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SOCIAL MEDIA USE AND COLLEGE STUDENTS’ CONCENTRATION ON ACADEMIC TASKS
FOREIGN TRADE UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF BUSINESS ENGLISH SOCIAL MEDIA USE AND COLLEGE STUDENTS’ CONCENTRATION ON ACADEMIC TASKS Instructor: Tran Thi Lan Huong Students: 1. Phan Thi Minh Phuong 2. Nguyen Thi Anh Xao 3. Nguyen Thi Thanh Huyen 4. Nguyen Thi Thuy Trang 5. Mai Thi Cam Giang 6. Phan Ngoc Tram Hà Nội, 2015 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION CHAPTER II. LITERATURE REVIEW Social Media Use Social Media – A source of Distraction Social Media and Student Learning CHAPTER 3. DESCRIPTION OF THE SURVEY Participants Procedures CHAPTER 4. FINDINGS Social Media Use Impact of Social Media Use on Concentration while studying CHAPTER 5. DISCUSSION Discussion Limitations CONCLUSION REFERENCES 3 ABSTRACT Social media has integrated into today’s students’ lives. Technological development makes smart phones affordable even to students, which brings social media as close as within their hand palm. The increased access to digital world leads to the growing concern that students’ learning may be affected as social media has the potential to distract students and compromise their attention and learning. Many researchers have tried to determine the relationship between social media use and students’ academic performance; however, the findings are conflicting. Using survey data from students of Faculty of Business English, Foreign Trade University, this research examines the effects of social media on students’ concentration while studying. 4 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION Social media is not new on the market anymore, but it is still hot. Personal computing dictionary defines social media as “the collective of online communications channels dedicated to communitybased input, interaction, contentsharing and collaboration.” Websites and applications dedicated to forums, microblogging , social networking , social bookmarking , social curation , and wiki s are among the different types of social media. Today, people prefer to spend their time on digital world more than in the real world, and the basic concept of social media is interactive community so the popularity of social media is not surprising. Social media is now everywhere on the webs, which can be recognized by the sharing button on every page of news article, music streaming page or gaming sites. People love it because it is a powerful tool for data collection and communications. However, the use of social media has caused public concern about its impact on people’s lives. This study will examine the impact of social media on students’ concentration while studying, with a hope of contributing to the growing body of knowledge regarding identified linkages between the use of social media and students’ learning. Once the problems are addressed, we hope to provide some recommendations to deal with problems associated with the use of social media by college students, especially determine whether using social media when learning affects college students’ concentration. The study aims to answer two research questions. The first one is: “How do college students use social media?” The answers for the first question will be the foundation for the second research question: “How does social media use affect students’ concentration while studying?” Data will be collected through questionnaire survey and analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. 5 6 CHAPTER II. LITERATURE REVIEW Social Media Use The social media boom has caught attention of many scholars and researchers. Although social media is not a new trend now, its popularity is still expanding. A report by We are Social Singapore o n Digital, Social and Mobile in 2015 around the world shows that social media continues to grow apace worldwide with active user accounts now equating to roughly 29% of the world’s population. In Vietnam, the social media landscape looks stunning with active social media making up 40% of the total population. The publicly available data suggest that Facebook is the country’s most popular social platform. Young people are found to be the leading generation in using social media, specifically facebook. Among users 20 to 29 years of age, 45% are actively engaged in this social networking site compared to 31% of users 1319 years old and only 17% of users 3039 years old. Meanwhile, research conducted by GlobalWebIndex suggests that social media is capturing a significant share of people’s time and activities with an average usage of 2 hours and 25 minutes per day. Social Media – A source of Distraction Due to social media’s ubiquity, there is a growing concern about its impact on people’s lives. An evitable side effect of social media is that it provides users with a lot of distraction. Research suggests that technology can cause distraction for digital learners both externally (sounds, flashes and notifications can distract students from what they are doing and redirect their attention to another task) and internally (many people keep thinking about technology, even when not using it) (Rosen, 2010). Our attention spans have shortened in the digital age. According to a survey by Microsoft, prolonged focus is eroded as a result of digital lifestyles. 