Table of contents

Titles Pages

Introduction 2

Background to the Problem 3

Purpose of Research and Educational Value 4

Definition of Terms 5

Literature Review 6-8

Data Collection Sources 9

Presentation of Data 10-16

Analysis of Data 17-19

Discussion of Findings 20-21

Conclusion 22

Limitations 23

Recommendation 24

Bibliography 25

Appendix 26

1
Introduction

The usage of internet among teenagers has increased substantially over the last few years. The

internet is mainly used by these students for social media sites. Internet has become so popular; it

has now been accused of affecting the grades of students. It is believed that students spend too

much time on the internet and not enough time doing school work. Internet has also become the

main source of receiving information regarding homework and school students for students. This

is one way in which the internet proves beneficial for students. When used correctly it can

improve the learning of students.

Smart phones have now made access to the internet a lot easier. This allows students to access

the internet from almost anywhere, therefore increasing the use. It can even now be used in

classrooms where students sometimes disregard school work being taught.

When social media cites are over used, then it becomes of their everyday routine and can lead to

changes in the social life and personality on this individual. The internet may become a

borderline addiction where many teenaged students fall trap to. It is shown by the society in the

Caribbean that parents are way too lenient when it comes to internet usage with their children

and problematic internet use is global, even having a big impact on the Caribbean and students of

Fatima College.

2
Background to the Problem

Problem Statement:

How does internet usage impact students of form 6 in Fatima college?

Sub-Problems:

How does internet usage impact students of Fatima College academic performance?

In what ways does internet usage impact on their socialization skills?

Does internet usage impact on their behavioral patterns?

3
Purpose of Research

This study is being conducted to find out how internet usage has affected the students of Fatima

College. The researcher has the thought that internet usage can be helpful if used correctly, but

can be very harmful if used wrong. This study will show the community an idea of what could

happen if you allow students to freely use the internet. The researcher choose this topic because

of the great controversy surrounding this topic. Much benefit is seen in conducting this research

as it can change the views of parents in allowing their children to use the internet freely. It is a

hope that new information could be found to understand the topic better. It will add on to the

already existing knowledge and information on this topic. Therefore it would create a better

knowing of internet usage. This research also will provide recommendations and where more

information can be found.

Educational value

The information collected in this research is hoping to better the understanding of how the

internet affects the lives of students. Primarily in the forms of academics, socialization skills, and

behavioral patterns. The information given can benefit teachers, parents and the students

themselves. After reading the information given in this research, parents may realize the harmful

effects the internet has on their children and may limit the amount of time they can use it. They

may also see that the internet has an education value and encourage them to use the internet for

this greater purpose. The students will choose for themselves after reading the information in this

research and hopefully encourage them to use the internet in a more positive way after seeing all

the negative effects it can have on them. This information will hopefully educate them on how

useful the internet can be if used in the right way.

4
Definition of Terms

Internet- the Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the

standard Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users worldwide. It is a network of

networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government

networks, of local to global scope, that are linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless and

optical networking technologies. The Internet carries an extensive range of information resources

and services and can be used as a means of communication.

Pathological- Involving, caused by, or of the nature of a physical or mental disease.

Identity Achievement- refers to having found one's true sense of self.

Identity Diffusion- refers to a period when an individual does not have an established identity,

nor is actively searching for one.

Identity Moratorium- Also known as identity crisis, is a period of active searching for one's

occupational, religious, ethnic or other form of identity.

Text talk- is a term for the abbreviations and slang most commonly used on social media.

5
Literature Review

The internet contains many opportunities which provides, facilitates, diversifies, enriches and

develops human living. Despite lending all these positive contributions, it also brings many

negative problems. According to an article written by Ersa, the use of computers and internet is

steadily increasing in all levels of society and all age groups. The main age group that is seeing

the greatest increase is ages 14-19. It is shown that 14-19 year olds make up for 12% of internet

users in the Caribbean.

In an article written by Aykut, problematic/pathological internet use or internet addiction have

shown to have a significant relationship with factors such as loneliness, low self-esteem,

depression, the symptoms of antisocial tendencies and external control, psychological symptoms,

shyness, social disinhibition, low social support and pleasure with the internet. The individual

may become addicted and shut out the outside word because of this. Individuals need capable

communication skills to establish interpersonal relationships. Successful interpersonal

relationships are established on communication and failure of healthy communication results in

assorted problems such as loneliness. Effective communication is said to be the fundamental

property in development of close relationships and are achieved through in real life experiences.

This in real life experiences can be ignored by individuals that are addicted to the internet as

some have shut out the outside world.

