FACEBOOK USAGE AMONG HIGHER SECONDARY STUDENTS

OF PALAVAYAL VILLAGE

Aleena Mathew
B.Ed. Student (Physical Science)
Mount Carmel College of Teacher Education for Women, Kottayam

ABSTRACT
Today Facebook is considered as one of the most popular platforms for online social
networking among youth. The present study is an attempt to know about the Facebook usage
among secondary school students. For this study, a questionnaire was prepared and a survey was
conducted among IX standard students of St. Josephs Higher Secondary School, Palavayal,
Kasargode.
Key term: Facebook

INTRODUCTION
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service launched on February
4, 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg, along with fellow Harvard College students.Currently Facebook is
used by many people to connect with their friends and relatives around the globe. And the use of
Facebook platforms has grown so fast that it has even attracted the attention of students; they are
so engrossed in the sites that they have almost completely forgotten about their academic
work.Students are considered victims of the social media sites more than any group of people as
they negatively impact their academic performance. Students easily get tempted to use the
various social media platforms when trying to obtain learning materials online. In most cases, the
students end up spending almost all their times on the social media and forget about the course
materials they originally intended to look for.
One of the most powerful social media platforms is Facebook. Initially, Facebook was
privately conceived within and navigated through the social networks of students. Today, the
adoption of social media technology now stretches across the globe, integrating into the lives of
individuals of diverse social, national, racial and ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic
backgrounds.
 Facebook usage encompasses both the simple use of the platform and the extent of
cognitive immersion into the site. Its use implies the presence of individual users on the social
website, time spent on this platform, frequent visits, and the nature of the activities performed.
People from different age ranges interact and exchange content; they share videos and pictures,
discuss subjects, chat, publish advertisements for group events, or play available applications.
Younger generations (e.g., students) spend many hours up to 8 per day surfing this socializing
website.
The Social Networking in general and Facebook in particular offers significant
advantages for its users, for example, sharing and collecting information, searching for jobs,
communication, and entertainment. Vast quantities of information of different types are stored on
the Internet. Usually, the information on the Internet is free of cost and is available 24 hours a
day. In addition, the Facebook provides its users with the latest news of the world and most of
the newspapers are available on the Internet, which are periodically or immediately updated with
the latest news. Thus, Facebook users can almost instantaneously learn about news events, read
news articles or opinions about world events, and share this information and their own thoughts
with others like themselves.
Beside the benefits of Facebook use, negative impacts of its use have also been identified,
including: impaired academic performance, health problems, personal relationship problems and
social dysfunction. Nalwa and Anand (2003) found that Facebook addictive users used for long
sessions, resulting in personal behavioral problems and neglect of important work
responsibilities. Facebook addicts experienced personal, family, occupational problems, and
academic difficulties, causing poor grades. The present survey intends to study the Facebook
usage among Higher Secondary School students of Palavayal Panchayath.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

 To assess the impact of Facebook usage on Students’ academic performance.
 To find out an average time students spend on this site collectively per day.
 To ascertain the extent of students addiction to Facebook usage.
METHODOLOGY
Survey method was adopted for the study. The present study consisted of a sample of
50 students. To assess the Facebook usage among the IX standard students of St. Joseph’s
Higher Secondary School, Palavayal, a questionnaire was administered. The questionnaire
constructed by the investigator contained 15 questions based on the Facebook usage among
youngsters.

ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

From the analysis of the data, it was concluded that 100% of students use face book.34%
of the students had 51-250 Facebook friendsand 31% of students had 251-500 friends on
facebook.13% of students have 0-50 and 501- 1000 friends on Facebook. 8% of students have
1001-5000 friends on Facebook.
From the study it is clear that about 37.5% of students spend 1-5 hours per week on
Facebook and 22.2% of students spend 6-0 hours on Facebook. 20.6% ofstudents spend 11-20
hours per week on Facebook and 19% of students live on Facebook and it was shown in figure 1.

Time Spend
40%

35%

30%
students percentage

25%

20%

15%

10%

5%

0%
hours

Fig1: Time spend by youth on Facebook

It was found that 27.7% of students post status update on Facebook daily and 26.5% of
students post status update on Facebook for few times a week. 13.5% of students post updates on
Facebook around once a week and 7.4% of students never post status update on Facebook.
 69.2% of students Facebook post are public and 23.1% of students face book post are
private and 7.7% of students don’t know there post is public or private.60.3% of students are
using Facebook for more than six months ago and 39.7% using Facebook less than six months
ago.

FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION

Facebook plays many vital roles in order to connect people in the world without
boundary because almost every people these days familiar with Facebook. People use Facebook
to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what’s going on in the world, and share
and express what matter to them. User can share their feelings and what’s happening around in
our daily life through Facebook. It is the best medium to share feeling and thoughts with others.
From the study it was found that most of the students use Facebook and the students spend their
time on Facebook and it affects their academic performance in school. If students spend too
much time on Facebook, it is possible that they might get addicted to it.

REFERENCES
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook
 https://www.surveymonkey.com
 https://www.statista.com/.../number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide
 https://www.statista.com › Internet › Social Media & User-Generated Content
 https://www.shoutmeloud.com/what-are-the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-facebook
 www.meritsdemerits.com/advantages-disadvantages-facebook-essay-students-points