook was founded which later became the king of social networks. After the rise of Facebook, social media became a platform for the people to discuss about social and cultural issues.

Are we becoming less human with the passing of each day? Have we become too dependent on technology, specifically social media? In this day and age, people have different views on social media. They question its true purpose and its effect on society as a whole. With that said, although there are many thoughts concerning the topic/trend of social media something that is undoubtedly true is that social media plays an active role in the lives of the majority of people. Whether in a positive or negative way, social media influences the lives of all people. However this paper focuses on the effect of social media on college students. It addresses both the positive and negative effects of social media on those in college; focusing on a student’s academic efficiency, social interactive skills, and overall productivity.

Jon Russell once said, “Social Media presents a huge opportunity for schools, universities and other educational organizations to reach out and connect with students and prospective students”. With no doubt, social media has influenced the way students are educated today. For those of you who do not know the exact definition of social media, the social media means ways of sharing information, opinions, images, videos using the Internet, especially social networking sites. Because of the Internet, people started finding ways to socialize through social websites and exchange information. Popular social network on the Internet such as YouTube became a sensation for me ever since I became a student in college. Today social media can be used for educational purposes. The ways social media is changing education has affected how the students express themselves, behave, and interact with each other.

Social media are the most ordinarily used media to connect with the world because of its many advantages and benefits. Many students are already involved in social networks and using it their daily activities including educational purposes. Social media have changed the ways of learning and providing pieces of information on education. It has been used in education nowadays more than ever and showing beneficial results out of that. Uses of social media are increasing continuously in education and both students and educators are becoming dependent on it. The reason behind this is, it is simple to access, effortless to use and easy availability. Among many of the advantages of social media in education, applying it for communication purposes, sharing class materials, files etc. for classroom projects as well as uses of QR codes are some of the leading ones.

Besides, Facebook is the largest and high coverage social network. According to Belch (2001), Facebook has over 1 billion subscribes worldwide which six continents and 100 countries has been covered, 845 million of whom consider themselves active users. Also, china is the most socially engaged social media market, with over 84 percent of all internet users using some form of social medium at least