Social Networks and Its Usage by High School Students

The present investigation was carried out with the prime focus to know about the usage of social media and social networks by high school students. The study primarily wanted to make an in depth analysis into the usage of social media and social networks for educational purposes: The present study aimed at inquiring into the knowing the responses of high school students in usage of social networks with the following objectives: 1) To study the awareness among the secondary school students about social network sites and 2) To assess the usage of social network sites for academic and learning purpose by the high school students. A stratified random sample of 450 was selected from 15 schools from Guntur and Chittoor Districts of Andhra Pradesh. In each school, the investigator collected the data from students about the usage of social networks in their academic and personal life using a researcher made questionnaire. Statistical techniques applied for data analysis as frequencies, percentages, measure of central tendency and measure of variance and significance tests were calculated for scores of the entire sample with respect to all chosen variables. Findings and Conclusions are : 1) 45% of the total sample are to some extent aware of the social network sites out of 70 social network sites, which are given for them to test whether they have knowledge or not. 2) Majority of the students opinioned that they use social media for content download. 3) 16.89%, 18.44% and 16.89% of the students use the social media for verifying the teaching notes, clarification of doubts, problem solving respectively. 4) 28.89% of the total students admitted that they moderately use the social networks as a tool for their enhancing English language communication; followed by another small number (27.56%) confirmed for rarely using; another (23.11%) opined for daily using it and the least number (20.44%) admitted that they are not at all using it to improve their English language communication. 5) 32.67% of the students among the 450 total sample students agreed that there is no benefit with the social networks, which can enhance the ICT based learning among them. 6) 28.44% of respondents opinioned that at every learning point the social networks are helpful for them in ICT based learning; at the same time 20.22% and 18.67% have responded for the option moderately helpful and rarely helpful. 7) Majority of the sample (36.22%) opinioned that they use social media for recreation; 22.44% of students, used for them keeping in touch with family and friends; followed by 21.34% of students, who used to update themselves with the technology; and another 20% have responded for finding and sharing the information. 8) 76.67% of the sample have responded that some of the social network sites cannot be of much help in Academic assessment and Evaluation; at the same time 23.33% of the sample has responded positively.