Gender Variations in Social Media Usage and Its Perceived Impact on The Academic Performance of Nigerian Science Undergraduates

Abstract

University students frequently use social media, which has an impact on their everyday life, but the impact may differ by gender and other circumstances. The purpose of this study was to examine how social media usage differs by gender and how this is believed to affect the academic performance of undergraduate science students in Nigeria. This descriptive survey comprises a sample of randomly selected 464 undergraduate science students of Tai Solarin University of Education, Nigeria. The students' social media usage was assessed with an adapted and validated questionnaire rated on a 4-point Likert scale (Strongly Agree (4), Agree (3), Disagree (2), and Strongly Disagree (1). Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences, Version 21. Our results show that there are no gender differences in total time spent on social media daily (P= 0.275) and usage of social media during class (P= 0.487). Male versus female usage of Twitter (60.2% versus 30.6%, P= 0.000) and Youtube (62.2% versus 48.6%, P= 0.017) were significantly different but not in usage of Whatsapp, Facebook and Instagram. Both males and females felt that social media had a high impact on their academic performance, but the impact was significantly higher in males than females (P= 0.049). Males use more social media applications than females and opined that social media highly impacted their academic performance. These findings could be explored for better academic performance.