CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDY

Related of Literature and Related Study

Social networking sites let individuals to present

themselves, and begin or keep connections with others. The

extremely popular social network site for student’s

indifferent levels, Facebook, has already printed a big

impact on their lives. The site can be used towards work-

related contexts, romantic relationship commencement and

connecting those with shared interests. Members may use the

site to mingle with people they already know offline or to

find new friends. Facebook permits its users to present

themselves in an Internet profile, build up "friends" who can

post comments on each other's walls, and view each other's

page. Facebook associates can also join groups based on common

interests, see what things they have in common, and learn

each other’s' hobbies, interests, favorite music, and

romantic relationship status through their pages. But what

are behind these facts? What does Facebook bring to the lives

of the members especially to the students? How does Facebook

affect the life of a student? According to studies, Facebook

has an impact to students. Some students are using it for

educational purposes. Students would like to do some online

 9

collaboration with classmates. It is said that using Facebook

boosts students’ self-esteem even more.

They would feel belongingness in the community compared

to those who do not have accounts. It also provides news on

what are happening in the real world and even in their school

campuses. On the other hand, negative effects flourish. It

was found that social networking sites has formed a new kind

of addiction which we called the "social media addiction" and

it is quite true in using Facebook. Are you addicted to

Facebook? Some would say "yes" and some would say "no". It

depends on the level of cravings. But in the recent study, it

was found that a lot of students are by now addicted to it,

to the extent that their school performance is affected.

"Children who spend much of their time online find it harder

to focus in class and have short attention span” researchers

found through the samples that 7 out of 10 teachers believed

that their students are becoming obsessed with social media

sites such as Facebook. Their students tend to study while

using Facebook and it shows that they got 20% lower grades.

Facebook-using students even perform task (projects or

assignments) without completion for the reason that they

spend more time scrolling down on their newsfeed to see

updates about their friends and look up for their

 10

notifications rather than finishing their school tasks. Aside

that Facebook affects students’ academic performance; it also

has an effect on students’ emotional health. Yes, students

feel connected to others but study shows that they manifest

depression through seeing their status updates. Some would

utilize the site to express what they feel towards their enemy

in school or even outside the campus. They would blurt out

through posting status that would target their opponent just

to hurt their feelings. With the rampant use of all the social

networking sites, students are coming loose to the real

associates. Facebook chats and posts would make them busy

nowadays. They may be connected to many people but they

somehow disconnect with the important aspects of their lives

and one of those is education. The belief of meeting people

face to face seems very odd. Students prefer to send and

receive instant messages or post messages through Facebook.

Many other elements could be the reason for the inattention

in studies of students. But somehow social networks like

Facebook have a negative impact on the education of some

students. Facebook could make students vain for better or for

worse and it is the parents' obligation to watch and guide

their children to get the utmost good benefits from Facebook.

 11

Evolution of Facebook

With the rapid growth in field of online social networks,

Facebook considered to be the largest social network site on

the internet today. In February 2004 an undergraduate student

of Harvard University Mark Elliot Zuckerberg launched The

Facebook network site for the student of the university

(Grossman, 2010). Only within 24 hours, around 1,200 Harvard

University students had got membership and signed up. In 2005

the new name has been purchased and it became from

TheFacebook.com to Facebook.com. At that time, membership to

the website was limited to Harvard and all almost all US

universities students. In time for the fall semester of 2006,

Facebook began accepting membership of anyone over the age of

13 around the world (Grossman, 2010). According to Facebook's

Press Room, the social networking site currently has more

than a billion monthly active users and 618 million daily

active users (Facebook facts, 2013).

