Margaret I. Abikwi^1,, Chukujindu J. Okafor¹

The study examined impact of social media on academic performance of selected secondary schools in Edo South Senatorial District, Edo State. Two research questions were raised with two corresponding hypotheses formulated to guide the study. The descriptive survey research design was used for the study. The population of the study consisted of 685 SS2 and SS3 students from selected public secondary schools in Edo South Senatorial District, Edo State. The entire population was used for the study since the population was small and manageable. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire which was validated by two experts from Benson Idahosa University, Benin City. Spearman rank order was used to determine the reliability of the instrument which yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.87. Out of the 685 questionnaires administered to the respondents, 672 copies were retrieved and used for analysis. Mean and standard deviation were descriptive statistical tools that were used to analyze the two research questions while t-test was the inferential statistics used to test the two null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. For the research questions, the decision was based on the criterion mean of 2.50. For the hypotheses, if the calculated value of t (t-cal) is less than the table value of t (t-crit), the null hypotheses will be accepted. The findings of the study revealed that the use of social media among selected secondary school students in Edo South Senatorial District, Edo State is to a high extent and social media influence academic performance of selected secondary school students in Edo South Senatorial District, Edo State to a high extent. The null hypothesis 1 was retained while the null hypothesis 2 was rejected. The study recommended among other things that students should be shown the value of reinvesting the time and effort saved by technology into higher-order tasks that matter to their learning, such as writing a complex argument, reading difficult texts, and debating ideas with others as this will enhance their academic performance.

social media platforms, academic performance, secondary school