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SOCIAL MEDIA UTILIZATION FOR LEARNERS’ ACADEMIC ACTIVITIES: BASIS FOR PROGRAM INTERVENTION

RHANIA P. PALMEJAR

Jose Almiñana Memorial Elementary School

ABSTRACT

The study aimed to determine the social media utilization for learners’ academic activities as basis for intervention program at Jose Almiñana Memorial Elementary School during the school year 2022-2023. The research method utilized in the study was descriptive using in-depth interview. The study used phenomenology under qualitative research design. A researcher-made interview schedule was used as an instrument to gather data. Voice and video recorders were used for data gathering and documentation depending upon the permission of the participants. It was found out through the in-depth interview with the participants that the different social media used for academic activities are Facebook, Facebook messenger, and Youtube. The results of the in-depth interview also revealed that learners used it for research and communication. Moreover, results of the interview revealed that learners considered poor or slow internet connection and no internet data as difficulties they experienced in using social media for academic activities.

Keywords: Social Media, Utilization, Learners, Academic Activities, Program Intervention

 

INTRODUCTION

Background of the study

Due to social media's simplicity of use, speed, and reach today's young are using social media at an exponentially increasing rate, and it is becoming more and more well-liked among students. Many of them get addicted to the use of social media sites as they contpinue to engage in one activity or another on different sites very often. Due to this increased popularity, there are growing concern over the possible influences the use of social media could have on learners’ academic performances.

Today, most of the online users are natives in technology which includes elementary, high school and college students who grew up with the knowledge and experience of digital technologies as a tool in entering to social media like computers, smartphones, and others.

On the other hand, academic activities are one of the keys to measure school success. It can be determined based on the result of the learners’ quizzes, major examinations, and classroom participation. Its primary factor is the learners’ study habits. It can be also affected by level of the learners’ compliance to school requirements such as projects, assignments, attendance, and recitation. It can be further affected by learners’ distractions such as peers, personality type, level of students’ interest to the subject and other outside factors like computer gaming and engaging on various social networking site (SNS). Students use SNS like Facebook for the purpose of exchanging ideas with others and asking about the topics they were discussed during class by creating group chats. With this, the grades of the learners will not decrease or become lower because they use SNS for academic purpose. On the other hand, some students use SNS to chat with others play games online, and find friends. Using SNS for these purposes, learners’ grades will become lower because they waste their time in playing games online instead of studying their lessons and instead of using SNS for academic purpose. Social networking sites can have good effects on learners, but they do not know that they can also have bad effects on them, especially in their academic activities.

As a teacher and SNS users, the researcher intended to determine if frequency of social media use can affect the academic status, and more importantly, the knowledge gained by learners.

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