The Impact of Social Media on Academic Performance of Students at Universities in Amhara Regional State

Even if social media usage has become a common trend among university students in Ethiopia, only scant information is available about the pattern of usage and its relationship with the academic performance in this segment of the population. Therefore, the aim of this study is to assess impact of social media on academic performance of students at Universities in Amhara Regional State. For the purpose of the present investigation a descriptive cross-sectional design with quantitative data collection method was used. Multistage sampling technique was also used to select the study participants by stratified into academic unit and year of study. Data were collected by structured questionnaire. Descriptive and Inferential statistics like percentage, mean, t test, and Analysis of variance (Anova) were calculated. The study discovered that the use of social media had affected academic performance of students negatively. The findings show that there is a correlation between the students’ academic performance and their usage of social networks. Keywords : social media, academic performance, university student DOI: 10.7176/NMMC/95-02 Publication date: January 31 st 2021

Through the study of the impact of social media to the students, there is an evidence to show the existence of some impact on student's life whether in their academic or social life. Educators and researchers are constantly experimenting with social media technologies hoping to stimulate critical thinking skills, collaboration, and knowledge construction. However, the fact that these media are generally open to the world implies a need to carefully consider its' benefits, impacts and risks of openness as well as need for ongoing communication with students in order to address their concerns and deal with issues in the use of social media as they arise ((Ramírez et al., 2005).
Even if social media usage has become a common trend among university students in Ethiopia, only scant information is available about the pattern of usage and its relationship with the academic performance in this segment of the population. Furthermore, since information technology revolution get attention recently, its impact on students was not well explored. Therefore, the aim of this study is to assess impact of social media on academic performance of students at Universities in Amhara Regional State.

Statement of the problem
The use of social media has met a great growth since the increase evolution in internet technology. With the explosive growth in the number and use of social media in everyday communication method for individuals and organizations, there has been a corresponding increase of its incorporation in teaching and learning in higher institution. In view of this, it is important to assess the impact social media has on students' academic performance. Social media become very popular and play an important role in all domains of our lives especially in education. Socializing via the internet has become an increasingly important part of young adult life. Social networking sites are popular time-consuming activity that has an impact on academic performance. It is okay then to say that extensive internet use and social networking sites can have an effect on students` academic achievement and thus this type of research is therefore warranted.
Many researchers (Okereke & Oghenetega, 2014;Raymond & Afua, 2016;Maqableh et al., 2015;Karpinski, 2009) are studying the effect of rapid and heavy communication technology used by students on their academic performance. Although many research results pointed to a negative impact of social media usage on academic performance; yet, some researchers found a little or no negative effects on students' academic performance if good multitasking is achieved by students. This research aims to add a better clarity to this research area by examining the relationship between the use of social media and students' academic performance.
Even though numerous studies from developed and developing countries assessed impact of social media on academic performance of students, there has been a serious lack of intensive research on this social platform nationwide in Ethiopia. Moreover, among limited prior research on social media in Ethiopia, the investigation has used small sample sizes and one specific university, and most focuses on social media usage (Mesfin et al., 2017).
While Ethiopia is making efforts to reform its traditional rigid education system and join worldwide movements of integrating new technologies and social media into the teaching-learning process, social media use among young people for educational purposes remains a rarely-studied topic. Therefore, this study is designed to bridge this great gap in the study of social media and academic performance. The following are the main research questions of this study: 1. What is the level of utilization of social media among students at universities in Amhara Regional State? 2. What is the perception of students towards the relationship between social media usage and academic performance? 3. Is there significant difference in use of social media across gender, academic year and academic field of study? 4. Is there significant relationship between the use of social media and the academic performance students at universities in Amhara regional state? The objective this study was to assess the impact of social media use on students' academic performance among students at universities in Amhara Regional State. Particularly, the study was intended to assess the level of utilization of social media among students at Universities, examine of the students' perception regarding the relationship between social media usage and academic performance, and determine whether social media usage is significantly related to such personal variables as gender, academic year and academic field of study. The study also explored if there is the relationship between social media use and academic performance among students at Universities in Amhara Region.