Like other online social network sites with Facebook you

can make friends, search people and communicate with them as

well as share photos and videos. Heiberger & Harper, 2008

have given the brief introduction of the some of the popular

function of the Facebook “Facebook is a synthesis of many

Internet based communication tools previously in wide but

 12

disconnected use. It integrates static user-designed Webs

(personal pages), synchronous (instant messages) and

asynchronous chats (wall posts), picture uploading, group

formation, event hosting, Web development tools, dynamic

searches, RSS feeds (news feeds), blogs (web logs), mass and

individual messaging, and email, plus two unique qualities:

networks and friends. These last two functions give users a

one-of-a-kind online socialization experience, allowing them

to limit the visibility of their content based on school

affiliation, region, and friends. Facebook offers all of this

with one log-in on one web site” (p. 14).

Today, Facebook is embraced of almost all types of

internet users, but students are the largest percentage of

active Facebook users, which is about 30% of all users

(insidefacebook.com, 2009).

According to Fletcher 2010, if we do comparison of

Facebook with other online social network sites like MySpace,

Twitter, and LinkedIn we found these sites have combined total

of 76 million users. Facebook has a definite edge over the

other online social network sites. More than 1 in 4 people

who browse the Internet not only have a Facebook account but

also they are active monthly users.

 13

Facebook Features and Functions

To enter into the Facebook network, at first user needs

to create the profile with valid email address, user name,

password, gender and date of birth. After creating profile

now user can add friends and exchange messages. By adding a

friend, you and that person are connected virtually now you

are member his network and vice versa. Facebook offers several

features like chats, photo sharing, video sharing, automatic

notifications when a user update his or her profile and users

can create or join groups according to their interests etc.

In your profile you can also fill your contact detail, your

personal information for example your marital status,

favorite books, shows, movies, teams and you can also provide

your education and work details.

Facebook Applications: The main application of the Facebook

is its own feature which I have discussed under. Further

Facebook is a combination of these features offered by

Facebook Company and third party software development

industry. For instance news feed, timeline, games, instant

messaging, shopping lists usually categorized as third party

software’s. There are hundreds of applications have been

offered on Facebook pages, user can install any application.

 14

For better understanding how Facebook works, briefly we will

examine the prominent features and tools of this SNSs:

Groups

Inbox

Notifications
Application

Settings

Friends’
List

Figure 2.1: Demonstration of Facebook Profile Page

Image of the Facebook profile for better understanding of
the structure of Facebook and visual description of its
features.
 15

Search: There are two main search options on Facebook page,

(1) it is a general search facilitating user to search people,

places and things (pages, groups and apps) connected with

Facebook and (2) other search provide the friends search (Find

Friends) with in your own friends network. Basically Facebook

search permit you to search anyone in the entire Facebook

network, as long as user did not impose any security on their

public Facebook profile detail. Facebook uses Bing search

engine for his external searches and you can sort the search

results by people, places, groups and pages.

News Feed: That is considered to be the most viewed Facebook

page among Facebook users. News feed is kind of alternative

home page (Wall) in which users can see the constantly

updating activities of their friends and groups. The aim of

the News Feed pages is to brings and highlights the users

activities on one page like profile change, birthday,

upcoming events, photo and video sharing. User’s

conversations and comments on the News Feed can be seen others

users if there is no security has been set. Users can also

restrict his posting on Facebook by using security options.

In addition to postings by other users, the Wall also displays

other events that happened to the user's profile.

 16

Timeline: Timeline is a new type of dynamic page display in

which user can see the categorizations of his posting history.

User can experience the Timeline through scrolling his own

profile page or other users profile pages. This feature

includes status updates, photo, videos and locations you have

visited. Recent Facebook profile design is divided into two

columns, line draw in the middle presenting the period of

time. Surfing the Facebook Profile of any user photos, videos,

and posts will automatically be in the time stream depending

on period of time in which they were created or uploaded.

Like the Wall and News Feed, users can set privacy settings

on Timeline to restrict other users to see their profile and

post history.

Facebook Photos: This feature facilitate user to create,

upload and delete online photos, videos and albums. It is

also quite frequently used feature of the Facebook which can

be accessed from main page of the user profile. By the time

of writing this thesis 300 million photos are being uploaded

daily on Facebook. A participant from the survey explained

about Facebook photos:

“Personally, I use it in order to see pictures of

my friends, and for them to see pictures from me (it is

a lot easier than sending pictures through email,

 17

because of the size problem). I use Facebook usually

once a week or once in two weeks (about 15-20 minutes),

or when my friends ask me to see some pictures.”

