Determining the Impacts of Social Media on Students’ Mood, Time Management and Academic Activities: The Nigerian Perspective

Abstract

The twenty-first century can be said to be the time where digitisation is at its peak, with many programmers tapping into the desire of humans to remain connected without time and space limitations. The number of social media sites have increased exponentially, with new ones cashing in on the weaknesses of older ones, and others going beyond community guidelines by offering uncensored content. The vendors of these platforms, in order to have a wider reach do not place restrictions on viewing age, give promise of making young people famous, and other such attractive offers that make the youths addicted to the site. The possibility of hacking into accounts of users and using same for fraud is another rave among the Nigerian youths with desire for quick riches. The crash in prices of data, smart phones, and related digital devices has increased availability and access thereby closing digital divide and widening its adverse effects on the youths' morals and academic pursuits. It is important that the Nigerian government understand that factors that contribute to the dwindling performance level of students in government owned institutions so as to put in place policies and infrastructure that would help combat the challenges. This study investigated the effects of social media on students' academic activities, mood, and time management abilities. The result indicated that association between social media and academic activities is statistically significant, however, a negative association exists between them which implies that the high the level of social media activity, the lower academic activities participation. Similar association was observed on the effects of social media on students' time management ability. Statistical tests showed there is statistical significance, but also with a negative association which implies that increase in social media activities result in decrease in ability to effectively manage time. Result on the effect of social media on students' mood (angry, depressed) showed no statistical significance and a negative t-value, indicating a reversal on directionality of effects sought. This means that social media posts do not result in bad mood, but higher the level of bad mood leads to higher social media posts.

Mobile devices as tools for implementing digital classroom in Nigeria

“…Demographic data that shows frequency and duration of social media use amongst undergraduates was adopted from the work of Olebara (Olebara et al, 2021). While survey data from survey on impact of phonebased applications on students' learning were coded into numerical data using spreadsheet.…”