Social Media Utilization And Students’ Academic Performance
[A CASE STDUY OF ALIMOSHO LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, LAGOS STATE]

However, as much as the social media has help to make access to information easy, it will not be an overstatement to say that there are negative dangers it poses to the users. It has been observed that as much as there are gains in the social networking sites, there are also pains. Students and researchers have the opportunity to either tap the gains in social networking sites or the pains in pursuit of knowledge. This current research is a careful investigation into the gains and pains of social networking sites on pursuit of academic excellence in selected secondary schools in Alimosho Local Government Area of Lagos State.
Armstrong (2012) said:
Students today have begun to rely on the accessibility of information that is available on the social media platforms specifically as well as the web in general in order to get answer. This means that there is a reduced focus on learning as well as on retaining information. In addition, students are attempting to multi-task. They are trying to check various social media sites why they study. This leads to a reduced academic performance. Besides, their ability to concentrate on their task at hand get significantly reduced due to the distractions that is brought about by all these social media sites. The other negative effect on students is that they are spending too much time on social sites and lesser time on socializing in person. In fact, there is a lack of body signals besides other non verbal cues, including tone and inflections in case of social networking sites. Thus, they cannot be considered as an adequate replacement for any face to face communication. Not only are these, students who are spending a great deal of time on these social networking sites, not able to communicate in person in an effective manner. These social media sites have become so popular in short time because the information gets published in a fast way. This has actually created a lax attitude for using proper spelling as well as grammar. In fact, the students are unable to write effectively without the aid of the check feature of a computer.
In his opinion, the kind of anonymity that is available on the internet has made many students forget that they need to filter any information that they post. According to him, many colleges as well as potential employers tend to investigate the social networking profiles on an applicant before they grant any acceptance or an interview. There are many students who are not constantly evaluating the content which they are publishing online. All these can lead to negative consequences even later in their life (Armstrong, 2012).
 1.2 Statement of the Problem
The world today is a global village in which the internet is the most important source of information. Since the advent of social media sites in the 1990s, it is assumed in some quarters that the academic performance of students is facing a lot of distractions and other challenges. The educational system in Nigeria is faced with so many challenges which have certainly brought about a rapidly decline in the quality of education across levels. There is a deviation, distraction and divided attention between social networking activities and their academic work. It is observed that students, especially in secondary schools and colleges devote more attention to social media than they do to their studies and this invariably posed a negative effect on their internally and external examinations. There have been a lot of complaints among school authorities, teachers and parents on why students fails the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examinations organized by National Examination Council (NECO), West African Examination Council (WAEC) and others. Of course, education thrives where there are no distractions, but with the advent of social networking sites, students’ concentration in the class has been drastically reduced.
Though the curricula are less difficult when compared to what it used to be in the past, many failures are still recorded in the schools today. Many factors are responsible for this situations and one of them is not unconnected to students’ addictiveness to social networks. Students’ frequency of exposure to social networking sites has diverted their attention from the activities in the classroom. No wonder, many schools have banned or considering the option of banning the use of phone and gadget that exposed the students to social media.