Events: Event is the announcement of the program going to

happen in the future. Facebook provides the opportunity to

create and launch the event for others Facebook users to keep

them inform. For event generation user needs to fill the

required detail like event name, location, event type, time

and date. According to the security options set for the event,

it can be public or private. The users who have been not

invited for the event cannot view the event page or event

announcement on their Facebook pages.

“It’s nice way to stay in contact in those people

which would probably otherwise just not. I joined

Facebook because of Facebook events, since I noticed to

miss lots of stuff my friends were going to do”

“As regular use I share my events now and then.

Those events are in a general level. I do not share

private things in Facebook. It’s a handy tool for

planning events.”

Groups: Groups provide a closed space for small groups of

people to communicate about shared interests. Creating and

 18

administrating the group is similar to a blog. Every Facebook

user can create a group and he can add or permit the other

interested user to join the group. Members can receive

notifications by default and view each other posting within

the group. Group members can participate in chats, upload

photos to shared albums, collaborate on group docs and invite

members who are friends to group events (Facebook.com, 2013).

“It’s a good way to keep in touch with other

students. We have a group for our course. There we plan,

when we are doing study related things together. We also

tell to each other what questions were asked in exams.

Also before exams we discuss what might be asked in the

exam. We also share websites that are useful and study

related. I hope we use the group even after graduation”

Pages & Like: This feature is quite commercial and popular

among the business and celebrities. Page allows real

organizations, businesses, celebrities and brands to

communicate broadly with people who like them. Pages may only

be created and managed by official representatives. Page

information and posts are public and generally available to

everyone on Facebook. Anyone can like a page to become

connected with it and get News Feed updates. There is no limit

to how many people can like a Page. Page admins can share
 19

posts under the Page’s name. Page posts appear in the feeds

of people who like the Page and their friends (Facebook.com,

2013.)

Notifications: It is basically the popup messages which

appear right top of the Facebook page to inform about most

recent activity affecting your profile. Most common examples

are if some friends comment on your photo or share something

on his wall then you will get notification about that

activity. A user can control the notification through

notification settings options.

“Great way to keep in touch with friends. So

whenever someone messages me or comments my status I get

a notification. And when I do get a notification. I go

check it and maybe answer to it. So I am kind of all the

time on Facebook but still I don’t just sit and scroll

and read Facebook statuses for hours. I’m there if

something happens (notifications)”

Notification is one of the unique features of Facebook

which is directly connected with human curiosity nature. It

might be difficult for curious Facebook users to hold

themselves without checking newly received notifications.

 20

Facebook Usage

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. We presume that an

extensive presence on Facebook and the resulting increased

levels of information flow management requirement engage

students in these tasks while they engaged in constant

interactions and socialization, which prohibit them from

focusing appropriately on their academic tasks (Chen, et al.,

2010).

Students’ Perceptions of Facebook

Recent literature by Martinez Aleman and Wartman (2009)

sought to better understand the campus culture of Facebook

through the lens of students. The researchers examined

students ‘thoughts and perceptions of Facebook use through an

 21

ethnographic study, where they found students use Facebook

for a myriad of reasons (Martinez Aleman & Wartman, 2009).

The authors devised four consistent themes to portray their

findings of student Facebook use: (1) use-consciousness, (2)

campus culture, (3) identity factors, and (4) voyeurism and

impression management (Martinez Aleman & Wartman, 2009). The

authors captured four students ‘voices using the

aforementioned themes. The four diverse students shared

multitudes of information regarding their experiences with

Facebook.