44% of Canadians surveyed claimed that they found it hard to stay focused on a single task for extended 7 periods of time, among which 67% are heavy social media users. This finding was drawn from online quantitative survey of 2,000 Canadian respondents. Since collegeage users dominate other users in social media usage, they cannot escape the distracting influence of social media. A study by Rosen et al (2012) reveals that college students’ ability to stay focused on one task is limited and their task switching happens as often as every 56 minutes due to the availability of technological distraction. Furthermore, academic reading is an activity that requires a great deal of concentration so it is not surprised when researchers found that the amount of time students spent on social networking sites was significantly related to more distractibility for their reading activity (Levine et al, 2007). Social Media and Student Learning A large number of researches have tried to determine the relationship between social media use and academic achievements among college students. However, the results of these studies are not consistent, probably due to weakness of the selfreported measures. On the one hand, some studies supported the idea that social media were negatively predicative of students’ outcomes. Jacobsen and Forste (2011) collected data from 1026 university freshmen using time diary and Internet survey and found that electronic media use has a negative influence on firstsemester GPA. Another study of Facebook usage and seftreported GPA among more than 250 college students showed that grades of heavy or frequent Facebook users to be lower than that of light users (Thuseethan and Kuhanesan, 2014). The similar finding was shared by a study of Junco with a sample of 1839 respondents employing hierarchical linear regression. On the other hand, studies by Kolek & Saunders (2008) and Pasek et al. (2009) found no correlation between social media use and college students’ academic performance. 8 The mixed results of these studies may stem from the problem that it is not just a question of if or how much students engage in social media, but also the ways in which students engage. Therefore, our research team decided to focus on only one aspect how using social media while studying affects college students’ concentration. Since concentration is a necessary ingredient for effective learning, the finding may reveal some facts about the impact of social media on students’ academic outcomes. 9 CHAPTER 3. DESCRIPTION OF THE SURVEY Participants The sample consists of 120 undergraduate students from Faculty Business of English, Foreign Trade University. Of all the participants, 41,5% are freshman, 17,1% are sophomores, 39% are junior and 2,4% were senior. Fourth year students are busy with their graduation preparation so they are less willing to finish the questionnaire. Participants are composed of 88,6% females and 11,4% males. Procedures The questionnaire survey was distributed through facebook messages and delivered directly to students in their classrooms. The paper survey and online survey are the same in content. During break time of some classes in Faculty of Business English, researchers distributed the questionnaire among all students present. However, not all the surveys were completed and some questions were left unanswered. The unfinished surveys were sorted out and not counted in the finding. All data were stored confidentially, and participation was completely voluntary. The survey was composed of 15 questions including “yes/no” questions, multiple choice questions and individual questions. All items of the questionnaire were designed by the researcher with an aim of collecting data about students’ social media usage while studying. The survey was expected to take three to five minutes to complete. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches are used in data analysis. 10 CHAPTER 4. FINDINGS Social Media Use The following data will answer the first research question: “How do college students use social media?” Question 1: What kinds of social media do you use? Figure 1. From figure 1, 97.5% of the respondents sampled used social networking, 81.7% used multimedia, 47.5% used social knowledge and only 25.8% used blogging and other types of social media. This means that majority of the respondents used 3 main types of social media: social networking, multimedia and social knowledge and almost all of them used social networking ( 97.5%). Question 2: How many hours a day on average do you spend on social media? 11 Table 1 Option No. of Respondents Percentage (%) Less than 1 hour 2 1.6 1 – 2 hours 16 13.4 2 – 4 hours 51 42.5 More than 4 hours 51 42.5 Total 120 100 It could be observed from table 1 that only 1.6% of the respondents agreed that they spend less than 1 hour on social media a day, 13.6% spend between 12 hours, 42.5% spend between 24 hours and this also is the percentage of the respondents who spend more than 4 hours. The analysis shows that majority of the respondents spend more than 2 hours a day on social media (85%) and half of them use social media in more than 4 hours. Question 3: What do you use social media for? Figure 2 12 From figure 2, 85% of the respondents use the social media for the purpose of communication, 83.3% for studying, 90.8% for entertainment and 6.6% for other purposes. It can be concluded that majority of the respondents use the social media for all 3 main purposes: communication, studying and entertainment and almost all of them use it to entertain (90.8%). Question 4: What purpose above do you spend most time on when using social media? Table 2 Option No. of Respondents Percentage (%) Communication 34 28.3 Studying 22 18.3 Entertainment 60 50 Other 4 3.4 Total 120 100 Table 2 shows that 28.3% of the respondents spend most of their time using social media to communicate, 18.3% to study, 50% to entertain and 3.4% for other purposes. This result reveals that most of the respondents’ time for social media is devoted to the purpose of entertainment (50%), far followed by communication and studying. Question 5: Which is your most visited social media site? 13 Table 3 Option No. of Respondents Percentage (%) Facebook 