Effect of Social Media Use on Academic Performance among University Students in Bangladesh

Around the world, social media sites are becoming a part of people's daily life. The students are also getting involved in these sites for several purposes. So, it is very important to understand the effect of social media on university students. In recent years, researchers around the world have taken this issue as a topic of great interest. Considering the social impact of this issue, the current research was conducted at the Bangladesh Agricultural University, Bangladesh. Data were collected from 200 students using the google forms questionnaire and the time of data collection was July-September, 2020. The findings of the study suggest that Facebook was the most used social media by the respondents, followed by YouTube. The majority of the students use social media for communication purposes and 46% of respondents were found to use these sites for 41-55 hours per week. The majority of them had moderate mood after using social media. In addition, the study also finds that students use social media to gather academic information, they consider this information as reliable. Respondents were also found to think that social media sites are saving their time as well as effort. Finally, the study identifies a negative relation between academic performance and time spent on social media. The findings of this paper may be utilized to provide practical strategies for improving students’ educational success through maintaining a balance between recreation, knowledge sharing, and academic performance. It is recommended for the students to utilize their time wisely and not making social media the only means of recreation.