By
NAPOLEON, EGEDEGBE
Abstract: Social
network is a platform for people share their ideals, to meet new friends and to
reconnect with old friends. Social networking sites offer people new and varied
ways to communicate via the internet, whether through their PC or their mobile
phone. Examples include MySpace, Facebook, Skype etec. They allow people to
easily and simply create their own online page or profile and to construct and
display an online network of contacts, often called ‘friends’. Users of these
sites can communicate via their profile both with their ‘friends’ and with
people outside their list of contacts. With SNS it is easy to communicate with
your classmate, discuss class assignment and even submit project to your
lecturer, watch videos, make comment on your friend page etc. This study will
focus on the effect of SNS on student academic performance, using GAU as a case
study. What are student using SNS for, does it affect their studies, or help
them to learn easily. This project will talk about the history of SNS,
development and the users of SNS especially by student and lecturers in
communicating with colleague and student as well. A 15 question personally
administered questionnaire was designed and sent to about 50 students from
different country and department in GAU.
Keywords: Social Networking, E-learning, Communication, Academic Performance, Social Media.
CHAPTER ONE
1.1 Introduction
Since
the introduction of social network sites years ago, to communicate with friends
and family has been easy once you have access to internet. The internet
has given us the ability to connect with people from around the globe with a
few clicks of a button. And
you can easily send information to a friend or get information. Social network sites (SNSs) such as MySpace, Facebook,
Youtube, Skype etc, have attracted millions of users, many of whom have
integrated these sites into their daily practices. People consume a lot of time
on this sites uploading or downloading, getting information concerning their
career or academic work. People are always online every second, chatting with
friends, watching online movies, doing research. Social site has become an
habit for some people, they find it difficult to study for one hour without
login to one network site. Some people have become very smart because of the
information they get from this sites, why some have become very poor
academically, because it easy to get almost any materials for school
assignment.
1.2. The Early Years of SNS
Social networking began in 1978 with the Bulletin
Board System (or BBS.) The BBS was hosted on personal computers, requiring that
users dial in through the modem of the host computer, exchanging information
over phone lines with other users. This was the first system that allowed users
to sign in and interact with each other, although it was quite slow since only
one user could be logged in at a time. Later in the year, the very first copies
of web browsers were distributed using the bulletin board Usenet. Usenet was
created by Jim Ellis and Tom Truscott, and it allowed users to post news
articles or posts, which were referred to as “news”. The difference between
Usenet and other BBS and forums was that it didn’t have a dedicated
administrator or central server. There are modern forums that use the same idea
as Usenet today, including Yahoo! Groups and Google Groups. The first version of instant
messaging came about in 1988 with Internet Relay Chat (IRC). IRC was
Unix-based, limiting access to most people. It was used for link and file
sharing, and generally keeping in touch with one another.1
The first meaningful social network site is
SixDegrees.com, it was launched in 1997. It was the SNS that allowed users to
create profiles, list their Friends and, beginning in 1998, surf the Friends
lists. Each of these features existed in some form before SixDegrees, of
course. Profiles existed on most major dating sites and many community sites.
AIM and ICQ buddy lists supported lists of Friends, although those Friends were
not visible to others. Classmates.com allowed people to affiliate with their
high school or college and surf the network for others who were also
affiliated, but users could not create profiles or list Friends until years later.
SixDegrees was the first to combine these features. SixDegrees promoted itself
as a tool to help people connect with and send messages to others. While
SixDegrees attracted millions of users, it failed to become a sustainable
business and, in 2000, the service closed. Looking back, its founder believes
that SixDegrees was simply ahead of its time (A. Weinreich, personal
communication, July 11, 2007). While people were already flocking to the
Internet, most did not have extended networks of friends who were online. Early
adopters complained that there was little to do after accepting Friend
requests, and most users were not interested in meeting strangers. From 1997 to
2001, a number of community tools began supporting various combinations of
profiles and publicly articulated Friends. AsianAvenue, BlackPlanet, and
MiGente allowed users to create personal, professional, and dating
profiles—users could identify Friends on their personal profiles without
seeking approval for those connections (O. Wasow, personal communication,
August 16, 2007). Likewise, shortly after its launch in 1999, LiveJournal
listed one‐directional
connections on user pages. LiveJournal's creator suspects that he fashioned
these Friends after instant messaging buddy lists (B. Fitzpatrick, personal
communication, June 15, 2007)—on LiveJournal, people mark others as Friends to
follow their journals and manage privacy settings. The Korean virtual worlds
site Cyworld was started in 1999 and added SNS features in 2001, independent of
these other sites (see Kim & Yun, this issue). Likewise, when the Swedish
web community LunarStorm refashioned itself as an SNS in 2000, it contained
Friends lists, guestbooks, and diary pages (D. Skog, 2007).