85 70.8 You Tube 24 20 Other 11 9.2 Total 120 100 From table 3, 70.8% of the respondents preferred Facebook as their most visited social media site, 20% prefer You Tube and 9.2 % prefer other sites. Clearly, Facebook dominates the respondents’ interest when using social media. You Tube also gains much interest but it pales as compared to Facebook (less than 1/3). To sum up, basing on the results above, we can find out the answer for the first research question:” How do the students use the social media? ”: Majority of the students used the social media in both types of social networking and multimedia. It should be streamlined that almost all of the students use social networking (question 1). We can also see that majority of them use social media simultaneously for three main purposes: communication, studying and entertainment. Among them, entertainment is the one that more than 90% of the students use the social media for (question3) and 50% spend most of their time on (question 4). Moreover, a large number of the students spend more than 2 hours a day on the social media, even half of these students spend up to more than 4 hours (question2). The most visited social media site of the students prefer is Facebook. 14 Impact of Social Media Use on Concentration while studying The second research question read: “How does social media use affect the students’ concentration as doing academic tasks?” As mentioned earlier, the relevant answers to the above question will be presented as responded to by the respondents in tables below: Question 6: Do you use social media when doing academic tasks? Table 4 Option No. of Respondents Percentage (%) Yes 102 85 No 18 15 Total 120 100 From table 4, 85% of the respondents agree that they use social media when doing academic tasks, while 15% do not. Therefore, most of the respondents use social media as they study. ***Questions below are answered by 102 students who use social media when doing academic tasks. Question 7: How often do you check social media while doing academic tasks? Table 5 Option No. of Respondents Percentage (%) 15 Every 15 minute 18 17.6 Every 30 minute 41 40.0 Every 1 hour 27 26.5 Rarely 16 15.9 Total 102 100 As clearly shown in table 5, it could be observed that 17.6% of the respondents check social media about every 15minutes, 40% every 30 minutes, 26.5% every hour and 15.9% rarely do that when studying. Hence, the most popular answer is every 30 minutes. Besides, a large number of the respondents often check the social media after 1 hour of studying (26.5%), yet the percentage of students whose option is every 15 minute is only 15.9%. Question 8: Choose the option that best describes your learning experience Table 6: Option I get completely distracted by social media use while doing academic tasks I get distracted but not much by social media use while doing academic tasks I get distracted a little by social media use while doing academic tasks. I don't get distracted at all by social media use while doing academic tasks No. of Percentage Respondents (%) 18 17.6 31 30.4 45 44.1 8 7.9 16 Total 102 100 From table 6, 17.6% of the respondents have the answer that they get completely distracted by social media while doing academic tasks, 30.4% get distracted but not much, 44.1% get distracted a little and 7.9% do not get distracted. It can be concluded that majority of the respondents get distracted by social media when studying; however, the main level of distraction is only “a little”. Question 9: Why do you think you cannot concentrate long on academic tasks? Table 7 No. of Percentage Respondents (%) Because my academic tasks are boring 17 16.7 Because my academic tasks are difficult 15 14.9 I’ve got into the habit of checking social media regularly 62 60.7 Option I have no problem of concentrating on academic tasks in 6 5.8 Other 2 1.9 Total 102 100 a long time Table 7 shows that 16.7% of the respondents cannot concentrate long on academic tasks because they think the tasks are boring, 14.9% think they are difficult, 60.7% have got into the habit of checking social media regularly, and 1.9% have other reasons, while 5.8% have no problem of concentration. 17 Therefore, majority of the respondents are distracted by social media when studying as checking social media became their habit. Question 10: In which way does your distraction from social media use affect your learning? Table 8 Option Because of social media use, I do my academic tasks badly No. of Percentag Respondentse (%) 5 4.9 37 36.3 32 31.4 My social media use does not affect quality of my learning 22 21.6 Other 6 5.8 Total 102 100 Because of social media use, I have to spend more time on academic tasks Because of social media use, I cannot finish my academic tasks at all We can see from the table 8 that 36.3 % of the respondents have to spend more time on academic tasks and 31.4% cannot finish them at all so we can conclude that using social media make the students cannot complete their tasks as schedule. The second research question is answered by five survey questions above. The majority of the students often use social media when they do academic tasks and check them every 1 hour or less than 30 minutes (question 6 and question 7). As a result, the majority of these students get distracted by social media when studying; however, the impact is not significant (question 8). Two main reasons for the distraction are habitual social media browsing and challenging academic tasks. Finally, reduced 18 concentration ability resulting from distracting social media reduces students’ studying efficiency (question 10). 