Social Networking Websites and Academic Performance of College Students

Introduction

Social networking sites are a type of virtual community that has grown tremendously in popularity over the past few years. The Philippines has been tagged as "The Social Networking Capital of the World" according to a study released by Universal McCann (2008). Almost 95% of Filipinos who have access to the internet are members of a social networking website (Russel, 2011). Filipinos have been declared as the most active users of a number of social networking websites such as Friendster, Facebook, Multiply, Instagram, Youtube, and Twitter, thus, becoming a part of the Filipino cyberculture. (Liao, 2008; McCann, 2008).

The most famous social networking website today is Facebook. It is used by over 1 billion people worldwide and is the most preferred social networking website among college students. In 2009, a report stated that out of 600,000 Filipinos that log-in to Facebook daily, over 150,000 are college students (Toral, 2009). The impact of social networking websites to college students is an important issue that has caught both educators and practitioners’ attention in recent years. With portable gadgets such as laptops, tablets, and smart phones being able to access the internet and have applications for social networking, many are concerned about how this ease of access will affect students’ grades. Professors are also questioning whether grades of students are being affected by how much time is being spent on these websites.

This study will examine the existing literature on the issues of online social networking pertaining to higher education in general and occupational therapy education in particular. This paper takes a look at the merits and/or negative impacts of social networking websites and aims to provide a better insight in the mechanics of online social networking and how they reflect on and can affect academic societies and academic life of occupational therapy college students of University of Perpetual Help System DALTA....