Could Social Media Addiction Hamper Your Child’s Academic Performance?

By Elias Hakizimana.

Experts believe that overuse of social media among the students results in reduced academic performance. The result of a study on Iranian medical students showed that students who used social networks and internet more than average had a poor academic achievement and low level of concentration in the classroom.

The rise of social networking has increased dramatically in recent years, causing questions as to how young adolescent students are adjusting to this shift and means of communication, since it is the norm for their generation. Questions also remain on how it affects their learning process.

However, very little is known about the scale of use, the purpose, how students use these sites and, more specifically, whether these sites help or hurt their academic progress.

Gasana Mutesi, Rwandan woman and a mother of five interested in reading and promoting children’s education told The Inspirer that social media use is not bad for children and especially adolescents when there is a clear guidance of parents besides children’s choice.

Mutesi started a programme dubbed ‘Lit Teens’ dedicated for adolescents as a platform for them to debate and expose their views on the advantages and disadvantages of using social media; negative and positive way of using social media, etc.

“We want to give them a platform for crucial debates especially during COVID-19 pandemic. We want to guide them on how they can enjoy social media use following what they want to use it for but in a positive way,” Mutesi said.

“We are trying to help children who are on social media to use it in a more positive and productive way, it is a platform that will help them to tell the truth to each other.  We do not want to control them as parents but we must protect them by giving them their special gadgets with special content. We are protecting current social media users by giving them a guidance to use them productively. We remind them that social media use can be bad on the other hand, mentoring them is better, parents should let kids be what they are, but we have to set up norms and let them discover their choices, talents, creativity and innovations.” she added.   

Natasha Agasaro Keza Naomie, 18, is a high school student at Gashora Girls’ Academy, Kigali. She said that many schools do not use social media but her school uses them for many purposes that include advertisement.

She said that social media cannot mislead a student when he/she has the right inspiration.

“It can even help you boost your academic performance,” Agasaro noted.

She gives an example of how they use social media at Gashora Girls’ Academy. “We use some social media applications from Friday evening to SUnday and on Monday to Friday, we use internet for academic purposes. If schools prefer to let students use social media, they have better to hire someone to supervise them,” she added.

In 2017, the government of Rwanda banned the use of phone devices at school, which encourage students to spend time on social media for outside academic purposes.

Boris Karenzi, 18, is a senior 5 student at Kagarama High school in Kicukiro district. He said that it is not good to have a telephone at school as it undermines their concentration.

He advises that students should spend a little time on social media.

“a child cannot be mislead by social media use within a small period of time, but when they spend a lot, it can damage their behaviours. For example at my school, we have a lab attendant who follows us on what we navigate. I started using social media while in primary 3, my mother was using social media and used to guide me even by taking me pictures to post,” he said.

Malaika Ndabaga, 17, a student at New Vision High School reiterated that social media use can mislead students when they use them alone without a supervisor.

“The most dangerous thing on social media is cyber boring, most teenagers are committing suicide, developing hate rate and eventually identity craft due to overuse of social media, I grew up when I was highly open to face book and now I am an editor of a school magazine. Social media has opened my eyes, at school we are limited by the supervisor and we cannot enter computer lab without a supervisor. Using social media massively at school could undermine our academic performance,” she said.

 elias.theinspirer@gmail.com