Abstract
Background
The use of social media in society’s lifestyle and culture has been increasingly taken place recently. social media has become essential part of life especially as a student. Social media has many effects Both positive and negative in all age groups especially on young and nursing students. Nursing students should utilize the various platforms for their benefits either for academic or personal life.
Aim
To determine the effect of social media addiction on academic performance among undergraduate nursing students.
Methods
A descriptive cross-sectional design was used. The sample size was calculated through open EPI software. The sample size was 191. An adopted questionnaire was used from (Fauzi,2011). The permission was taken from the primary author. In the study, the “Social Media Addiction Scale- Student Form” and the students’ Grade Point Average (GPA) were used. The data was obtained through online questionnaire in google form. This study was done at the private institute of Karachi the data was entered and analyzed through SPSS 22.
Results
This study result showed that 81. 5% of the participants had high level of social media addiction. 85.5% of the students had GPA between 3. 0 and 3. 6, while 9% of the students had a GPA of 4. Strongly positive correlation was found between the social media addiction and academic performance r=0.94. Among the students, first-year students and fourth-year students used social media most, 33% and 32%, respectively. What’s App which received 30% of the response was most commonly used among the students.
Conclusion
This study revealed most of the students engaged in the various social media platforms for various reasons and majority of them to undertake academic purposes. There was a positive effect on students’ academic performance. Further studies should be done to assess the effects of social media addiction among nursing students.