We are now seeing that internet use has the ability to change ones identity. When in the internet,

one can create a fake identity and make it on that will benefit him in different ways. They could

create what they think to be the perfect identity. According to an article written by Ersa, the

internt allows individuals to conceal their identity and show people their ideal identity. This

6
can lead to damaging identity formation of individuals and continual use of fake identity may

hurt individuals psychologically. Students addicted to online chat and games were found to have

weak symptoms for identity achievement and strong symptoms for identity diffusion. It was

found in her study that students with the identity moratorium status had more symptoms of

pathological internet use than students with identity foreclosure. Students with the identity

moratorium status also had a high level of problematic internet use.

Internet use is now appearing to have an indirect effect on teenagers grades. In an article written

by Bloxham, he says that children who spend more time online find it harder to concentrate in

class, are very distracted and have shorter attention spans. It is common to see students who

cannot concentrate in class because of a long night of internet use. In his research he says that

teachers are unhappy with the grammar of students. There is an increased amount of students

who use text-speak or social networking chat. That is the abbreviation or shortening of words

or sentences. Students who stay up late using the internet have shown great drops in their grades

and they fail to complete their homework on time or to the required standard. The report shows

that the students with the poorest grades at school are the ones who spend most time on the

internet and social network sites. In his study he also says that teachers believe that students

dont spend enough time on their homework as they should. 73% believe parents should take

responsibility and restrict the amount of time their child is spending online.

In a research done my Kallas, he found that most of the time that is used for social networks

comes from TV, idle surfing, and gaming time, not school related work time. The time spent on

social networking sites could be said to be of a higher quality activity and have somewhat a

higher impact on their lives. He says this as social media is a way of communicating with other

individuals and is a means of interaction. Some beneficial value could also be placed on

7
television as it could be said students could watch educational TV shows. In his study he finds

that time for studying and other important things remain the same. Research shows that there is

no correspondence between the amount of time students spend using social media and their

grades. 63% of heavy users of the internet received high grades, compared to 65% of light users.

37% of heavy users of the internet received what were defined as lower grades and 35% of light

users fell into same category.

In a book written by Steve Macho(2007) titled The Impact of Home Internet Access on Test

Scores he shows that the internet seems to be helpful in some cases. He says if a parent is an

internet user for work, the child will perceive it to be used for work. In some cases the child will

see it as a means of entertainment and will use the technology for that purpose. A study

conducted at Fordham University showed home based internet use was found to increase grades

while school based internet use, unexpectedly, had a negative effect on them.

8
Data Collection Sources

In order to gain information on this topic, both primary and secondary resources were used. The

primary data collection source that was used in this research came in the form of questionnaires

while the secondary data collection source came in the form of books and the internet.

Primary sources:

For this study, questionnaires were used as the primary data collection method. A questionnaire

is a series of questions that the researcher gave out in order to gain more information on the

topic. It can be given to a large group of people and the time taken to complete it is very short.

The questionnaire consisted of 17 questions which was made up of both open and closed ended

questions. They remain anonymous so students could answer freely with an open mind without

their identity being exposed. 40 of these questionnaires were given out to the Fatima College

Form 6 population. They were randomly given out.

Secondary sources:

The secondary source consisted of books and the internet. This source allowed for greater

understanding of the topic and the problems.

9
Presentation of Data

Diagram 1 showing students who own a computer.

Students that own computers

Students that own a computer

Students that do not own a

computer

100% of all students surveyed were found to own a computer.

10
Diagram 2 showing internet access among students at home

Access of internet among students at home

Students with internet access

at home(38 Students)
Students without internet
access at home(2 Students)

Diagram 3 showing ownership of smartphones among students

Students that do not own a

smart phone
Students that own a smart
phone

Smart phone ownership

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

11
Diagram 4 showing usage of smartphones by students during school times

Students that use their smartphones during

class

Students that use their

smartphones durning school
times(26 Students)
Students that do not use their
smartphones during school
times(14 Students)

Diagram 5 showing students involvement in social media

100%
90%
80%
70% Students that belong to a social
60% media
50% Students that do not belong to
40% any social medias
30%
20%
10%
0%
Students interaction with social
medias

12
Table 1 showing social media that students belong to

Social Media Number of students that belong to it

Facebook 35
Twitter 25
Pintrest 7
Tumblr 17
Instagram 29

13
 Diagram 6 showing how often students use the internetNNndkdnsd

25

20 Once a month or less(2

Number of students

Students)
Once a week(3 Students)
15
Several times a week(12
10 Students)
Everyday(23 Students)

0
Internet usage among students

The average time each student spends on the internet per week was found to be 5.8 hours.

From this, 5.3 hours were devoted to recreation purposes and .5 hours devoted to educational
purposes.

Average time spent with friends other than in school per week was found to be 3.4 hours

Average time devoted to homework per week was found to be 6.4 hours.

