THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL NETWORKS ON SCHOOL GOING

CHILDERN. A CASE OF PRIVATE SCHOOLS IN LAHORE

On academic performance on school going students

Amjad Iqbal
Department of Mass Communication
The Superior University Lahore, Pakistan

INTRODUCTION
Mike Moran, Jeff Seaman and Hester Tinti-Kane, for a long period of time believed that the term
social media does not have a clear definition, however, when one platform emerged, that gave
people an opportunity to be content creators, controllers and transparent users, to a great extent.
Once this content is shared, it becomes a conversation, because all users who have accounts on
social media platforms can interact with all posts (Moran, Seaman and Tinti-Kane, 2011). Social
Networking is “the act of engagement,” while social media is the tool used to communicate with
mass audience (Hartshorn, 2010). Social Media is the platform that give individuals the
opportunity to interact, using two way communication; meaning, that anyone who has online
accounts can share their opinions with other social media users.
The use of (SNSs) have drastically transformed the way by which human communicate. Right
from the onset, it has been used as a medium to talk about some common interest and ideas,
share pictures and compliment the face-to-face social interactions, in fact, they have so much
become dawn of change in various fields. They have so much evolved the mode of interaction of
people, the way they do communicate and their way of thinking (Weisgerber & Butler, 2010).
The advancement of social network sites has provided unique channels and new chances in order
for participation and combination to increase and also provide a good opportunity for changing
the way by which people learn (Parker & Chao, 2008; Prensky 2011). Some common examples
of SNS are Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and Linkedin. The participatory web, which includes
social network sites such as the content-sharing sites like Flickr and YouTube gives room for
people to create or maintain connections with other people, build their social networks, and share
information in the form of podcasts, video, tweets, wikis, blogs, RSS feeds, video, etc.
(McCarthy, 2010).
Over the years, there has been a drastic improvement in technology. Social media which is
mainly for conveying information has essential among students including female students. The
growing trend in World Wide Web (WWW) has increased knowledge acquisition, sharing and
transfer of information has become easier than before. People from all walks of life can now
easily share information, pictures and post both motivational thoughts on the social media and
advert jobs. With the advancement in technology, all these can be convenience time using
smartphones, tablets, or personal computers. With this advent of social media globally, many
female students has up their games in terms of utilizing the media wisely for more acquisition of
knowledge meanwhile, many devote most of their time on things that adds no value to their
academic such as constant chatting and uploading of different pictures. Social media simply
refers to online tools created for the purpose of interaction and content sharing among people in
the community (Nyangeni, Du Rand & Van Rooyen, 2015). In its broader context, social media
includes; web based technologies like YouTube (social video sharing service), test messaging,
blogs, microblogs such as Twitter, social networking services (e.g. Facebook, MySpace,
WhatsApp).
The internet is more than just a means of searching information. People have revealed that the
Internet can be used to connect with other people for business or commercial purposes, to make
new friends, or to bring back old friends and long lost relatives. The latest example of new
communication technology usually used by students is social media, also known as Social
Networking Sites. The emergence of social media simplified the process, because they do not
call for advanced internet knowledge or experience and are made up of a wide array of different
formats and topics. This means that anyone can connect through social media (Sudha and
Kavitha, 2016).
Social network sites (SNSs) such as such as Friendster, CyWorld, and MySpace allow
individuals to present themselves, articulate their social networks, and establish or maintain
connections with others. These sites can be oriented towards work-related contexts (e.g.,
LinkedIn.com), romantic relationship initiation (the original goal of Friendster.com), connecting
those with shared interests such as music or politics (e.g., MySpace.com), or the college student
population (the original incarnation of Facebook.com). Participants may use the sites to interact
with people they already know offline or to meet new people. The online social network
application analyzed in this article, Facebook, enables its users to present themselves in an online
profile, accumulate ‘‘friends’’ who can post comments on each other’s pages, and view each
other’s profiles.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Social media helps people to interact with friends, find old friends, colleagues and share
information and other content (Hashem, 2015). Social media has become a vital platform to
interact with friends, family and we find old fellows over long distance. Social media has many
positive effects and same has some negative effects (Hashem, 2015). Social media is become
more popular in school going students because they are spending more time on social media and
this is become the main cause of bad result in their studies.
Some popular social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and
WhatsApp has addicted the whole world (Ajibade, Shamsuddin and Ahmed, 2017). Today we
are spending a lot of time on social networking sites which is only a wastage of time .“In 2007
(Farkas) introduced the term “Social Software” as that software that allows individuals to
engage a two way in interaction”. The author described in his research that millions of social
network user’s spend a lot of their time in using social media (Ajibade, Shamsuddin and Ahmed,
2017). The reason behind spending huge time on social media is that there is a lot of important
things which user’s wants like communication between people over a long distance, sharing
information, entertainment, online earning etc. They are the main reasons which easily attracts
the people to spend time on social media.
Social media is become an important part of our daily life, which are easily effecting our social
lives, norms and culture (Chukwuere and Chibuike, 2017).Social media has a great impact on
our daily life ,Culture, dressing style etc because a lot of dependence of social networking sites.
Social media allows us to make online channels, community, information and other
entertainment groups (Chukwuere and Chibuike, 2017). Social sites help us to make online links
to all over the world, we get lots of information, help and other discussion related to study and
also do a lot of online deals.
Social media has become the biggest reason of generation gap between children and elders
(Asad, Iqbal and Kanwal, 2016). Today’s generation is very advance, they spent lot of time on
social media, it really effects on theirs studies, parents and teachers are unable to control them.
Excess use of internet can lead to many problems, children are unaware of it, and they must
need someone to guide them about the problems related to social media (Asad, Iqbal and
Kanwal, 2016).
Everything has some positive and negative effects, same internet has, today children are keen of
using social media, they spend a lot time, they do not know about its high risks, their eyes, mind
could effect a lot.
Social media have many positive effects on academic performance of students (Mustaq and