The next wave of SNSs began when Ryze.com was
launched in 2001 to help people leverage their business networks. Ryze's
founder reports that he first introduced the site to his friends primarily
members of the San Francisco business and technology community, including the
entrepreneurs and investors behind many future SNSs (A. Scott, personal
communication, June 14, 2007). In particular, the people behind Ryze,
Tribe.net, LinkedIn, and Friendster were tightly entwined personally and
professionally. They believed that they could support each other without
competing (Festa, 2003). In the end, Ryze never acquired mass popularity,
Tribe.net grew to attract a passionate niche user base, LinkedIn became a
powerful business service, and Friendster became the most significant, if only
as "one of the biggest disappointments in Internet history".
1.3. What is a social networking site?
“Social”
as the word sounds is deals with the way will communicate in our society, in
which you meet and spend time with other people. Network is the connection of
parts together to allow movement or communication with other parts. Social
networking is the connection of friends or family together which allow you to
communicate easily. With social networking sites you can have a long chain of
friends you can chat or share information or ideal with. According to Boyd
& Ellison (2008), “SNS can be defined as web-based services that allow
individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded
system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and
view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the
system”. At the most basic level social
networking sites allow users to set up online profiles or personal homepages,
and develop an online social network. The profile page functions as the user’s
own webpage and includes profile information ranging from their date of birth,
gender, religion, politics and hometown, to their favourite films, books quotes
and what they like doing in their spare time. In addition to profile
information, users can design the appearance of their page, and add content
such as photos, video clips and music files.
.
CHAPTER TWO
2.1. Literature Review
When talking of about communication, scholars have
always made emphasis, that “communication is the essence of science” (Garvey,
1979), and that “without communication there would no science (Lacy & Bush,
1983, p.193). this means that communication is one of the basic tools to human
science.
The increased use of Social
Networking Websites has become a global phenomenon in the past few years. What
started out as a hobby for some computer literate people has become a social
norm and way of life for people around the globe (Boyd, 2007). Teenagers and youth
especially student have embraced these sites as a way to connect with their friend
and make new once, share information, photos of their activities such as
birthday, photo with friend in class etc, and showcase their social lives.
With the increase of
technology used for communicating with the spread of the Internet, “Social Networking”
has become an activity that is done primarily on the Internet, with sites like
MySpace, Face book, Skype, etc (Coyle et al., 2008).
Many people especially
student spend a lot of time on this site creating profile, updating or doing
research concerning their career or academic work, while some just use it to
chat with friends, post latest pictures of event they attended, e.g., Young et
al., 2009, have examined their profiles
to determine why and to what extent they are keen on posting their entire identity,
sharing pictures and videos, and indicating their religious affiliations, marital
status, and political orientations on the internet. These users interact with
others, exchange information about their interests, raise discussions about new
topics, follows news about specific topics on different Social Networking
Sites.
With the advent of social
network it has become easy to get information on nearly every issue around the
globe. Before now it is not easy getting information, you need to buy
newspaper, stay close to your TV set or radio to get information. Internet has
change everything and social network has made it more flexible (lewis. 2008).
According to the questionnaire used for this project, everybody who answered
the questionnaire has access to the internet, and they are connected to one
social network.
2.2. Social Network and the users
The issue of whether social networking helps or hurts
a student’s academic performance is often depend on the larger issues
identified with the overall use of SNS (e.g., its psychological effects; individual self-discipline and
self-regulation concerns; human adaptability concerns). The benefit of using SNS
includes: It create room for creativity among individuals, encouraging greater
social interaction via electronic mediums; it provides greater access to
information and information sources; it give individuals a sense of belonging
among users of the same SNS; reduces barriers to group interaction and
communications such as distance and social/economic status; and increasing the
technological competency levels of frequent users of social media (Zwart,
Lindsay, Henderson, & Phillips, 2011).
