Social network site use and academic achievement: A meta-analysis

Highlights

• A meta-analysis was conducted to estimate the relation between social network site (SNS) use and academic achievement.

• The mean correlation between SNS use and academic achievement was small and negative.

• The mean correlation was about zero for studies assessing Facebook use and small for studies measuring use of all SNSs.

• The mean correlation was small for studies assessing time spent and about zero for studies measuring visiting frequency.

Abstract

This meta-analysis examines the relation between use of social network sites and academic achievement. Thirty studies consisting of 21,367 participants are identified. The weighted mean correlation between use of social network sites and academic achievement is $\overline{r}$ = −0.07. The weighted mean correlation is negligible ($\overline{r}$ = −0.02) for studies assessing Facebook use, and small ($\overline{r}$ = −0.12) for studies measuring use of all social network sites. Further, the weighted mean correlation is small ($\overline{r}$ = −0.10) for studies assessing the duration of use, and close to zero ($\overline{r}$ = −0.01) for studies measuring visiting frequency. The implication of the research for the relation between social network site use and academic achievement is discussed.

Introduction

Social network sites (SNSs) are popular in daily life. A recent survey (Pew Research Center, 2015a) found that an estimated 65% of American adults use SNSs. The estimates of percentage for school-age users are even higher. An estimated 71% of teens aged 13–17 use Facebook (Pew Research Center, 2015b), and an estimated 98% of college-age adults aged 18–24 (Experian Marketing Services, 2011) use any social network site (SNS). Therefore, the relation between SNS use and academic performance is an important research topic.

Several empirical studies have been conducted to examine the relation between SNS usage and academic achievement, and had mixed findings. Some studies have reported a negative association between SNS use and academic achievement (e.g., Karpinski et al., 2013, Paul et al., 2012), while other studies have found little relation. For example, Huang (2011) studied 1549 adolescents with mean age of 15 years, and found that the correlation between SNS use and academic performance represented by test scores in Chinese, mathematics and English was r = 0.01. Other studies found a positive relation between use of SNSs and academic achievement. Khan, Wohn, and Ellison (2014) sampled 690 high school students, and reported a correlation between Facebook visiting frequency and course grades of r = 0.09.

The direction and magnitude of the relation between SNS use and academic achievement from previous empirical studies is inconclusive, possibly because they had different research contexts. Hence, a meta-analysis is needed to synthesize relevant findings to determine the direction and magnitude of the association between SNS use and academic achievement.

Researchers have proposed two different viewpoints about the relation between SNS usage and academic achievement. The first position asserts that time spent on SNSs can replace time spent on studying. Students who overuse SNSs consequently devote insufficient time to studying, leading to low academic achievement. Further, students often use Facebook while studying (Junco, 2015) or in class sessions (Paul et al., 2012); therefore, they are too easily distracted to focus on learning. Thus, this position proposes a negative association between SNS use and academic achievement.

The second position hypothesizes a positive relation between SNS usage and academic achievement, because using SNSs can help to build social networks and increase social interaction. Usage of SNSs can increase social capital, meaning “the benefits individuals derive from their social relationships and interactions” (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2010, p. 873). Some empirical studies (Ellison et al., 2010, Steinfield et al., 2008) support a positive association between SNS use and social capital.

The magnitude and direction of correlation between use of SNSs and academic achievement varies among different studies. The conflicting findings of empirical studies probably resulted from the diversity of their research contexts. Based on the theory of social media and on empirical findings, possible moderators included publication outlet, country where the study was conducted, sites used by participants, scale of time spent, measure of SNS use, domain of academic achievement, participant age and gender.

As significant results are more likely than non-significant findings to be published (Rothstein et al., 2005, Sutton, 2009), published and unpublished articles can have different mean correlations. As this study includes both published and unpublished studies, it compares the mean correlations for both outlets.

The country effect was observed in Karpinski et al. (2013), who sampled 406 students with a mean age of 22.23 years from Europe, and 451 students with a mean age of 25.55 years from the United States. The correlation between time spent on SNSs and GPA was moderate at r = −0.27 for European students, and large at r = −0.61 for students from the USA. The country effect was also noticeable in Ozer (2014), who sampled 226 undergraduate students from the United States, and 200 undergraduate students from Turkey. The correlation between daily hours spent on SNSs and GPA was r = −0.06 for US students, and r = −0.14 for Turkish students. As the country effect was observed in the primary research, it needed to be examined.

Some studies examining the association between SNS use and academic achievement focused specifically on Facebook, whereas others measured the use of all SNSs. No empirical research to date has investigated the effect of the site on which users spent time on the relation between SNS use and academic achievement. The included studies measured the time spent by users on various sites, providing an opportunity to explore this possible effect.

Scale of time spent can be measured by an open-ended question. For example, some studies asked participants to fill out the duration of time spent on SNSs, and the reported time spent was on a ratio scale. Studies that asked participants to choose an option from a close-ended question usually measured the time spent or visiting frequency by an ordinal scale. Ratios and ordinal variables may have different variability. As the variability can affect the correlation coefficient (Goodwin & Leech, 2006), the scale of time spent can affect the correlation between SNS use and academic achievement.

The extent of SNS use can be measured by the amount of time spent on SNSs. In contrast, some studies measured the visiting frequency of SNSs. For example, Khan et al. (2014) measured the number of times that users checked SNSs daily. The effect of measure of SNS use was not consistent in primary research. Wen (2015) found a noticeable difference between duration and frequency of SNS use. Specifically, the correlation between writing score and number of times of daily visiting Facebook was r = −0.05, and that between writing score and daily minutes spent on Facebook was r = 0.10. In contrast, little effect was found in Glogocheski (2015) who sampled 116 freshmen. The correlation between weekly hours spent on SNSs and GPA was r = 0.00, and that between daily number of times checking SNSs and GPA was r = −0.00.

Global academic achievement was the most common assessed domain. Few studies assessed other domains, such as writing (Dixon, 2012, Wen, 2015). The effect of domain of academic achievement has not been thoroughly examined to date, and is therefore the focus of the present study.

Most studies examining the relation between use of SNSs and academic achievement used college students as participants. Some studies (e.g., Khan et al., 2014, Neto et al., 2015) examined this relation for adolescents. As no empirical studies to date have investigated the age effect on the relation between SNS use and academic achievement, the current meta-analysis addresses this issue. Examining the age effect could help researchers to understand the development of the relation between SNS use and academic achievement.

Glogocheski (2015) observed the gender effect from 78 female and 38 male freshmen. The correlation between weekly hours spent on SNSs and GPA was r = −0.12 for females, and r = 0.09 for males. Walsh, Fielder, Carey, and Carey (2013) sampled 483 female freshmen, and found that the correlation between time spent on SNSs and GPA was r = −0.04 for fall semester, and r = −0.08 for spring semester. As the included studies varied in gender composition, the present meta-analysis investigates the gender effect.

The aim of this meta-analysis is to integrate empirical findings about the correlation between general use of SNSs and academic achievement, rather than the effect of use of SNSs as a learning aid on academic achievement. Moderator effects on this relation were explored to explain the variation of effect sizes.