Conceptualizing Social Media
The term "Social media" is defined as the application that allows users to converse and interact with each other; to create, edit and share new forms of textual, visual and audio content, and to categorize, label and recommend existing forms of content. Social media therefore denotes to the wide collection of Internets based and mobile services that connect people together to communicate, participate, collaboratively interact, discuss and exchange ideas and information on an online community. The kind of Internet services commonly associated with social media (sometimes referred to as "Web 2.0") include the following according to Raymond & Afua, 2016: Weblog. Weblogs or blogs, as they are branded, are easily created and updateable websites that allow authors to publish to the Internet instantly, hence allowing instructors and students to communicate easily. Basically, a blog is an online journal in which pages are usually displayed in reverse chronological order. Blogs can be hosted for free on websites such as Word Press, Tumblr and Blogger. Wikis. A wiki is "a collective website where any participant is allowed to modify any page or create a new page using her Web browser". Anyone can add and edit what has already been published. One well known example is Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia that makes use of wiki technology. Social bookmarking. Bookmarking sites allow users to organize and share links to websites. This enables users to produce a searchable personalized internet. Examples include reddit, Stumble Upon and Digg. Social network sites. (Maqableh et al., 2015) defined social network sites as public web-based services that allow users to develop a personal profile, identify other users with whom they have a connection, read and react to postings made by other users on the site, and send and receive messages either privately or publicly. These webbased services allow individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system. Among the most popular are Facebook and LinkedIn. Status update services. This kind is also known as micro blogging services, status update services such as Twitter allow people to share short updates about people or events and to see updates tweeted by others. These are limited list that are certain to revolution quickly, probably could be by our own contributions to the field.

Social Media Usage of University students
Generally, Social Media users largely are from Teens and Generation Y (internet users age 18-32), according to the survey conducted by Pew Internet & American Life Project entitled Generations Online in 2009. They are the most likely groups to use the internet for entertainment and for communicating with friends and family. These younger generations are significantly more likely than their older counterparts to seek entertainment through online videos, online games, and virtual worlds, and they are also more likely to download music to listen to later. Internet users ages 12-32 are more likely than older users to read other people's blogs and to write their own; they are also considerably more likely than older generations to use social networking sites and to create profiles on those sites. Younger internet users often use personal blogs to update friends on their lives, and they use social networking sites to keep track of and communicate with friends. Teen and Generation Y users are also significantly more likely than older generations to send instant messages to friends. Online teens are also significantly more likely to play games than any other generation, including Generation Y, only half (50%) of whom play online games (Josan & Giselle, 2014).
Okereke & Oghenetega (2014) conducted research on the impact of social media on the academic performance of university students in Nigeria. The finding shows that social media usage among students is not for academic purposes. Found out that the following are often used by students -Facebook 40(40.81%), WhatsApp 20(20.40%) 2go/Skype 14(14.28%) and while Myspace, Twitter, badoo, Blogs/web scholars, Google+/ Social bookmarking are not often used by undergraduates in the four universities for the study. Another finding showed that students in the four universities using social media for reaching out to close/distance friends and general information about life.
Josan and Giselle (2014) study the relationship of Social Media in relation to the Academic Performance of the students of Bachelor of Science in Information Technology at Centro Escolar University-Malolos. They found out sixty-one (61) or 44.3% falls under the Occasional User of Social Media while seventy-seven (77) or 55.7% falls under Frequent User of Social Media. This represents that there are more Frequent User of Social Media among the respondents participated in this study. Wan, Ziti and Nurul (2017) also found out, out of 200 respondents, 46% used between 1-3 hours in a day, 20% spent their time 4-7 hours per day and only 5% used more than 8 hours a day. Majority (45%) of them used social media more than 2 years and have more than 500 friends or contacts in their social media.