Internet usage has grown
rapidly over the last few years. Users are able to build
a network of connections that they can display as a list of friends. These
friends may be people they have never met before in their life or people they
only know or have met in real life. Most people have more friends on social
network than they do in real life. It is
important to note that the term ‘friend’, as used on a social networking site,
is different from the way we approach it in the real life. In this project we
will use the term as it is used on a social networking site.
The use of SNS is very common today. Facebook
alone has over 750 million members, Twitter having over 177 million tweet per
day, and about 3 billion people view Youtube each passing day. (Chen, &
Bryer, 2012). The use of social networking sites has been repeatedly found to be
the highest among those between the ages of 18-29 (Rainie, 2011); while the
fastest growing segment utilizing SNSs since 2008 has been among those age 35
and older (Hampton, Sessions-Goulet, Rainie, & Purcell, 2011, p. 8).
Approximately 61% of teens age 12-17 utilize SNSs to send messages to their
friends on a regular basis (Lenhart, 2009). Overall, it has been found that
women use SNS more than men to communicate and exchange information (Hampton,
Sessions-Goulet, Rainie, & Purcell, 2011). The research carried out for
this project female responded more than male.
So what this study will look at is the effect
or impact of social network on student, does it affect their studies negatively
or it help in increasing their performance academically.
2.3
Effect of Social Network on Academic performance
Sound Quality education produces productive students
who lead to the prosperity of their respective educational institution and
subsequently are proved as strong contributors to the national well-being. Tuckman
(1975) defined performance as the apparent demonstration of understanding,
concepts, skills, ideas and knowledge of a person and proposed that grades
clearly depict the performance of a student. Hence, their academic performance
must be managed efficiently keeping in view all the factors that can positively
or negatively affect their educational performance. Use of technology such as
internet is one of the most important factors that can influence educational
performance of students positively or adversely. Shah et al. (2001) proposed
that student users are affected by the internet and this impact is determined
by the type of internet usage. They are positively affected by the informative
use of internet while having drastic impact of recreational use of internet on
them. Also, Oskouei (2010) proposed that internet is advantageous to both
students and teachers if used as a tool of knowledge creation and
dissemination. The effect of SNS usage will depend on the type of SNS the
student is using, if student uses the
internet for the purpose of leisure activity that interferes with academic, it
will affect the student academic performance negatively.
The University of New Hampshire agrees, and believes
that current college students grew up in the technology era and social
networking is now just a part of a student's daily routine. Their research show
that '63% of heavy users received high grades, compared to 65% of light users'
(U of NH, 2009). The University of New Hampshire said that a majority of students
use social networking for social connections and entertainment, but are also
using it for education and professional reasons. Kirschnera revealed that
students who multi-task between social networking sites and homework are likely
to have 20% lower grades than a student who does not have a social networking
site in visual range. Kirschnera believes that even running a social networking
site on the background on a student's PC while studying or doing homework could
lower a student's grade. He believes that "the problem is that most people
have Facebook or other social networking sites, their e-mails and maybe instant
messaging constantly running in the background while they are carrying out
their tasks" (Enriquez, 2010).
American Educational
Research Association conducted a research and it was declared on its annual
conference in San Diego, California (2009) that SNSs users study less and
generated lower grades eventually (21stcenturyscholar.org). Similarly, Banquil
et al. (2009) found a continuing drop of grades among student users of social
networking sites. However, many researchers also found a positive association
between use of internet and SNS and academic performance of the student users.
Students, using internet frequently, scored higher on reading skills test and
had higher grades as well (Linda et al., 2006).
CHAPTER THREE
3.1. Research Methods
The
research was conducted using questionnaire, which was distributed to about 50
GAU students, both undergraduate and postgraduate student alike. Out of the 50
questionnaire that was sent 48 were answered and returned, and two were not
returned. 55% of the respondents are male while 45% are female. The respondent are from 10 different
country’s of the world.
3.2. Population
The
main targets for this project are the students of Girne American University (http://www.gau.edu.tr),
North Cyprus.
