Examining the Impact of Social Media on the Academic Performances of Saudi Students - Case Study: Prince Sattam Bin Abdul Aziz University

Purpose: The objective of the research study is to investigate whether there is a positive impact of the use of social media on undergraduate students’ academic performances and their social interpersonal skills in the Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University. <br><br>Design/Methodology/Approach: 64 samples were collected from full-time undergraduate students studying in Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University from different colleges including Community college, College of Business Administration, College of Education, College of Engineering and College of Pharmacy. The descriptive statistics analysis was used to analyze the demographic data while inferential statistics were used in testing the research hypotheses. The results obtained from the analyses were used to interpret the outcomes.<br><br>Findings: The empirical results reveal that the students enjoy meeting new friends online using social media rather than meeting in person and for this reason they spend a lot of time – addicted. It is also confirmed that the bad comments are passed easily through social media affecting other's sentiments and most of them strongly believe that all the information in social media is true and reliable and the rumors were spread easily in social media. Further, it is also confirmed that social media does not support the Learning of the students. <br><br>Practical Implications: The study confirms that the students exchange learning materials through social media and it helps them to update the developments in their college/university. The students believe that through Social media they have improved their communication skills and they can communicate with anyone at any time. It is also found that some of their teachers communicate with them and encourage them to use social media but for studying only. <br><br>Originality/Value: The research work is of its first kind as it focuses on the impact of social media on the academic performances of the students studying in Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia, which has suggested effective means for effective implementation of social media strategy.


INTRODUCTION
Social Media has become one of the most important communication means in recent times towards the exchange of knowledge, data and the unknown information. Social media is a form of electronic communication through which people interact with each other. Social media has attracted millions of internet users, who have integrated the social networking sites (SNS) in their daily lives routines, as a powerful medium in enhancing the communication between the society on the whole. Social media has brought radical changes in society creating both positive and negative impacts. Any information whether good or bad can be easily spread over through social media. As Social Media Technology (SMT) is growing fast, as is not only restricted to net-based technology but also compatible with mobile technology, it convenes any user to complete his/her communication easily through their digital devices. It is confirmed that Twitter, Whatsapp, Instagram and Facebook as the most popular social media platforms ( Khan, Hatami, Sasidharan, and Al-Roshdi (2017) found that people are actively participating in one or the other social media platforms and reap benefits out of it. Baker (2009) advocated that the use of social networks could be an effective tool to motivate people to develop future bonding. SNS has become nodal points for the youth to convey their thoughts in unique ways with other like-minded people and considered as a place to share their artistic abilities (Boyd, 2007b). Through the socalled blogs of such networking sites, people get prior information about the institutions to which they are willing to join, etc.
Social Media has also totally changed students' way of learning and their studying style and the overall set-up. Students started using these sites as resources to obtain information and facilitate themselves towards their completing assessments, projects, and related academic work (El Khatib & . University students make up the major proportion of the online networking community. In addition, given the popularity of social media, many professors have started to use social media for Early studies have proven the effect of rapid and heavy communication technology used by students on their academic performances (Ellore, Niranjan, & Brown, 2014;Junco, 2015;Lomi, Snijders, Steglich, & Torló, 2011;Mehmood & Taswir, 2013). However, there are mixed opinions on the effect of the impact of social media on the academic performances of the students at different levels.
Social media network sites can have a positive or negative impact on students' academic performance. Many argue on the risks involved in using SNS whereas it has its own benefits. They fear that the students' addiction to social media can negatively affect students' academic performances. Some researchers claim a little or no negative effects on students' academic performance if good multitasking is achieved by students. The rising impact of social media on the private and working lives of students has made researchers and educational institutions to study and rethink the concept and content of educational development in the digital age.
Therefore, our study aims to add better clarity to this research area by examining the relationship between the use of social media and Saudi students' academic performances. Thus, the prime objective of the research study is to investigate whether there is a positive impact of the use of social media on undergraduate students' academic performances and their social interpersonal skills in the Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University.
Although many research results pointed to a negative impact of social media usage on academic performance (Paul, Baker, & Cochran, 2012;Wentworth & Middleton, 2014). Paul et al. (2012) suggested that online social networks could possibly be viewed as helpful educational technology if the more academic staff actually knew how to incorporate them into their curricula. Amin, Mansoor, Hussain, and Hashmat (2016) claimed that social media networking sites draw the attention of the students and increase their academic grade points. Mingle and Adams (2015) insisted that social media should be used for educational purposes but with proper monitoring and counseling as the chances of students becoming addicted so social media is high. Butler and Matook (2015) confirmed that social media affect the relationships of the people and the methods of their learning. Bankers also use social media sites to enhance customer service by means of building a relationship through Electronic Customer Relations Management depending upon the information reliability and responsiveness (Khan, Al-balushi, Algaithi, & Al-Shihi, 2017). Chretien, Farnan, Greysen, and Kind (2011) confirmed that internal medicine educators are using SNS and interacting with their trainees online. Allam and Elyas (2016) indicated that the majority of the academia believe strongly in the pedagogical values and benefits of using social media as an English language training tool in the Saudi context but they expressed reservations using in the classrooms. Osharive (2015) propounded that students should be motivated to use social for educational purposes and the networking sites should expand folios for academic activities. Alsuraihi, Almaqati, Abughanim, and Jastaniah (2016) suggested the utilization of social media in education by developing intrinsic activities as it is beneficial. Utilizing social media tools in education sometimes can be very demanding and challenging for educators to assure effective learning (Yusuf, AL-Madah, & Alam, 2016). Paul et al. (2012) indicated that the students' academic performance is a function of devotion span, time management skills, student characteristics, and time spent on online social media. Owusu-Acheaw and Larson (2015) insisted that students should be enthused to use handphones with internet facilities but with restricted timing to social media as it adversely affects their academic achievements. Masters (2015) claimed that the students are becoming highly addicted to and intermediation is needed to control the same and also reported that YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter were the most used social media platforms (in their order of preference). Ali Aljabry et al. (2017) proved that the most common social media platform used was Facebook and social media had affected the academic performance of students negatively. Jameel et al. (2019) claimed that male students are spending more time on social media and WhatsApp and Facebook as their favorite platforms. El-Badawy and Hashem (2015) advocated that there exists no relationship between social media and the student's academic performance. But, Amadi and Ewa (2018) confirmed that the social media platforms had distracted the attention of the students from their studies resulting in negative performances. Rouis, Limayem, and Salehi-Sangari (2011a) indicated that extensive use of Facebook by students with extraverted personalities leading to poor academic performances. Hasnain, Nasreen, and Ijaz (2015) proved that social media has an inverse relationship with academic performance due to fading communication barriers and rising easy access in data. Halboub et al. (2016) found out that the majority of students are using their smartphones/computers for social networks on a

