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
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER II. LITERATURE REVIEW
1.
Social Media Use
2.
Social Media – A source of Distraction
3.
Social Media and Student Learning
CHAPTER 3. DESCRIPTION OF THE SURVEY
1.
Participants
2.
Procedures
CHAPTER 4. FINDINGS
1.
Social Media Use
2.
Impact of Social Media Use on Concentration while studying
CHAPTER 5. DISCUSSION
1.
Discussion
2.
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.
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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.
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CHAPTER II. LITERATURE REVIEW
1. 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.
2. 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
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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).
3. 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.
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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.
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CHAPTER 3. DESCRIPTION OF THE SURVEY
1. 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.
2. 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.
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CHAPTER 4. FINDINGS
1. 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?
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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
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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?
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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.
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2. 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.
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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
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concentration ability resulting from distracting social media reduces students’ studying
efficiency (question 10).
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CHAPTER 5. DISCUSSION
1. 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.
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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.
2. 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.
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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.
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REFERENCES
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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.
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Undergraduate Facebook Profiles.
NASPA Journal
, 45.
4. Rosen, L. (2010). Welcome to the iGeneration!
Education Digest: Essential
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, 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.
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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.
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