“Academic performance” is not a concept that is new, many social scientist and researchers alike have defined academic performance in various ways. Bruce Tuckman (1975) asserts that performance is used to label the observable manifestations of knowledge, skill, concepts, and understanding and idea. So performance is the application of a learning product that at the end of the process provides mastery.
It is the acquisition of particular grades on examination; it shows or indicates the students’ ability, mastery of content, skills in applying learned knowledge to a particular situation.A student is generally judged on examination performance (Banquil et al, 2009). A student’s academic performance basically shows how well he or she has benefited from being exposed to an academic programme. Often this shows after an evaluation, done in terms of an examination, either at the end of a semester, session or even after the completion of the programme. Most universities use C.
P. G. A, as a measure of academic performance. Grade systems vary from country to country. Measuring academic performance is very difficult because a student’s academic performance is as a result of socioeconomic, psychological and emotional factors.
Most universities have standards, and how well a student meet this academic standards is also an indicator of his or academic performance. Many factors could affect a student’s academic performance; from the students attitude towards school to socio economic status and even gender. In this study, however, the researcher seeks to understand what influence social networking and reading habit has on academic performance. Social networking and reading habit has on academic performance. Social networking web sites are being used by billons of people today.The use of these web sites have caught the eye of many researcher today and many of them have been evaluating the impact this “new way of communicating” have on the life of people and indeed our society as whole.
Social networking sites help people connect with friends, families, work mates, school mates, and even strangers with whom they share personal interests, views or even recreational activities. Most social networking sites be it facebook , twitter, myspace, 2go, instagram, whatsapp or blackberry messenger have one basic goal; they encourage new ways of communicating and sharing information, pictures, videos or music.Many people today view social networking as a great way to stay connected; it is in expensive and very fast. It’s also a great medium of getting news.
For example, the air plane crash that happened some weeks ago in Lagos state, many people got across to their loved ones to find about their welfare, pictures of the scene was everywhere, no wonder millions of people subscribe to this medium of communication. “If Face-book were a country” says time magazine “it would be third largest, behind only China and India” as Face-book has some 800 million members!Although social networking has some disadvantages its not without its disadvantages. Social networking could be time consuming and very addictive, most times people complain about how much time they spend sending and receiving messages from friends, going through a friend’s profile or simply “group chatting”. The biggest consumers of social networking sites are youths, many of whom are students, the researcher therefore perceives a problem, that many students would rather spend time social networking than studying their books or paying attention in class.The researcher assumes that this could affect their academic performance adversely. If social networking could affect study habits which in turn could affect academic performance it becomes paramount that the issue be investigated.
Given our very bad economy and high level of poverty, many Nigerians today view education as the key to unlocking the chains of poverty. Many parents therefore are more than ever willing to make sure that their children or wards get educated, even to the point of university education.However just going to the university these days does not guarantee getting a good job, students have to work very hard in order to get good grades, as this increase the market value, most organization in Nigeria for example would not employ graduates with nothing lower than a second class upper division (2. 1). Millions of people graduate each year from universities one of the indicators that highlight the student’s qualification is the C. G.
P. A, many employees as mentioned earlier use the C. G. P. A to screen out job candidates and would only take candidates with the higher C. G.
P. A (Erdem et al, 2007).The importance of good academic performance among undergraduates cannot be over-emphasized. However, several factors affect how well a student performs in the university, some are; socio economical, psychological while others are environmental. Several studies have been carried out to understand the influence this factors have on academic performance.
Many educationists tend to shift the blame of poor academic performance among undergraduate students to teaching methodology adopted by teachers and lack of funds from the Government to provide available books in the libraries; however this may not be the only reason. The researcher perceives a strong relationship between social networking and reading habits on academic performance among university undergraduates in Nigeria. The researcher has observed that many students today would rather “ping-chat” rather than read and study.Many students would even carry out these activities in the classrooms even when teachers are teaching. This act he believes, distracts many students from the main reason why they are in the university; which is to study, learn and make good grades. If students spend more time social networking rather than studying, it shows they have poor study habits and poor study habits invariably leads to poor academic performance.
This in turn leads to poor C. P. G. A, and a poor C. P. G.
A reduces the students labor market value, which then could lead to unemployment which is a huge social problem in Nigeria.