The Positive impact of Social Media on Students Academic Performance
Social media provides students a new mechanism for a familiar exercise. It provides students a direct medium by which to publicly evaluate and comment on their campus environments, institutional policies, classes, professors, and administration and fellow students in real-time. Social media zips through our campuses nearly unseen, dragging behind it the heavy weight of social injustices and complicated Jurisprudence accumulated from decades of student speech. Given social media's potential for positive impact, no one is suggesting we pull the breaks on it, and in many ways the technology is already out of our grasp (Raymond & Afua, 2016).
Today's students communicate via technology, and that If you say absolutely no Facebook or texting, you are cutting off an important relationship with students' technology as an online teacher use of technology via the use of a variety of tools such as Skype, text, email, Facebook and twitter. Social media open up new ways for collaboration and discussion in the sense that, it offers a great deal of content posting, coping, sharing and search ability by easily using online search tools. Students today use social media anywhere and at any time where internet connection is available in order to meet their educational needs. Students use social media to communicate with their Teachers as a group outside of class and to plan school events and what not, it also allowed students to get help on school work from teachers during the evening, weekends, and holidays so that they never fell behind. The cell phone numbers and WeChat are equally used to get in touch with teachers quickly during the school day, if a student is going to be late or absent or outside of school in an emergency (Dewing, 2010).
The academic and social importance of social media for undergraduate students was pointed out in literature. Researchers argued that college students need to develop new networks of support; especially for those with new academic experiences such as: first-year students, first generation college students, and immigrant students. These students may use online network sites such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn to develop the support network they need. Furthermore, social media helps in establishing peer-support networks prior to first-year students arriving to campus. SNSs also help in facilitating the art of learning by providing a media to share ideas which allow students to collaborate with others through building their own virtual communities (Ramírez et al., 2005).
In fact, as an educational tool, social media enriches learning by giving both students and teachers the opportunity to connect in new and very exciting ways thereby encouraging flexible mode of learning. It is stated that flexible learning expands the choice on what, when and how people learn. It supports different styles of learning including E-learning which is highly patronized across the globe. Other scholars also revealed that social media benefits students by connecting them to one another on assignments and class projects (Kolan & Dzandza, 2018).
Mesifn et al., (2017) carried out an empirical study the impact of social media on the academic achievement of female students at Jimma University. A questionnaire was distributed among 493 female students at colleges and institutes of the university in order to explore the influence of social media on their academic performance. Grade point averages of these students were also reviewed from the registrar to identify the impact of social media on their academic performance. The findings of the study confirmed students who often accessed social media sites for not academic purpose had lower grade point averages than students who sometimes and rarely visited social media sites.

The Negative impact of Social Media on Students Academic Performance
Although SNSs is a very helpful tool in students' hands, it was found by many studies that a negative impact of social network sites usage on academic performance could occur. Many students claimed that SNSs usage did not affect their marks, while others admit that SNSs permanent usage can be a distraction, time consuming, and lead to academic procrastination. In research, results pointed to a negative impact of online social media usage on academic performance; therefore, as time spent on social networking sites increases, the academic performance of the students is seen to deteriorate. Nevertheless; (Junco, 2015) studied the impact of college students' academic level and found that Facebook affected Grade Point Averages (GPAs) negatively for freshmen, sophomores, juniors but not for seniors. Seniors spend less time on Facebook, and they are less likely to post status updates comments, chats, posts, videos or photos than others (Maqableh et al., 2015).
Facebook users often experience poor academic performance. Also, Karpinski (2009) stated that social media has a negative association with students' academic performance which is much greater than the advantages derived through the use of social media platforms. People around the globe have been addicted to the internet which has given rise to more students using social media more often than before. He advised and recommended that those who are addicted users love to use the internet to set back their personal and professional responsibilities in which the final outcome is poor academic performance. It was highlighted in the finding of Karpinski (2009) that social media platforms (Facebook, watzapp etc) users usually devote lesser time to their studies has to compared to nonusers did and subsequently has lower GPAs. It was also mentioned that among the major distraction of current generation that social media platform (such Facebook, Watzapp etc.) remains a major distraction.
O'keeffe and Oghenetega (2011), also mentioned cyberbullying, online harassment, sexting, face book depression, and privacy concerns as some of the challenges associated with social networking. However, Raymond and Afua (2016) recommended that there is always the potential for things to go wrong, and that is true before technology as well. So, commentators would have to stop worrying about what could go wrong and realize that there is a huge opportunity associated with social media that broaden the learning experience of students.