3.3. Objectives of the
project
v
To
discover how the students of GAU, North Cyprus are using the social networking
sites?
v
To
determine how the social networking sites can be used as a platform for
educational learning for GAU student
3.4. Findings and Discussion
From
the sample of 50 student it shows that all the student who answered the
questionnaire uses more than one of the social network site provided in the
questionnaire. From the result, it shows student uses more of Facebook, Skype
and Youtube, while Wikipedia, Google+ and Linkedin are the least used among the
respondent. Out of the 50 respondent 57% are male while 43% are female.
Student
have access to the internet in the school environment. In cafeteria’s, Library,
Cybrary and some strategic spot. There are also internet facilities in the
dormitory for both male and female. Student are well exposed to internet,
though the mode of teaching is classroom instruction and a marker board. For
student to check their result be it mid-term result or semester exams result,
student will need to use the internet. The school have a platform which is the
E-learning. For student to access they will need to get a password which will
enable them to access. Apart from check result you can also use to get
materials for writing project or thesis, such as journals etc.
Below
is the analysis of the questionnaire used for the study:
RQ. Primary use of social network sites?
About
48% of the respondent uses SNS for downloading of music, posting of photos and
chatting, while about 52% uses SNS for research, submitting of assignment and
articles. This shows that more student use SNS for academic work rather than
for just leisure.
RQ. Friends in SNS compared to real life
62%
of the respondent has more friends on SNS than they do in real life, while 38%
says they have more friends in real life, and also says that all the friends
they have on SNS they know in real life.
RQ. Social network help in getting materials for
assignment
Most
of the student agrees on the fact that SNS help them academically in getting
educational materials for their assignment and project work. With the help of
the internet it is almost possible to get any kind of subject material at your
disposal. It becomes easier for GAU student, because the school have provided
the enable environment for student to access the internet with ease. With the
these facilities available student can do research.
RQ. Expressing your ideals and feelings on SNS
About
57% of the student thinks that SNS is not a good platform to express your
feelings and ideals. They believe in real life interaction, face to face. Where
they can see the expression on the face of the person they are talking to, while
43% of the respondent thinks otherwise. They think SNS is a good platform to
express your ideals or feelings. Some students are crowd shy or they think that
their ideal is not good enough and feels they may be embarrassed by the
lecturer or fellow student may laugh at them. So they believe expressing it
through SNS will help them avoid any form of embarrassment, and also be able to
express their mind.
RQ. Does SNS affect in writing and speaking in
everyday life?
About
58% of the respondent says that SNS does affect the way they communicate to
people both in speaking and in writing, while 42% says SNS does not affect them
in speaking or in writing. If we take a proper look at it, the way we
communicate in SNS especially in writing, we write in short form and most of
the words used are slang. This could affect in spelling words.
RQ. Studying time
About
50% says social network sites does not affect their study time, while the other
50% says the social networking sites affect their study time. Especially when
they want to study that is when someone will send them a message . so, if you
have planned to study for 3 hours and you chat for say 45 minutes, your time of
study has already be cut short by 30 minutes, and if it continues like that it
will lead to low grade.
RQ. SNS effective tool for e-learning
85%
of the respondent believes that social networking sites is an effective tool
for e-learning, while 14% thinks otherwise, and 1% did not respond to the
question. Student who support , thinks that with SNS one can easily submit
assignment, without necessary going to meet lecturer face to face. Student can
interact with other student on a particular subject and share ideals.
CHAPTER FOUR
Conclusion
A
large response from the student shows that student are using SNS to do various
things such as writing of class assignment, checking of result and other
related group and social activities. At first it will be easy to predict that
too much use of SNS might have adverse impact on academic performance of
student in GAU, but the result did not imply the same. It shows that student is
managing the time they spend on the use SNS, and to make sure it does not
affect their academic performance. Students are exposed to the internet and
they are not shy in using it for research and career activities, to upgrade
their academic knowledge, and GAU has putting in place internet facilities that will help student
achieve their academic goals. From the response of the student a large
percentage prefer the method of submitting assignment online. This is one of
the way GAU has improved in E-learning. Every lecturer has an e-mail address
which they give to student, not only to submit assignment or project but also
to ask question on subject student are not clear with.
Findings suggested that despite spending time on the
use of internet or on SNS, students are still efficient enough for their
studies, they do not face any difficulty in meeting their studies requirements.
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