14
Diagram 7 showing students with internet based relationships

Have not had an internet based

Internet based relatonships relationship(36 Students)
Have had an internet based
relationship(4 Students)

0 10 20 30 40

Diagrams 8 showing students who have pretended to be someone else on the internet

Students who have pretended to be someone

else on the interent

Have pretended to be someone

else on the internet(16
students)
Has not pretended to be
someone else on the
internet(24 Students)

15
Diagram 9 showing student who have used the internet instead of socializing with friends

Students who have not used the

Students using internet internet instead of socialising
instead of socialising with with friends(29 Students)
friends Students who have used the
internet instead of socialising
with friends(11 Students)

0 10 20 30 40

Diagram 10 showing students average grades

80%-100%(6 Students)
60%-80%(14 Students)

Students average grades 40%-60%(15 students)

20%-40%(5 Students)
Below 20%(0 Students)

0 5 10 15

16
Data Analysis

As we can see from the data collected, Fatima college students are very involved with

computers, smart phones and the internet. In findings shown in diagram 1, all 40 students who

took part in the survey owned computers. Even though all the students own computers, not all of

them have internet access at home. Diagram 2 shows that 93% of students have access to internet

at home. This means that the other 7% of students rely on internet from internet cafes, family

members, school, etc. We therefore see that families are developing as all students possess

computers but still some do not have internet at home. This may be because they cannot afford or

because they manage fine depending on other internet sources.

Apart from only computers, we see an increase of smart phones among students. Diagram 3

shows 80% of students surveyed had a smart phone. The smart phones allow students to access

the internet almost anywhere even without a Wi-Fi network. According to diagram 4, 12% of

students have admitted to the use of their smart phone during class sessions. This means the 12%

of students are focusing on their phone rather than what is going on in class. This will lead to

valuable information being missed and educational opportunity squandered. This will result in

poor academic performance by students.

Social media has been adopted by almost every person in the form. In diagram 5 we see that 90%

of students in form six, belong to a social media. 35 of the 36 whole belong to social media, have

a facebook account. Facebook is undoubtedly the most popular of all social medias. This is

shown in Table 1. It is then followed, in order of popularity, by Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr,

Pintrest. The problem these social medias can cause is time consumption. Teenagers usually

spend a lot of time on social medias rather than doing other activities like studying. Other

problems are some people feel insecure about themselves from viewing other persons on

17
facebook. They see their other friends who post perfect pictures of themselves and think they

need to be better. This can lead to slight or drastic personality changes.

The use of internet among students was found and shown in diagram 6. 23 of the 40 students

surveyed said to use the internet once daily, 12 said they use it several times and week, 3 said

they use it once a week, 2 said they use it once a month or less. The text shows that the average

time spent on the internet per student was found to be 5.8 hours. Of this, 5.3 hours were

recreation and 0.5 hours were educational. The average time spent on homework per week was

found to be 6.4 hours. There is only a slight gap of 1.1 hours between time spent on homework

and time spent on the internet recreationally. This shows that students are spending too much

time on the internet in comparison to work being done. The internet is therefore seen to be taking

away valuable time that could be spent doing work. This means that academic performance is not

as good as it can be.

Another activity that has come up after the development of the internet is online relationships. 4

of the 40 students have said to have online relationships, be it friends or boyfriend/girlfriend.

This can be positive or negative. The positives of this are that you can have relationships with

persons that are not in your same country or area. This can lead to an uplift in self-esteem as you

have more friends even though you do not physically interact with them. The negatives are that

some people become addicted to online relationships and start to lose their in real live

relationships. This can greatly affect the social life of these persons. This also goes hand in hand

with people who have admitted to pretending to be someone else on the internet. They create

these fake personalities and features just to increase the likelihood of gaining an online

relationship. Diagram 8 shows 43% of students have admitted to pretending to be someone else

at least once. Some may do it as a joke or seriously. In some serious cases, it may lead to

18
conflicting personalities for this person. Diagram 9 shows that 8 of the 40 students have said to

of used the internet instead of socializing with friends. This case shows the severeness of internet

use. This can mess up a students social life if he keeps continuing to go about doing that.

Students become so dependent on the internet for their needs such as relationships, that they

could soon forget about their in real life relationships.

Diagram 10 shows the students grades. It was seen that students who have said they use their

phones during class sessions are 6 of the 15 who have grades of 40%-60%. The others who use

their phones during class fall below 40%. 15 of the students who have said they use the internet

once a day have grades of 60% and below, the other 8 are 60% and up. This proves that time is

being wasted on the internet when it could be used doing work. The data shows miss use of

internet can affect students grades, social life and personalities.