Methods and Materials
For the purpose of the present investigation a descriptive cross-sectional design with quantitative data collection method was used. Since the major purpose of the study is describing the existing fact on the population which is social media use among students and its impact on academic performance, the design is selected. All undergraduate students at universities in Amhara Regional State were the source population for the study. All students who were randomly selected by multistage sampling from source population were the sample of the study. Those regular undergraduate students, who are not blind and not critically sick (to the extent of being unable to read and write) during the time of data collection, was included.
The sample size was calculated by using the formula for single population proportion Fisher's formula (pp<10,000) for cross sectional survey and taking the proportion as 50%, (since no study was conducted in the study area as far as the investigator knowledge and searching effort) with confidence level of 95% and degree of precision of 5% (since the worst accpetable value of degree of precision is between 0.045-0.055). Based on the above information the total initial sample size was calculated by using the following formula; n= (zα/2)2 pq/d2 Where  ni= required initial sample size  Zα/2 =critical value for normal distribution at 95% confidence interval which equals to 1.96 (Z value at alpha=0.05).  P= Proportion of success, that is percentage of students that social media has negative impact on academic performance 50% (0.5)  q= Proportion of students that social media has no negative impact on academic performance.  d= marginal error (0.05). The calculated sample size was 384 since the sampling was made from infinite population (N>10, 1000), it needs no correction. By considering 5% non-response rate, the total sample size was 403 students at universities in Amhara Regional State.
Probability sampling technique was used to select the study participants. First among the ten universities in Amhara Regional state, four universities will be selected using simple random sampling method by lottery technique from each generation of universities. In this case Bahir Bar University from first generation universities, Debre Markos University from second generation universities, Woldya University from third generation universities and Inji-Bara University from fourth generation universities was selected. Then students were stratified into academic unit (like College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture, College of Business and Economics, Collage of Natural and Computational Sciences, Collage of Social Sciences and Humanities, and others). Third, further stratification was done based on the year of study. Finally, systematic random sampling technique was applied to select students in each year of study from the list of students' name in their respective batch. Students from each year of study will be allocated proportionally to their class size.
Data was collected by structured questionnaire prepared in English and then translated to local language (Amharic) which most students could understand it clearly. The questionnaire has three parts. The first part of the questionnaire measure is demographics questionnaire. Students were complete a demographics questionnaire in order for the researchers to gather information about the personal characteristics of the students in this study. The rest parts of the questionnaire is related with use of social media by students which is taken from the related studies (Thao Nguyen, 2017;Maqableh et al., 2015 andKolan &Dzandza, 2018). The second part measures the frequency and amounts of time students used for social media which is general patterns of using social media. The final part used to collect data about student's perception towards the relationship between social media usage and academic performance. The data about students' academic performance which is measured by recent cumulative GPA was collected from the university's registrar directorates. Independent Variables. Socio-demographic characteristics (gender), year of stay in the university and type of academic field attended. Dependent Variable. The dependent variable is social media and academic performance. Descriptive statistics such as means, range and mode for continuous and proportion for categorical variables including cross-tabulations were used for data summarization and description of the study population. Correlational analyses were employed to determine the relationship (if any) between social media use and academic performance. Pearson's correlation coefficient applied to correlate time spent on social media with average cumulative grades of students. Differences in proportions were compared for significance using t test for two samples like gender and Analysis of variance (Anova) three or more sample cases like for academic year, with significance level set at p < 0.05.

Result and Discussion
This was a cross-sectional survey study carried out to assess the impact of social media on academic performance of students at Universities in Amhara Regional State. This chapter provides the demographic information about the respondents and the results of the data collected with the questionnaires administered to and completed by the selected undergraduate university students. This chapter presents, discusses and interprets the findings of the study discussed under each objective. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data collected. The chapter also provides the discussion of major findings of the study with relevant literature.

General and Demographic information
Totally 366 study participants were participated with a response rate of 90.82%. This response rate was considered appropriate for analysis and reporting as supported by Mugenda and Mugenda (1999) indicating that a response ISSN 2224-3267 (Paper) ISSN 2224 Vol.95, 2021 20 rate of 70% and above is excellent. General and demographic characteristics of the student included in this study are presented in Table 1. As shown in the table participants 205(50.8%) were males and the rest 198(49.2%) were females. Mean age of the participant was 21.28 years, with a range of 18-27 years. In addition, the table shows that most participants 137(33.9%) were Social Science Faculty students, followed by Natural Science Faculty students 112(27.9%) and 80(19.9%) were Technology Faculty Students. Only 74(18.3%) of the study participants were Health Science Students.
Furthermore, table 1 shows that participants of this study have different academic year 166(41.1%) of them were third year, 82(18.9%) second year, 58(14.3%) fourth year, 50(12.5%) first, and the rest 47(11.7%) were fifth year. Generally, as showed in Table 1, the demographic profile of the respondents for this study revealed that they are typically equal number of female and male, most of them in their second-and third-year level, and most of them are Social Science Faculty/College students. This shows that all the respondents were undergraduate students across the selected universities and across study levels.

