The Influence of Social Media on Undergraduate Performance in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Ruhuna

Abstract

This study intends to investigate the influence of social media on undergraduate performance at the 3000 level in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (FoHSS) at the University of Ruhuna. The research aims to shed light on this phenomenon since it is identified that the young generation is addicted to social media. As a result, it recognizes that social media is a key roadblock to the education of the younger generation. All 3000 level undergraduates in FoHSS were used as the study's target population and 210 undergraduates were selected as the sample, using the simple random sampling technique from Microsoft Excel application. A questionnaire was used to collect primary data and it was distributed among 210 undergraduates using WhatsApp and Telegram. But only 185 responses were received. Since, this study has utilized the quantitative research design, the Chi-Square independence test and the descriptive analysis techniques were used to analyze the data using Statistical Package for Social Sciences. The findings of this study reveal a statistically significant association between the cumulative grade point average and the time spent on social media. However, no association was found between Cummulative Grade Point Average and YouTube content linked to the class material. It has also found that the majority of undergraduate students polled agreed that using social media did not boost their grades. This is a very critical situation and it will badly affect the academic lives of undergraduates. Therefore, it is very important to take suitable actions to minimize these bad effects. For that, this study recommends that students should be educated about the influence of social media on their academic performance and they should be informed how to manage their study time with other stuff they have by conducting workshops. Otherwise, they need to realize how much time they are wasting by using social media.