Abstract
Social media is one of the platforms on the internet visits by students of tertiary institutions on a daily basis with many spend lots of time chatting, dating, posting and interacting with friends and family while many busy gossiping and doing business. It is this notion that the research examines the influence of social networking otherwise known as social media on the academic performance of Kwara State University, Malete. The research is anchored on Technology Determinism Theory and Uses and Gratifications. Cross-sectional survey research as a quantitative method was adopted. The method of data collection for this study is questionnaire in which 200 copies of questionnaires were administered to two hundred students who were selected using multi-stage sampling technique as probability sample method. From the findings, majority of the respondents are on one social network platform or the other such as Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter, Badoo, Eskimi, Wechat, Instagram, etc and most of them login on a daily basis spending not less than 1 hour, therefore, most students spend less time on their academic work and more time on social networking sites these social networking sites also tend to affect grade points of the students as only 12.5% – 15.625% had excellent grades. It is recommended the use of social networking sites can be adopted as the tool for learning by to interact with lecturers and students, offering assignment through the platforms not given during the class, students can be reminded of assignments earlier given.
