Social Networking Sites Usage and the Negative Influence on Students’ Academic Achievement in Secondary Schools in Uyo Senatorial District, Akwa Ibom State

The study explored social networking sites usage and the negative influence on students’ academic achievement in secondary schools in Uyo Senatorial District, Akwa Ibom State. Five research questions were raised to guide the study. Descriptive survey research design was used to carry out this study. The population of this study comprised all Senior Secondary Two (SS2) students in Uyo Senatorial District and the target population is 21,726. The sample size for this study comprised 452 students from 27 sampled schools. Multi-stage sampling technique was used in selecting the sample size. A researcher-developed questionnaire titled “Social Networking Sites Usage and the Negative Influence on Students’ Academic Achievement (SNSUNISAA)” was used for data collection. The reliability of the instrument was determined using Cronbach Alpha Analysis. A coefficient value of 0.79 was obtained and this was considered appropriate for the study. The data collected from the respondents were analyzed using frequency distributions and arithmetic mean. The z-test statistics was used to test the hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed that students’ academic achievement was greatly impeded by their use of Social Networking Sites (SNSs), time spent on SNSs, gender use, the most visited SNSs, poor grammar and spellings. Based on the findings of this study, it is recommended amongst others that, all education stake holders should regularly and adequately communicate the negative influences of these sites to the students. This will enable them to be watchful of their activities and improve in their academic endeavours by their ability to regulate, eliminate or reduce the time spent or wasted on these SNSs. Keywords: Social networking site, Negative influence, Students, Academic achievement, Secondary schools