BEHAVIORAL IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF STATE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN SRI LANKA

Abstract

Social media has become a vital feature of human lives, providing people with easy access to information and entertainment. Due to its widespread use among undergraduate students, it is a must to identify the relationship between social media usage and the academic performance of undergraduates. In this study, 392 undergraduates were selected using a voluntary sampling method to analyze the impact of social media usage on the academic performance of state university students in Sri Lanka. The study used correlation, regression, and demographic analysis techniques to evaluate the collected data. The results showed that all respondents use at least one social media platform, with the majority using more than one and spending more than an hour per day on social media. WhatsApp was the most widely used social media platform among undergraduates. Pearson’s correlation coefficients were used to measure the correlation between social media use and undergraduate academic performance, and regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between variables. The findings revealed a substantial negative correlation between social media use and academic performance among undergraduates at state universities in Sri Lanka. To mitigate this negative impact, the study suggests that students should control their social media usage and prioritize their academic tasks. In conclusion, social media has become an integral part of humans’ day-to-day lives, particularly among undergraduate students. However, excessive usage of social media can have negative effects on academic performance. Therefore, students should be mindful of their social media usage and prioritize their academic work to avoid compromising their performance.