Influence of social networking on academic adjustment of in- school adolescents in education zone

Project Abstract

<p> This ex-post factor research study determined the influence of social networking onacademic adjustment of in- school adolescents in Enugu Education Zone of Enugu State.<br>Four research questions and four null hypotheses guided the study. A total of 32396<br>students in all the public secondary schools in Enugu Education zone were used as<br>population size. Out of this, sample size of 607 was randomly selected using multi-stage<br>sampling technique. Social Networking and Academic Adjustment of Adolescents<br>Questionnaire (SNAAAQ) was used as an instrument for data collection. The instrument<br>was face validated by three experts. It was trial tested using 30 students and its internal<br>consistency was ascertained using Cronbach Alpha co-efficient statistical method. The<br>result gave overall Alpha- co-efficient value of 0.91. The data collected was analyzed<br>using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions while t-test was<br>used to test the postulated null hypotheses. The major findings revealed that in-school<br>adolescents are exposed to various categories of social networks such as facebook,<br>twitter, eskimi myspace, 2go, blogs, email, whatsapp and youtube. It was revealed that<br>poor study habits, identity theft, sexual solicitation are dangers associated with the use of<br>social networking. It was found that social networking influences male and female, urban<br>and rural in-school adolescents’ academic adjustment. It was found that there is no<br>significant difference between the mean ratings of male and female in-school adolescents<br>on the various categories of social networks adolescents are exposed to and the dangers<br>associated the use of social networking. It indicated that there is no significant difference<br>between the mean ratings of in-school adolescents from urban and rural, male and<br>female areas on the influence of social networking academic adjustment. Based on these<br>findings, some counselling implications were highlighted and recommendations made. <br></p>

Project Overview

<p> <strong>INTRODUCTION</strong><br><strong>Background of the Study</strong><br>Electronic communication has become an integral part of our global<br>society. Presently, information is at the doormat of everybody because the world<br>is in the era of information technology. This cannot be compared to few decades<br>back when it takes weeks for one to communicate through letter writing to a<br>beloved one within in or outside the country. In this technological era, information<br>is no longer left for only a few privileged people who can afford the use of land<br>line telephone in offices and homes. Even the people in the remotest village in<br>Nigeria and elsewhere can access information through the cell phone, available<br>internet and social networking sites.<br>Social networking is a means of communication through which tools like<br>wall posts, status updates, activity feeds, thumbs ups and profiles are used and<br>perhaps characterized online communications namely face book, Myspace Metlog,<br>flicker and twitter (Akaneme, Ibenegbu &amp; Nwosu, 2013). Also, Mashable (2015)<br>opined that social networking service is an online platform or site that focuses on<br>facilitating the social relations among people who, for example, share interests,<br>activities, backgrounds or real life.<br>In the opinion of Ferguson (2007), social networking is online destination<br>which focuses on connecting people they already know and those they do not<br>know. Similarly, Abd-Rahman (2013) described social networking as the use of<br>online sites (social networking sites) for people to get to know new people, share<br>their profiles, trace their old friends, share pictures, videos, publish upcoming<br>events of their societies, and counties.<br>In operational terms, social networking is a platform through which<br>individuals’ interest, profiles, pictures, activities, events or news and academic<br>issues are shared and communicated so as to maintain and adopt substantial<br>balance between their academic requirement and individual interest. Social<br>networking as advent of era of information is the use of dedicated websites which<br>enable social interaction and applications to interact with other users or find<br>people with similar interest to their own.<br>Presently, social networking as a new development has been described as a<br>stage for facilitation and development of adolescents’ social adaptation<br>(Subrahmanyam &amp; Green-Field, 2008; Zhao, Grasmuck &amp; Martin, 2008). Also,<br>people use social networking to share their feeling and disposition to individuals<br>of their networking (Young, 2011). It is a platform through which people<br>communicate and disclose their personal thoughts, feelings and life events (Zhao,<br>Grasmuck &amp; Martin, 2008). Operationally, social networking, therefore, imply<br>platform or online media where individual privately unleash their identities,<br>problems and views to life for others in the same network to comment. Social<br>network platform includes 2go, facebook, whatsapp, twitter, instagram, google, to<br>mention a few. <br></p>