Benraghda, 2018). It helps students to interact with teachers, fellows, school going students learn
how to tackle the issues related to their studies. Social media is really effecting on student’s
academic grades (Mustaq and Benraghda, 2018). Students spending lot of time on social sites
which is consider the main hurdle to disturb their studies.
Many researches are focusing to know about the main reason behind using a lot of social media
sites by students (Badri, Nuaimi, Guang and Rasheedi, 2017). Why school going students are
using social sites although it effects their behaviour, their studies . More researches find negative
things occur in students, while using social networks (Badri, Nuaimi, Guang and Rasheedi,
2017). By using social sites, what kind of negative things occurring in students, how social sites
change their mind ,behavior towards studies.
College students are very keen in using social networking sites, most of them use Facebook,
Instagram, WhatsApp and YouTube (Wang, Chen and Liang, 2011). Most of young college
students use these sites to make friends, relationship, they spend a lot of time there, which cause
bad grades in their studies. By using online platform, youngster can use it in positive way by
joining groups, communities for their academic assistance and support (Wang, Chen and Liang,
2011). Online social educational sites really help students in their studies, online courses also
available on social sites.
Usage of social media has been increased a lot, from Oct 2011, one of the most popular social
site was Facebook (Thoene, 2012). Facebook enabled user to communicate fast over long
distance, where people share information, content, pictures, videos etc. also helps to promote
business. “Managers who are seeking to improve electronic word-of mouth communications
would be better served by targeting the influential reviewers, as their reviews will be given
greater consideration (Thoene, 2012). By communication managers get more reviews and it will
be helpful for promotion of business and brands in the online market place.

Education plays an importance role in children’s life but today they give much time to social
media, which have become main cause of destruction from studies (Tariq, Madiha, Khan, and
Faseeullah, 2012). Previous research studies have investigated that 90% of college students use
social networking sites. By using social networking sites, students has been distracted from their
studies and other extracurricular activities, social networks affected a lot student’s lives (Tariq,
Madiha, Khan, and Faseeullah, 2012).
Previous research studies have investigated that social networks has affected a lot on academic
performance of students (Sentumbwe, 2018). Excess use of social media, it has made a negative
impact on their personality, which also become big cause of different health issues like eyes
weakness, headache etc. In (2016) a research study had been conducted on pharmacy students,
(72.73%) students respond very positive, they had improved their academic performance because
of social networking sites (Sentumbwe, 2018). By using social networks, it helps students a lot in
their studies and other useful information related to their assignments and projects.
Popular social networks, like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter.
Today’s teenagers are very well known to many different internet sites, they spend a lot of time
on different social and sites to make new friends, share daily lives Vlogs etc. ( Asare,
Frimgpong, 2016). Internet really help a lot to students in their studies, they interact with other
fellows to share information about study, exams and moreover they share new ideas and learn
new things very fast.
“The current statistics also show that: (1) 50% of Facebook users log on in any given day, (2)
an average user has 130 friends on their friends list, (3) there are 900 million objects that
people interact with (including pages, groups, events” ( Asare, Frimgpong, 2016). With the
passage of time, Facebook users increasing day by day, with the help of smart phone and fast
internet users check theirs Facebook account after every 10 minutes.
Social media gain popularity in teenagers, they waste their study time on social sites. (Khurana
N, 2015). Excess use of social sites affected students, which tends to distract themselves from
their studies, professions, extracurricular activities. Social sites are also not much safe for
teenagers, as they can lose their personal data, same its effects on children health, psychological
and also on academic performance of students (Khurana N, 2015). Social sites has many positive
and negative impact on students, by using social sites they can interact with school fellows for
study purposes but in the other side they waste their time on playing online games on social sites,
parents and teachers are unable to control this situation.

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