Abstract:
Social media are internet-based channels that allow people to communicate opportunistically.
University students use social networking sites more frequently than students of other ages.
Overusing social media has a negative impact on students’ peer relationships and academic
performance. This study was conducted to find out the effect of social media usage on peer
relationship and academic performance of Undergraduate Students of Maraki Campus,
University of Gondar, Ethiopia. Cross sectional design and mixed approaches were used to
achieve this objective. The data was collected from 355 sample students. The samples were
selected using stratified random sampling technique. Questionnaires and in-depth interviews
were used to collect to the data. To analyze collected data,descriptive and inferential statistics
were employed. Moreover thematic analysis was used for qualitative data analysis. The finding
of mean score showed that more than half of the respondents were categorized as having higher
level of social media usage.The finding of Pearson correlations showed that there was a
significant negative relationship between social media and students’ peer relationships.
However there wasweak positive relationship between social media and students’ academic
performance. The result in social media usage indicated that there was no significant difference
in age among the respondents. But there was a significant difference between sexes andyear of
studies in social media usage. Accordingly male respondent were more frequently used social
media than female, whereas,there was a significant difference between 1stand 2nd year,1st
year
and 1st and 3rd year students. But there was no significant difference between 2nd and 3rd
year
students’ in termsof year of studies.The study concludes that the social media usage has effect to
students engaged in higher education. It leads to poor relationship. These,study suggested that
social media user should be awareenough not only about its positive but also the negative effects
it will bring on them.
