| This study explored the relationship between freshmen students' self-reported social media activity and their academic performance (i.e., grade point average) and retention. A total of 1,000 freshmen from a large, private, 4-year university in the northeast were sent a survey (via their student email) with questions relating to their social media usage. These questions asked what (if any) social media platforms the student utilizes, what specific activities he/she engages in within the platforms (e.g., messaging friends, reading articles, sharing links, etc.), and how many fellow students at the selected university he/she communicates with via social media. The assessment was non-anonymous, meaning that participants' email addresses were associated with their respective responses. This allowed the matching of their survey responses to the university database to obtain their grade point average and other demographic information. Once this information was collated, statistical analyses were performed to determine if there were significant differences and/or relationships between students' self-reported social media usage and their grade point average and retention.;The results indicated that there was a significant, negative correlation between the amount of time students spent "commenting" on social media sites and their GPA, r(106) = -.222, p < .05. Furthermore, students who did not return to the university after their first semester reported spending significantly more time sharing entertainment-related links on social media (M= 3.43, SD = 1.512) than returning students (M= 2.36, SD = 1.032), t(110) = 2.566,p > .05. The implications are that certain features within social media can negatively influence students' academic performance and likelihood of re-enrolling the following semester. Recommendations for future studies include further exploration of specific activities within the social media environment and expanding research to include connections to other retention theorists. |