19
Discussion

The social life of studies was a problem in this study. We found out from the primary data

collected that 20% of students have used the internet instead of going out and socializing with

friends. This is commonly paired with the use of social media. It is common to the secondary

research collected where students become addicted to internet and may soon lead to antisocial

tendencies and social disinhibiton and may use it to avoid real world responsibilities.

The concern of students pretending to be someone else at least once before on the internet was

found in the primary data collected. 43% said they have done so. This can lead to damaging

identity formation of individuals and continual use of fake identity may hurt individuals

psychologically. These students may have a personality problem and they saw the internet as an

ideal place to try out different personalities. People who rely on the internet for online chat and

socialization using different personalities were found to have identity moratorium. Rather than

relying on face to face interactions and dealing with real life experiences, students are using

social media and the internet and becoming dependent on it which can shape their attitude and

personality for the future.

There was a concern addressed about how much time students were spending on the internet

rather than doing academic work. The primary data found showed that the average time spent on

the internet for entertainment was 5.3 hours per week and 23 of the 40 students use it daily. It

was shown in secondary data that students who spend more time on the internet had more trouble

focusing in class and had shorter attention spans. It is a very common site to see sleep deprived

students not concentrating in class due to long nights on social media or other forms of

20
entertainment on the internet. The social media can also affect the grammar of students. Students

often talk in slang or text speak which can affect students overall academic performance.

There are varied results when it comes to internet use and academic performance. The primary

data collected showed that students that spent more time on the internet received lower grades

than students who spent less time on the internet. Other secondary data shows the varied results.

Some say that students who spend the most amount of time on the internet receive the lowest

grades. It is believed that more time could be spent doing activities that could benefit them

academically. The primary data collected showed that students spent an average time of 6.4

hours of homework per week, 5.3 hours per week of internet entertainment and .5 hours per

week of academic use of the internet. This shows that more time could be taken out of the

entertainment part of the internet and put into the time spent on homework. Other secondary

research says that students that heavily engage in social networking do just as well academically

as those who are not. It shows correspondence with light and heavy users receiving the same

average score. Whereas in the primary data collected, students who used the internet more

frequently received lower grades than students who use the internet more lightly. Other

secondary data goes into detail stating that home based internet is beneficial to academics

whereas school based internet produces negative effects on academics.

21
Conclusion

At the end of the research, the researcher was able to conclude that over use of the internet can

result in poor social experiences and communication skills, some confusion for students shaping

their attitude and personalities, and negative impacts on their grades in school. There can be

some positives coming from the internet. If used correctly it can be a great source of information

that students can use to help them with their homework and over all academics.

If there is a great push for internet to be used in a correct and benefiting way, we will see that

students who use the internet more will gain higher grades than students who do not. This will be

because they will be making use of the massive amount of resources the internet has to offer.

Social communication over the internet is great if used in moderation and not over abused. If

used in moderation bother communication skills can take place both online and offline in real

life. It is hard to control the people who change their identity on the internet. The internet is an

ideal place for people to pretend to be someone they are not. There is no way of controlling this.

If the internet is used in a correct manner, it can be of great use to the students of Fatima College.

22
Limitations

The researcher put on delimitations set to Form 6 students of Fatima College. The other limitations

encountered were a small sample size available and slight trouble of honesty in the questionnaires that

were handed out which resulted in more questionnaires being handed out.

23
Recommendations

The researcher would like to emphasis the importance of the internet and show that if students

use it in the right way, they can benefit greatly from it. This can be done by reducing the amount

of time used for its entertainment gain but rather for its educational gain. If students are willing

to apply themselves to this commitment of using the internet for its resources and/or putting it

down completely to do other academic work, they will see a positive effect on their grades.

24
Bibliography

Aykut, A(2011) University Students Problematic Internet Use and Communication Skills

according to the Internet Use Purposes. Eskiehir, Turkey. Education, Counseling and Research

Communication Services Ltd.

Bloxham, A(2010) Social networking: teachers blame Facebook and Twitter for pupils' poor

grades. Retrieved on January 15th 2013.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8142721/Social-networking-teachers-

blame-Facebook-and-Twitter-for-pupils-poor-grades.html

Ceyhan, E(2010) Predictiveness of Identity Status, Main Internet Use Purposes and Gender on

University Students the Problematic Internet Use. Eskiehir, Turkey. Education, Counseling and

Research Communication Services Ltd.

Kallas, P(2009) Student Grades Not Affected By Social Networking. Retrieved on January 15th

2013. http://www.dreamgrow.com/research-student-grades-not-affected-by-social-networking/

Macho, S.(2007) The Impact of Home Internet Access on Test Scores. New York, United States

of America. Cambria Press.

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