19 CHAPTER 5. DISCUSSION Discussion It can be concluded from the findings that social media use negatively affects college students’ concentration while studying. A large number of students agreed that their distraction from studying results from challenging or boring tasks. This reveals the fact of education system nowadays. Because today students are immersed in a digital world full of sensory stimulations, it is not surprised they cannot endure the boredom. Therefore, it is highly recommended that subjects or curriculum be more interesting with stories, humor, and sensory details to attract students’ attention. Social media or any Internetbased system is addictive to young people so it is worrying that the majority of students claimed to grow the habit of browsing social media regularly. This habitual social media checking does not only affect their concentration ability, but also their studying in the long run. To avoid becoming too immersed into social media, it is important for college students to spend their time on offline world like conversing with their friends or participating in extracurricular activities. Social media can be used for many purposes including studying, communication and entertainment but entertainment is the most preferred activity among students. Social media can be a powerful educational tool if used appropriately. A considerable number of websites are designed and dedicated to promote students’ knowledge. Moreover, group chat is an ideal environment to share knowledge among friends or experts Distant learning is another benefit of social media. Facebook allows people to create groups where people can post materials or discuss their problems with others. 20 The negative impact social media use has on students’ concentration may be explained by two ideas. Firstly, social media can distract students internally and externally when they are trying to focus on their tasks (Rosen, 2010). The study found that the majority of students (40%) browse social media every 30 minutes, even when they are studying. Secondly, the use of social media and other digital technology get students into the habit of task switching. Tasks switching is a quick and constant switch between multiple tasks, which results in Continuous Partial Attention CPA (Rosen, 2010). As students use social media while studying, they are multitasking. They are doing two things at the same time: studying and being online, which means that they have to split their attention among those tasks. Consequently, they cannot focus on one thing – studying. In a word, it is shown from the study that social media use negatively affects students’ concentration while studying. Students should be taught how to be aware of their mental processes, understand the importance of avoiding tasks switching when studying. It is important to limit the amount of time spent on social media by using a timer to set break when students complete one task (to avoid multitasking) and turn off unnecessary notifications. Social media is beneficial to studying if college students know how to take advantage of it. Limitations However, the study still has some limitations. Firstly, the population of the study is relatively small and only includes students from Faculty of Business English, FTU. Therefore, generalization to a larger population may not be true. Secondly, the study employs selfreported measure, so the results depend on the respondents’ honesty. Thirdly, data analysis is simple and does not make use of professional data analysis measures. 21 CONCLUSION In conclusion, the study suggests that the use of social media can negatively affected college students’ concentration while learning. This should be alarming to educators as social media is becoming more integrated into students’ lives. The negative effect of social media can lead to decreased learning efficiency and reduced academic performance of college students. We recommend that educators and teacher should train students how to use social media effectively and take advantage of its benefits to promote their learning outcomes. 22 REFERENCES 1. Jacobsen, W., Forste, R. (2011), The Wired Generation: Academic and Social Outcomes of Electronic Media Use Among University Students, Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking 14 (5). doi:10.1089/cyber.2010.0135. 2. Kemp, S. (2015). Digital in Southeast Asia in Q4 2015. 3. Kolek, E., Saunders, D. (2008). Online Disclosure: An Empirical Examination of Undergraduate Facebook Profiles. NASPA Journal , 45. 4. Rosen, L. (2010). Welcome to the iGeneration! Education Digest: Essential Readings Condensed for Quick Review , 75(8), 812. 5. Gausby, A. (2015). Attention Span. Microsoft Canada. 6. Levine, L., Waite, B. & Bowman, L. (2007), Electronic Media Use, Reading, and Academic Distractibility in College Youth, CyberPsychology & Behavior 10 (4). doi:10.1089/cpb.2007.9990. 7. Pasek, J. & Hargittai, E. (2009). Facebook and Academic Performance: Reconciling a Media Sensation with Data. First Monday 14(5) 8. Rosen, L., Carrier, L., Cheever, N. (2012), Facebook and texting made me do it: Mediainduced taskswitching while studying, Computers in Human Behavior 29 (3), 948958. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2012.12.001 9. Thuseethan, S., Kuhanesan, S. (2014), Influence of Facebook in Academic Performance of Sri Lankan University Students. 23 ... Impact of Social Media Use on Concentration while studying The second research question read: “How does social media use affect the students’ concentration as doing academic tasks? ” As mentioned ... media use while doing academic tasks I get distracted a little by social media use while doing academic tasks. I don't get distracted at all by social media use while doing academic tasks ... CHAPTER 3. DESCRIPTION OF THE SURVEY Participants Procedures CHAPTER 4. FINDINGS Social Media Use Impact of Social Media Use on Concentration while studying CHAPTER 5. DISCUSSION Discussion