The effect of social media use on high school age children in adana province on school course success

Purpose:The aim of this study is to investigate the frequency of internet and social media use and the effect of social media use on school academic success in high school children in Adana city center. Materials and Methods:Students studying in private and state high schools in central districts of Adana were included in the study. Twenty four high schools participated in the study. The total number of students of participating schools was determined to be 15,538. The valid number of questionnaires was 3034. In the research, including demographic characteristics, internet usage characteristics and social media usage characteristics of students and the final grades of one-semester courses (Turkish, Mathematics, Science (Physics, Chemistry, Biology), Foreign language (English), History, Geography) were used as data collection tools. Surveys were then recorded and statistical analysis was performed. Results: The average age of the students participating in the study was 15.4 ± 1.3 (13-20). 1350 people (44.5%) were boys, 1684 (55.5%) were girls. There was a statistically significant difference according to the gender, classes, districts, institution, education status of the mother, educational status of the father, number of siblings and monthly financial income of the family. 89.8% of the students could access the internet. 10.2% of them could not access the internet. 30.3% of the students did not have a social media account. The social media applications used by the students were mostly Instagram (66.3%) and Youtube (49.0%) in the second place. There was a statistically significant difference between the groups in the comparison of the students' average grades according to the grades. Social media use had a negative effect on students' final grade point average. Spending more than 4 hours daily on social media had a negative effect on the final grade average. There was a statistically significant difference between the groups. Students using social media had lower Turkish language and literature class and Mathematics course grades. Science course grade point averages were the same. Foreign Language, History and Geography course grade averages were higher. Conclusion: A positive effect of internet access on lecture notes was determined. Although the effect of social media use varied between courses, a negative effect was found on the final grade point average. It was determined that the daily social media usage time of more than 4 hours had a negative effect on the academic success. This shows that social media usage should be limited to a maximum of 4 hours per day. Keywords: Social media, high school, course success