Academic Performance

Academic Performance refers to how students deal with

their studies and how they complete different assignments

given to them by their teachers. The popularity of the social

networking sites enlarged briskly in the last span. This is

most likely due to the reason that every person used it

extensively to get worldwide access. These social networking

sites such as Twitter and Facebook have become a furious craze

for everyone these days. Students are paying more attention

towards these social networking activities rather than

utilizing this time for their studies and this surely affects

their academic performance. The destructive effects of these

social networking sites overweigh the progressive ones. These

 22

sites have caused some latent harm to society. The students

become preys of social networks more often than anyone else.

This is because of the reason that when they are studying or

probing their course material online, they get attracted to

these sites to kill the boredom in their study time,

sidetracking their attention from their work & they forget

why they are using internet. LaRose et al. (2001) proposed

that student users are affected by the internet and this

impact is determined by the type of internet usage. The misuse

of these sites on a daily basis has many destructive effects

on the physical and mental health of students making them

sluggish and unenthusiastic to build interaction with the

people in real life.

Facebook and Academic Performance

Recent literature found that leisurely Internet use is

strongly correlated with weakened academic performance

(Kubey, Lavin, & Barrows, 2001). Kubey, Lavin, and Barrows

(2001) found that students who spent five times more hours

online reported schoolwork problems. In the Kubey et al (2001)

study, 10-15% of the student participants felt their Internet

visits were out of control. Although this study did not

mention Facebook specifically, the researchers did mention

that the captive social opportunities of the Internet

 23

appeared to be the culprit of the schoolwork problems (Kubey

et. al, 2001). In addition, Vanden Boogart (2006) discovered

that excessive Facebook use was found among students with

lower GPAs.

Theoretical Framework

Flow Theory (FT)

Borrowed from psychology, flow theory helps assess

human-computer interactions and addresses people’s use of the

internet. Flow, as defined by Csikszentimanlyi (1997, p36),

is the “holistic sensation that people feel when they act

with total involvement.” It implies absorption in a task,

such that the person is completely attracted by the artefact

and the task being performed. Websites, email tools, and the

computer itself are all artefacts; the tasks refer to an

assignment performed using these tools (Firineran and Zhang,

2003). Thus Facebook is an artefact, and people using this

network engage in tasks that prompt their flow on the

platform. Novak et al (1998) also provide an extensive review

of the definition of flow as experienced by people immersed

in a task. Described as total concentration and deep

involvement in the tasks, these activities result in

intrinsic enjoyment, combined with keen curiosity and

pleasure that encourages repetition of the activity, but also

 24

the loss of time and an inability to control usage or halt

the activity.

Distraction Effect

Although the use of social networking platform is

subject to persuasive attitude of the social website and the

attitudes of users toward social networking in general (Fogg

and Iizawa, 2008), online behaviours also reflect personality

traits, values, and cultures (Hofsted, 1984). The way people

use online social networks especially in terms of their

behavioural patterns and attitudes toward information sharing

and privacy is a direct result of and reflection on their

cultural backgrounds (Kiesler, 1997).

Intellectual capabilities to manage time and process

information also should affect their capacity to benefit from

online activities and restrict their efficiency on any tasks

performed in parallel. Facebook users usually interrupt their

work to visit Facebook profiles, because of the short-term

capacity needed for the working memory process. Unemployed

people might go online to look for job opportunities and end

up interacting on social platforms, ultimately spending much

more on them than expected. This split attention paid to

multiple tasks causes’ distraction. The use of online social

networks also varies across countries because cultures induce

 25

diverse impacts on their members. Absorption in the social

networking activity entails extended immersion in these

websites, enjoyment while interacting, aid curiosity, but

people are also temporally disassociated from their main

tasks; whether online or offline, and lose control over the

main activity in favour of chatting or checking new updates.

Consequently, this research will assess the impact of

Facebook hedonic usage on academic performance.

Impacts of Facebook Usage

Given the high-volume usage of SNS, an obvious and

popular concern among faculty, administrators, and parents is

the widespread notion that students spend far too much time

on nonacademic activities related to the Internet and social

media. Countless articles in popular newspapers, periodicals,

and blogs have raised these very same concerns (Bart, 2009;

Ingram, 2011; Ojalvo, 2011; Schulten, 2009). The most salient

concern among scholars, educators, and the public however is

related to the effects of social networking sites such as

Facebook on the time dedicated to studying and offline

activities.