Social Media Usage
Students are able to get online from various platforms. As table 2 indicates, from a sample of 366 undergraduate students it was found that all the students used one or the other social media platforms. In addition, the table shows that 59.29% of respondents in this study have profiles in three of the social networks. The most popular devices used for accessing social media platforms among students were smart phones (65.6%) and laptops (19.7%). Regarding online connections, it was reported that the majority of students were friends with school-mates and teachers from their university, which respectively accounted for 82% and 54.1%. In order to know how regularly the respondents used social media, they were asked to indicate how often they use social media in general. Most students 210 (57.4%) were found to be using social media sites Daily/almost daily followed by Weekly/almost weekly with 114 (31.1%) and Few times a month with 24 (6.6%) each. Since majority students were found to be using social media sites Daily/almost daily or Weekly/almost weekly, most of the students are frequent users and moderate users of social media sites.
The participants also reported the number of hours they spent on social networks per week as summarized in the above table. The results show that 150(41%) of respondents indicate that they spend from one hour to six hours using the social media sites per week followed by 144(39.3%) of the respondents spent between seven hours to ten hours. The rest 6 (1.6%) were reported they use social media sites more than 20 hours per week as shown in Table 2. This result indicated that majority students were found to frequent user of social media user.  Table 3 presents the distribution of time spent in social media usage across demographic variables. As shown in the table significant number of female participants 76 (20.77%) were medium frequent users of social media. The rest female participants were 19 (5.19%) frequent users, 17 (4.64%) light users and 68 (18.58%) occasional users. Regarding male participants social media usage 82 (22.4%) of them were occasional users and from the remaining 68(18.58%) were medium frequent users, 19(5.19%) were light users and the rest 17(4.64%) of them were frequent users.
In addition, the table shows consistent result across academic year that was most participants were medium frequent users of social media followed by occasional users and light users. Furthermore, the table shows that participants' social media usage across academic field of study which was categorized as Social Science, Technology, Natural Science and Health Science. Most Social Science, were found to be medium frequent users of social media. In the other side Technology were found to be occasional users of social media. However, Health Science students were found to be light users of social media.

Perception on Use of Social Media for Educational Purposes
As it is observed from the table below, the total scores of respondents represent their perception towards the use of social media for educational purpose. The mean of the total scores was above to the median score of 3 in the 5point scale (Total; m/item = 3.36 SD±.684). One-sample t-tests were run with the test value of 3 (Ho: μ2-μ1 = 3). The result showed that there is statistically significant difference in the mean between the respondents total scores mean and the expected average of mean 3.0 (t = 4.163, p = 0.003). The highest mean score of respondents showing respondents reported a strong agreement with the use of social media for educational purpose. This means most of the participants agree that they use social media for various educational purposes.

Relationship between Use of Social Media and Academic Performance
The relationship between social media use and academic performance among students at Universities in Amhara Region was investigated using Spearman rank correlation coefficient. Preliminary analyses were performed to ensure no violation of the assumptions of normality, linearity and homoscedasticity. The result of the correlation between (the times spent on SMN per week) and (most recent cumulative college GPA of the students) is a negative weak relationship r =0.147, p > 0.05. This implies that as one variable increase, the other variable decrease and vice-versa. However, there is no statistically significant effect of time spent on SMN and students' academic performance represented in their GPA. Cumulative GPA 1

Conclusion
The main purpose of this study was to analyze the use of the social media and its relationship with the academic performance of university students in Universities in Amhara regional state. Therefore; the study discovered that the use of social media had affected academic performance of students negatively. The findings show that there is a correlation between the students' academic performance and their usage of social networks. Finally, it revealed that students tend to use social networks for social purposes than academics in the university.

Recommendations
Based on the findings of this study, the following recommendations are made.  Social media is important for students, as it links students with each other outside of their class time. Students' interaction via social media can allow them to discuss course contents at any time they need. Thus, new social media platforms have to be developed for students for their study purpose.  Via social media, a student can post questions, share information and discuss with peers when facing any difficulties during their study time or during preparation of their assignments. Asking questions in order to share information, conduct discussions or other investigated acts among peers can help students to better understand the course content and, as a result, enhance academic performance. Thus, universities have to give a short-and long-term trainings for students about developing the culture of using social media for academic purpose.  With low opportunity costs for acquiring, tailoring, and circulating information, social media is crucial to bearing and sharing witness, to documenting violations of international humanitarian law or human rights, and widely broadcasting content to provoke action among human rights groups and international organizations. Thus, strict measures on those who disseminate false and hateful information have to be taken by the government.  Specific rules and guidelines on using social media should be developed by the universities.  Social media can play a role in ending inaction and impunity, securing accountability and reparation for violations. Students should examine the trustworthiness of their sources and spend their time on using social media for academic than social purpose.