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
After going through the above literature review, and a well-defined questionnaire was prepared to collect the data on similar lines of research questionnaire used in Oman (El Khatib & Khan, 2017). 64 samples were collected from the students studying in various colleges of Prince Sattam bin Abdul Aziz University viz. Community college, College of Business Administration, College of Education, College of Engineering and College of Pharmacy. The collected data was compiled, tabulated and analyzed using SPSS. The descriptive statistics analysis was used to analyze the demographic data whereas inferential statistics were carried out in testing the research hypotheses. The results thus obtained were used to interpret the outcomes, and the suggestions were drawn. The test for data reliability and internal consistency confirms that the value lies in between .70 & .93.  The above table shows that the p-value is less than 0.05. So the null hypothesis that 'there is no relationship between the learning of the students and the choices of the respondents' is rejected. i.e., it connotes that there is a significant relationship between the learning of the students and the choices of the respondents. Comparing the K-S values obtained from Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, it is observed that 'My classmates exchange learning materials through social media' ranks first (0.384) followed by 'Social media helps me to update the developments in my college/university' (0.367) and 'My teacher encourages me to use social media to study (0.337).'   The p-value for item numbers (3), (5) and (6) in the above table is greater than .05. So after eliminating those factors, we obtained the new table.7 as follows: The above table shows that the p-value is less than 0.05. So the null hypothesis: "There is no relationship between the Information reliability of the students and the choices of the respondents" is rejected. i.e., it connotes that there is a significant relationship between the information reliability of the students and the choices of the respondents. Comparing the K-S values obtained from Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, it is observed that 'Bad comments are passed easily through social media affecting other's sentiments' ranks first (0.315) followed by 'I believe all information in social media is true and reliable' (0,290) and 'Rumours are spread easily in social media (0,261).' The above table shows that the p-value is less than 0.05. So the null hypothesis: "There is no relationship between the Social Media Effects of the students and the choices of the respondents" is rejected. i.e., it connotes that there is a significant relationship between the Social Media effects of the students and the choices of the respondents. Comparing the K-S values obtained from Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, it is observed that 'Curious to know the latest information through social media' ranks first (0.297) followed by 'Social media message tone diverts my attention from my work' (.,272) and 'I gain the latest knowledge about information technology through social media (0.253).'

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS
From the above, it is observed that students exchange learning materials through social media and it helps them to update the developments in their college/university. Their teachers also encourage them to use social media but to study. The students believe that through Social media they have improved their communication skills and they can communicate with anyone at any time. It is also found that some of their teachers communicate with them through social media.
Most of the students reported that social media help them to attain knowledge about other students in different universities and have a relationship with them and they can access their course materials by using social media tools.
Further, they reported that they enjoy meeting new friends online using social media rather than meeting in person and for this reason they spend a lot of timeaddicted. It is also confirmed by most of the respondents that the bad comments are passed easily through social media affecting other's sentiments and most of them strongly believe that all the information in social media is true and reliable and they also agreed that rumors were spread easily in social media.
Also, through the regression analysis, it is confirmed that social media does not support the Learning of the students.

RECOMMENDATIONS
Students could have better control over social media use if and only if they have more self-regulation (Rouis, Limayem, & Salehi-Sangari, 2011b).