Hence, Facebook usage has been associated with both

positive and negative impacts to different aspects of

people’s lives, including positive impacts, such as improving

 26

relationships between friends and family and negative impacts

such as low academic performance; health, personal

relationships problems; and social problems. These are

discussed below.

Positive Impacts

Sharing and collecting information

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

(Rice, 2006). 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.

 27

Communication and entertainment

People around the world can now quickly communicate with

each other through the Facebook using a range of applications:

chatting, Wall post, and helps to download some books. The

Facebook also provides different types of entertainment. For

instance, users can play games with other people in any part

of the world, watch movies and listen to music. Above all it

helps users to form new relationships on this site (Ellison,

Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007; Whitty& McLaughlin, 2007).

Negative impacts

Academic performance problems

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. For example, a number of

studies have reported the ways in which Facebook usage impairs

students‟ lives. Scherer (1997) found that 13% of his

respondents reported difficulties in their academic work and

professional performance due to their Facebook use. Nalwa and

Anand (2003) found that Facebook addictive users used for

long sessions, resulting in personal behavioural problems and

neglect of important work responsibilities. Chou and Hsiao

 28

(2000) explored Facebook Addiction among students that result

in more negative consequences in their studies than non-

addicts. This conclusion parallels a study by Young (1996),

who found that Internet addicts experienced personal, family,

occupational problems, and academic difficulties, causing

poor grades and eventually expulsion from school.

Student’s behavior

Many years ago emails, instant messaging and blogging

all these are the communication applications of internet are

rapidly increased in the youth’s life and this made the

internet a significant social context for development of

youth especially students. However there are some behaviors

that can take place due to frequent use of social networking

sites especially students who are using frequently using

social networking sites, results in reduction of time for

other activities that are related academic, physical and

social hobbies that requires face to face meeting (McKenna

and Bargh, 2000). Planned behavior theory provided the

foundation for the behavioral factor of frequently engaging

in social networking sites. It is stated that probability of

involving in the behavior for using social networking sites

increases when individual has strong intention of acting upon

certain behaviors. Group norms and self-esteem are two main

 29

factors of planned behavior theory in the context of engaging

in social networking sites. Group norms for the colleagues

and friends significantly enhanced the likelihood of

intentions of students to involve in the specific work

activity and those students who identify the use of social

networking sites as normative among friends have the strong

intention of using social networking sites frequently.

There is another significant factor that is the

behavioral consequence related to communication technology

based behavior and this is self-esteem. Young individuals

having lower self-esteem have the high level of usage of

instant messaging than those who have high level of self-

esteem (Nalwa and Anand, 2003). Positive feedback improves

the self-esteem and negative feedback leads to lower the level

of self-esteem and that is reason that being socialized young

people uses internet’s communication applications because it

provides more positive interaction with others (DeBell and

Chapman, 2006). Ogedebe et al. (2012) conducted a research on

usage of Facebook and its effect on academic performance of

students.
 30

Conceptual Framework

The basic Conceptual framework which was followed

throughout the project is drawn below.

Figure 2.2 Conceptual Framework

Existing works of
research knowledge

Findings of
Theoretical the research
Assumptions
made

Identify
Knowledge
Literature Gap
Review

Social media has changed lots of former procedures in

this modern era like expanding the capacity to the area of

teaching and learning. This research work seeks to identify

the ideas on how advantageous social media is to the students,

their awareness on social media, effects of social networks

on studies of the students and their usage patterns. The

research findings and recommendations could be adopted and

implemented to benefit the area of teaching and learning in

the school.
 31

Research Hypothesis

Mainly the focus of this research was to investigate the

students’ involvement in Facebook use and its impacts on

students’ academic performance and their social lives. First

hypothesis of this study is that most of the students in the

Concepcion National High School are engaged in Facebook use.

