Effect of digital media on academic performance in undergraduate students

Background: No doubt, new communication technology has turned the whole world into a "Global Village". Technology, as it is, though, like two sides of a coin, carries both the negative and the positive sides of it. It allows people to be well educated, enlightened, and keep up with changes in the world. Technology is exposing society to a new way to do stuff. Objective of the study: Effect of digital media on academic performance in undergraduate students. Materials and Methods: The research population consisted of all students who from 2017-2020 academic years are studying at Malwanchal University willing to participate in the study and complete the questionnaires entirely. Stratified sampling at random was done. Variables of social media use were measured by the Merton (1968) social network site use scale and academic performance was evaluated according to the self-reported GPA. Results: The results showed that the mean percentage of users belonging to low social network sites among the sample categories, average users of social network sites and high users of social network sites varied significantly. Conclusion: The use of social networking sites on the Internet has a negative effect on academic success. The value of learning to balance the use of social networking sites for better purposes is found to aid in their academic standing.


Introduction:
No doubt, new communication technology has turned the whole world into a "Global Village". Technology, as it is, though, like two sides of a coin, carries both the negative and the positive sides of it. It allows people to be well educated, enlightened, and keep up with changes in the world. Technology is exposing society to a new way to do stuff.
Social Media They are forms of electronic communication that allow certain interests to be based on an interactive basis. Web and mobile technologies include social media. Kaplan et al. (2010) defined Social Media as an internetbased application group that enables user-generated content to be produced and shared 1 .

Social Network Sites (SNSs)
Today, social media is a common trend, particularly among college students, use such as facebook, twitters, whatsApp, instagram, sharechat is deeply embedded in people's daily lives. In particular, teens or college students spend a lot of time on social networking sites, and this will be part of their everyday lives. It is necessary to understand the essence of the use of social networking sites among college students or teenagers and their effect on student academic performance.
Over the past decade, social network sites (SNSs) have increased dramatically in popularity and become part of social activities in communities, according to Boyd et al., (2007). SNSs are numerous web-based platforms that empower people to connect, play games, converse and share interests via instant messaging, for example. The definition of an SNS includes three factors: (1) a built online profile, (2) a list of friends and followers who are interacted with by users, and (3) a connection to each profile of friends, followers or contacts. Such profiles enable people to build new social relationships that would not otherwise be formed and to sustain existing relationships 2 .
There is a clear connection between the use of social media and students' academic success at universities. The darker side of technological evolution, however, has led to problems such as the reversal of real life values, especially among students who make up the majority of users communicating through the use of social networking sites. The focus of online social networking sites is to create and represent social relationships between individuals who share interests and or activities. Students are tempted to neglect their homework and reading time in order to talk with friends online, with so many social networking sites shown on the internet. Many students are now addicted to the moment's online rave, with Facebook, Twitter etc 3 .
WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram etc. accounts are currently primarily owned by teenagers and students. In college or school, the reason most of them perform poorly may not be far-fetched. Although many minds would be able to blame the low standard of educators, if they haven't heard of the Facebook frenzy, they might have to think even harder 3 . Students are so immersed in social media that they are online for almost 24 hours. It has been found even in classrooms and lecture theatres that some students are still busy on WhatsApp, Instagram, or Facebooking, while lectures are taking place. The passion to make new friends online, and much of the time busy debating trivial problems, has crushed times that should be channelled into studying, academic study and creativity. Therefore, as a result of distraction from social media, most student academics experience a setback and it was found that the usage of these platforms often influences the use of English and grammar by students. In their chat rooms, students are used to short ways of writing words; in the classrooms, they forget and use the same. They use phrases like 4 instead of for, U instead of You, D instead of The, etc., and their class evaluation may be influenced by this 4 .
The addictiveness of students to social networks, the level of exposure of students to social networks, the social media network to which students are more exposed, and the influence of social media as a means of interaction between students have recently been part of the debate and imparted on their academic performance. They spend their time talking and making friends through social media instead of reading their books, and this will certainly have an effect on their academic performance, because when you don't read, there is no way you can do well academically. Having a student chatting in sensitive and highly organised areas is a regular sight. Some get so carried away that they keep talking even as they walk along the highway.
The present research was conducted to determine if digital media had an impact on academic quality in undergraduate students.

Material and Methods:
The research population consisted of all students who from 2017-2020 academic years are studying at Malwanchal University willing to participate in the study and complete the questionnaires entirely. Stratified sampling at random was done.

Study questionnaire
The questionnaire is built on the basis of the study objectives and the survey instruments previously published to evaluate: 1. Study population demographics 2. Social media usage 3. Academic performance Variables of social media use were measured by the Merton (1968) social network site use scale and academic performance was evaluated according to the self-reported GPA. Table 1 shows the mean percentage and standard deviation between sample groups in academic performance among low users of social network sites, average users of social network sites and high users of social network sites. The group of users of low social network sites has obtained a higher mean percentage (M=69.93 percent, SD=11.96) on academic results compared to the average group of users of social network sites (M=65. 76 percent, SD=10.85) and the group of users of high social network sites has obtained a lower average percentage (M=63.69 percent, SD=8.55) compared to the average group of users of social network sites and low social network sites. A one way ANOVA statistic showed that the use of social network sites had a significant effect on the Academic performance among the students with a p value of < 0.001.   Distribution of sex of total study participants (100). The participants of sample groups belongs to low social network sites users, average social network sites users and high social network sites users. Were 58% of study subjects were males and 42% were females.

Discussion:
This has contributed to an increase in questions about the effects on academic performance of online social network platforms and the potential of using them as an effective teaching and useful educational tool. This research was conducted to learn more about the effect of social networking sites on academic success. The outcome of this research showed that the use of social network sites has a negative effect on academic performance among college students. Compared to average and low social network sites using groups, the high SNS users community showed low academic results. In other words, students using less social network sites demonstrated higher academic output relative to average users of social network sites and high user groups of social network sites  10 . They found that college students who use social network sites such as facebook, twitter, whatsapp, instagram, etc., have been found to spend less time on study than students who do not use social network sites. They may get low grades in their academics as they spend less time on learning homework and spend more time using social network sites and thinking about using SNS.

Conclusion:
The results showed that the mean percentage of users belonging to low social network sites among the sample categories, average users of social network sites and high users of social network sites varied significantly. The group of users of low social network sites has obtained a higher mean percentage of academic results compared to the average group of users of social network sites and the group of users of high social network sites has earned a lower mean percentage compared to the average group of users of social network sites and the group of users of low social network sites, suggesting that high usage of social network sites has a significant negative effect.
The use of social networking sites on the Internet has a negative effect on academic success. The value of learning to balance the use of social networking sites for better purposes is found to aid in their academic standing.