THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL NETWORKING ON ACADEMIC ADJUSTMENT OF IN- SCHOOL ADOLESCENTS
ABSTRACT
This ex-post facto research study determined the influence of social networking on
academic adjustment of in- school adolescents in Enugu Education Zone of Enugu State.
Four research questions and four null hypotheses guided the study. A total of 32396
students in all the public secondary schools in Enugu Education zone were used as
population size. Out of this, sample size of 607 was randomly selected using multi-stage
sampling technique. Social Networking and Academic Adjustment of Adolescents
Questionnaire (SNAAAQ) was used as an instrument for data collection. The instrument
was face validated by three experts. It was trial tested using 30 students and its internal
consistency was ascertained using Cronbach Alpha co-efficient statistical method. The
result gave overall Alpha- co-efficient value of 0.91. The data collected was analyzed
using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions while t-test was
used to test the postulated null hypotheses. The major findings revealed that in-school
adolescents are exposed to various categories of social networks such as facebook,
twitter, eskimi myspace, 2go, blogs, email, whatsapp and youtube. It was revealed that
poor study habits, identity theft, sexual solicitation are dangers associated with the use of
social networking. It was found that social networking influences male and female, urban
and rural in-school adolescents’ academic adjustment. It was found that there is no
significant difference between the mean ratings of male and female in-school adolescents
on the various categories of social networks adolescents are exposed to and the dangers
associated the use of social networking. It indicated that there is no significant difference
between the mean ratings of in-school adolescents from urban and rural, male and
female areas on the influence of social networking academic adjustment. Based on these
findings, some counselling implications were highlighted and recommendations made.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Electronic communication has become an integral part of our global
society. Presently, information is at the doormat of everybody because the world
is in the era of information technology. This cannot be compared to few decades
back when it takes weeks for one to communicate through letter writing to a
beloved one within in or outside the country. In this technological era, information
is no longer left for only a few privileged people who can afford the use of land
line telephone in offices and homes. Even the people in the remotest village in
Nigeria and elsewhere can access information through the cell phone, available
internet and social networking sites.
Social networking is a means of communication through which tools like
wall posts, status updates, activity feeds, thumbs ups and profiles are used and
perhaps characterized online communications namely face book, Myspace Metlog,
flicker and twitter (Akaneme, Ibenegbu & Nwosu, 2013). Also, Mashable (2015)
opined that social networking service is an online platform or site that focuses on
facilitating the social relations among people who, for example, share interests,
activities, backgrounds or real life.
In the opinion of Ferguson (2007), social networking is online destination
which focuses on connecting people they already know and those they do not
know. Similarly, Abd-Rahman (2013) described social networking as the use of
online sites (social networking sites) for people to get to know new people, share
their profiles, trace their old friends, share pictures, videos, publish upcoming
events of their societies, and counties.
In operational terms, social networking is a platform through which
individuals’ interest, profiles, pictures, activities, events or news and academic
issues are shared and communicated so as to maintain and adopt substantial
balance between their academic requirement and individual interest. Social
networking as advent of era of information is the use of dedicated websites which
enable social interaction and applications to interact with other users or find
people with similar interest to their own.
Presently, social networking as a new development has been described as a
stage for facilitation and development of adolescents’ social adaptation
(Subrahmanyam & Green-Field, 2008; Zhao, Grasmuck & Martin, 2008). Also,
people use social networking to share their feeling and disposition to individuals
of their networking (Young, 2011). It is a platform through which people
communicate and disclose their personal thoughts, feelings and life events (Zhao,
Grasmuck & Martin, 2008). Operationally, social networking, therefore, imply
platform or online media where individual privately unleash their identities,
problems and views to life for others in the same network to comment. Social
network platform includes 2go, facebook, whatsapp, twitter, instagram, google, to
mention a few.