As results show that 100% participants are Facebook users, so

it is verified that most of the students have Facebook

accounts or Facebook users.

In second hypothesis, many Facebook users are victim of

distraction during their academic hours but in our findings

there is no such evidence found. Most of the students use

Facebook during their studies as a break and in their opinion

Facebook does not distract them from doing studies or school

work. Because Facebook is such an application that can run in

the background of internet devices so users do not need to

engage with Facebook constantly. Third hypothesis, those

students who do not have Facebook account might have some

security prejudice. It is also found most of the Non-Facebook

users have chosen that they do not use Facebook because they

do not want to put their personal information on internet and

other big category of the students was those students who are

not interested at all in Facebook use. Fourth hypothesis,

 32

Female students are more Facebook users than male students.

This hypothesis is also verified as result shows the number

of female Facebook users are more 57% than male Facebook users

43%.

Another hypothesis, those students who are not using

Facebook or other online social network services might earn

better grade as compare to Facebook user or other online

social network users. Study found that Non-Facebook users

have better grade point average than Facebook users but the

difference is not very significance. Hypothesis about social

capital, we assumed that Facebook is increasing students’

social capital in the shape of bridging, bonding and

maintaining their relationships with people and studies.

Research findings have proven that Facebook is a good tool

for bridging, bonding and maintaining existing relationships

and increasing effectively student’s social capital.

The importance of the technology cannot be denied in

modern education system; especially the different mediums of

communication. Our study main top is surrounding around

Facebook that’s why it is necessary to know about Facebook

popularity among students. Our last hypothesis, Facebook is

the most popular communication medium among the students.

Students have been asked the question which communication

 33

channel they used the most, when they contact peoples

virtually. Each participant can select only one option out of

five to answer the questions.

Most popular communication medium among

students
Mobile
phone Other SNS
(SMS/Call
5%
s)
25%

Facebook
Messenger
60%
(Skype,
Yahoo,
Google,
etc)
10%

Figure 2.3 Most popular communication medium among students

Figure 2.2 is a pie chart illustrating the use of modern
communication medium. Pie chart shows four segments and each
segment is presenting the one medium of communication. Pie
chart illustrates clearly that Facebook is the biggest
communication channel among the students of CNHS. These
results also indicate that students give the priority to
Facebook over the mobile phone services for their everyday
communication. In the last surprisingly other social networks
services are only 5% which indicates the huge popularity of
the Facebook as compare to other online social networks.
 34

Definition of Terms

The definitions adopted by researchers are often not uniform.

Therefore, this section outline the definitions used

throughout the thesis.

Online social network site: A web-based network that allows

individuals to create a profile either public or semipublic

within bounded system and provide the users different

features according to their groups and interests. It also

provides the features to connect, share information and

communicate with people (friends or strangers) on the

internet within the international or local scale. The

features and terminology of these connections may vary from

site to site (boyd & Ellison, 2008, p. 211).

Facebook: Simply Facebook is a most popular free social

networking website that allows users to create profiles,

upload photos and video, send messages and keep in touch with

friends, family and colleagues (Whatis.com 2013).

MySpace: MySpace drives social interaction by providing a

highly personalized experience around entertainment and

connecting people to the music, celebrities, TV, movies, and

games that they love. MySpace is also the home of Music, which

offers an ever-growing catalog of freely stream able audio

 35

and video content to users and provides major, independent,

and unsigned artists alike with the tools to reach new

audiences.

LinkedIn: An online social networking site which has been

designed particularly for the professionals from any field,

that they commercialize their professions and abilities.

Procrastination: To put off intentionally the doing of

something that should be done.

Social Media: they are forms of electronic communication

which facilitate interactive base on certain interests.

Social media include web and mobile technology. Boyd & Ellison

(2008) defined Social Media as a group of internet based

application that allows the creation and exchange of user

generated content.

Social Networking Sites: a website where people put

information about them and can send to others.

Twitter: A social network service that allows users to send

and read short messages and posts each other’s walls these

messages is called tweets.