Understanding the impacts of social media platforms on students' academic learning progress

Abstract

Can social media platforms positively impact students' academic learning progress? This question and many more are issues confronting students and scholars in developing countries, and this study aims to address it. Social media platforms provide students with continuous opportunities in their learning progress. Students in developing countries are beginning to use social media platforms to positively impact their learning process because of its ability to positively change their learning process and performance. Students use it to improve their academic learning progress and performance effectively. However, the impact of social media platforms on students' academic learning progress is sometimes misinterpreted because of the distractive nature of the platforms to students. Many scholars believe that social media platforms have no positive impacts on student's academic progress. This study aims to investigate the impact of social media platforms on students' academic learning process. A quantitative research methodology was adopted in using online questionnaires among first-year university students at the NorthWest University, South Africa. The study found that social media platforms improve students' academic learning performance, communication, interaction, engagement, and self-directed learning (SDL). These findings provide positive impacts of social media platforms on students learning progress.