The Divergent Roles of Social Media in Adolescents’ Academic Performance

ABSTRACT

The divergent roles of social media in adolescents’ academic performance have not been confirmed, as previous studies failed to address social media use in different contexts. This study thus aims to explore the relationship between outside and inside social media behavior and academic performance in Chinese adolescents. Altogether, 560 Hong Kong adolescents (47.0% girls) were recruited and surveyed with Outside School Social Media Behavior (OSSMB) and Inside School Social Media Behavior (ISSMB). Their impulsivity and academic performances were also evaluated. Linear regression analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) results jointly indicated that: (1) OSSMB negatively predicted the adolescents’ academic performance, whereas ISSMB positively predicted their performance; (2) the two subdimensions of ISSMB – the consuming and sharing behaviors – positively predicted academic performance; and (3) ISSMB and impulsivity played multiple mediation roles in the relationship between OSSMB and academic achievement. The results also suggested that the relationship between outside school social media behavior and academic performance may be undermined by the opposing mediation effects of inside school social media behavior and impulsivity.

KEYWORDS:

• Academic performance
• adolescents’ social media behavior
• impulsivity
• modeling
• outside and inside school

Acknowledgments

We would like to dedicate this article to our beloved friend, the late Associate Professor Jingyan Lu at Faculty of Education, the University of Hong Kong. This work is funded by the project from Research Grants Council (RGC Ref No. 27608215) awarded to Dr. Lu, who left us after preliminarily constructing the first draft of this article. We wish to acknowledge her great contribution to this project with this publication. In addition, we are very thankful for all the students who took part in this project, and also extend our gratefulness to all the school members who have offered their kind help in the process of data collection. Finally, we would like to thank Professor Xiaoqing Gu at East China Normal University for her constructive suggestions to this manuscript before submitting.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council [RGC Ref No. 27608215].