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

According to Tufekci (2008) posits that SNS may choose to include, pictures, favorite books and movies, birthday, relationship status and location. At the most basic level social networking sites allow users to set up online profiles or personal homepages, and develop an online social network. The profile page functions as the user’s own webpage and includes profile information ranging from their date of birth, gender, religion, politics and hometown, to their favourite films, books, quotes and what they like doing in their spare time. In addition to profile information, users can design the appearance of their page, and add content such as photos, video clips, music and files.
    We can deduce that SNS is used to describe any website that enables users to create public profiles within that website and form relationship with other users of the same website who access their profile. It is used to describe community-base website, online discussion forum, chat rooms and other social space online. Commonly, the phrase “social networking sites” is used as an umbrella term for all social media and computer mediated communication, including but not limited to Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Myspace. A social media is an online service or platforms that focus on facilitating the building of social network among people who share interest, activities and background on real life connections. It is a website that allows users to share information within a selected group. It is a great way to stay connected and a convenient way to share photos from trips (Awake, 2012) quoted in (Oshavire, 2015). It consists of a representation of each user (profiles), social links and a variety of additional services. For detailed analysis of social networking, the following terms will be discussed:
1.    Impact of Social Networking Sites.
2.    Features
3.    Social Networking and Education
4.    Constraints in Education
 2.2.2.1 Impacts of Social Networking Sites
     Facebook, whatsapp, 2go and other social networking tools are increasingly the objective of scholarly research. Scholars in many fields have begun to investigate the impact of social networking site, investigating how such site may play into issues of identity, privacy, social, youth culture and behavioural conducts, education and others. Several websites are beginning to tap into the power of the social networking model for philanthropy.
    In 2011 HCL technologies conducted research that showed that 50% of British workers are banned from the use of social media during office hours. In this view, when one is chit-chatting, the content of the message reveal a lot about an individual. In chatting, comments, photos, and status should speak less of an individual. Awake, (2012) says: “if you are mindful of what you are doing, you can maintain a measure of privacy on a social network”. He describes social networking sites as a vortex that sucks one in and one has no idea of the trap. One of the ironies of the internet is that it keeps you apart from the most important things. It is a great way to stay connected with people but you just have to know when to shut it down. It seems that when people go on a social network they lose their mind.
 2.2.2.2 Features of Social Networking Sites
    According to the Boyd and Ellison’s (2007) article entitled, “Why Youth Heart, Social Network Sites: The role of networked publics in teenage life?” The scholar shares a variety of technical features that allows individuals to construct a public or semi-public office, articulate list of their users that they share connection with and view their list of connections within the system. In another article titled ‘Social Networking Sites: Definition, History and Scholarship’, Boyd and Ellison (2007) describe profiles as unique pages where one can type oneself into being a profile is generated from answer to question, such as age, location and interest. Some sites allow users upload pictures, add multimedia content or modify the look of their profile. For instance, 2go allows the user to update their status and change profile pictures and BB chat that allows them change display picture, name and status. They allow them search for users and share a list of contact and there are sections dedicated to comments from friends and other users. To protect their privacy, they have a control that allows users to choose who can view their profile, contact and add them to their list of contacts.
     Each person who becomes a member of a SNS has the opportunity to create his or her own webpage or “profile” which is supposed to be seen as a reflection of that person’s personality (Tufekci, 2008). By using this personal profile, one can build an entire social network based on his or her own personal preferences (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). The idea behind most of this phenomenon, as with many websites, is to help people feel socially connected and part of a community, even though they may be sitting home alone at their computer (Coyle & Vaughn, 2008). Participants may connect with other people they know through school, work, or an organisation, or they may meet complete strangers from all over the world (Coyle & Vaughn, 2008). They do this by searching for people and adding them as “friends” so that they may share information with them and other networks that those people may be a part of (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). Being “friends” in the SNS world simply means that two profiles have been linked together (Tufekci, 2008). This, in turn, expands a person’s network greatly, so that they may meet and share information with even more members (Coyle & Vaughn, 2008).