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INTRODUCTION

Background and Rationale

Socialization among todays youth has evolved. Face-to-face communication

has been replaced with email, social networks and other online tools. The internet
has provided opportunities to enhance, create and rediscover social ties that make
a difference in the lives of mankind. As compared to traditional communications, the
internet lowers constraints like cost geography and time, and it basically supports
the type of open information sharing which brings people together. Everything is
easy, fast, and can be achieved through one click.
Wikipedia defines social networking as an online service, platform or site
that focuses on building and reflecting of social network or social relations among
people who share interests or activities. Social networking sites such as Facebook,
Twitter, Friendster and the likes are gaining popularity these days with its market
among the students. Involvement to this sites has become trendy and engaging.
Studies show that engagement to social networking sites fosters friendship, boosts
self-confidence and promotes connection.
Social networking sites are now the focus of investigation by numerous social
science researchers and an increasing number of academic commentators because
of their extensive impact to personal and academic lives of students using them.
Asides from social networking sites, online gaming provides addictive means
in which the individual craves social interaction. Defined as, a game played over
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some form of computer network, it can be in form of shooter games, real-time
strategy games, browser games or massively multiplayer online games. Online
gaming is being patronized just as much as social networking sites. It is a new world
where time, space and distance are non-issues and cultural barriers are broken
down. There is a strong sense of community where friendships are made and
enemies are trashed.
The youth has become too attached to online gaming that it has become an
addiction, which makes it hard to step away.
The research aims to provide a connection between social networking and
online gaming to the academic performance of BS Nursing students.
The target population for the research was defined as the students who form
the major chunk of users of the internet in terms of social networking site and online
gaming. This was done to have better insight into the research as the target
population was one of the most avid users of the internet and is expected to provide
exceptional responses. It is expected that understanding the questionnaire would be
easy for them as they are familiar with these and are quite clear about the reasons
they use it and for the various problems that they now face because of the effects
of addiction to social networking sites and gaming.

Objectives of the Study

General Objective
The objective of the study is to determine the effect of social networking and online
gaming on the academic performance of RTRMF 2nd year BS Nursing students 2011.
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Specific Objective
Specifically, it seeks to answer the following questions:
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What is the demographic profile of the students in terms of:

A Age of Students
B Gender of Students
C Time Spent in Social Networking Sites
D Time Spent in Online Gaming
Is there a significant difference between Social Networking Involvement and

Academic Performance of 2nd year BS Nursing students?

Is there a significant difference between Exposure to Online Gaming and

Academic Performance of 2nd year BS Nursing students?

Is there a significant difference between Social Networking Involvement and

Exposure to Online Gaming of 2nd year BS Nursing students?

Which among the two factors affect the students academic performance the
most?

Hypothesis

The hypotheses to be tested throughout the course of the study are:

1 There is no significant relationship between Social Networking Involvement
and Academic Performance of 2nd year BS Nursing students.
2 There is no significant relationship between Exposure to Online Gaming and
Academic Performance of 2nd year BS Nursing students.
3 There is no significant difference between Social Networking Involvement and
Exposure to Online Gaming of 2nd year BS Nursing students

Significance of the Study

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The findings of the study are deemed significant to:
The students to gain extensive information on the social networking
and online gaming that they may apply these knowledge to their advantage. That
they may be able to learn both the positive and negative impact of internet usage
to their lives, and hopefully lead to a realization of their own standing in terms of
addiction to social networking and online gaming.
The Family, with sufficient know-how, they may be able to provide
effective intervention to influence their childs social networking and/or gaming
habits. Further, that they may be able to sustain the socialization needs of their
child and provide guidance in the use of internet.
The Community that they may have a thorough understanding of
the attention and intervention that must be given to our youth to address unmet
basic, social needs. That they may form a strong coalition to solidify the support on
controlling the use of internet thus reducing the risk of assimilating such activities.
Future researchers that they may be able to do in-depth
research on the effect of social networking sites and online gaming to the youth.

Scope and Limitations

The study is a descriptive study on the effect of social networking sites

and online gaming on the academic performance of 2 nd year nursing studies. This

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study, however, does not attempt to explain in-depth how these two factors affect a
students scholastic rating.
The study will be conducted within a time frame of one semester to one
hundred 2nd year nursing students. The underlying assumption is that the survey
conducted in limited area represents the general psyche of the users of the social
networking site and gaming.
The academic standing will be based on their grade on one subject alone.
It shall not consider the flexible grading system employed by instructors for
evaluating students academic performance based on general point average.
The study is limited to identifying the association of the two variables to
academic performance. It is set on natural environment and shall not in any way,
attempt to influence the behaviour of its respondents. The level of engagement to
social networking sites and online gaming is set, but not explored. The potential
explanatory factors for the students excessive indulgence in social networking and
online gaming is not examined, nor its reasons.
For purposes of limitation, the respondents are limited to 2 nd year BS
Nursing students of RTRMF. Another limitation was the availability of respondents
since there are different schedules among different year levels. The researchers also
apprehend the cooperation of the respondents to answer the questionnaires
truthfully and completely.

Definition of Terms

Social networking sites- are social network services that focus on building online
communities of people who share interests and/or activities, or who are interested
in exploring the interests and activities of others.

Academic performance-refers to how students deal with their studies and how they
cope with or accomplish different tasks given to them by their teachers.

Online Games- games that are played through the internet.

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REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Review of Related Studies

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A Social Networking
A study was conducted by Whittemore School of Business and
Economics students to determine the relationship between online social media
usage and grades of college students. Results shows that there is no correlation
between the amount of time students spend using social media and their grades.
The most popular online network was Facebook with 96 percent of all university
students saying they use it on a typical day. Further, there was no correlation
between grades and the social media platform used. Almost the same number of
heavy and light users of both Facebook and YouTube received the same category of
high and low grades. On a typical weekend day, 41 per cent of students increase
their usage of the social media networks, five percent of those significantly
increase.

Majority of students use these networks for social reasons and

entertainment.

Don Tapscott, author of Grown Up Digital says in an article that there

is not a shred evidence that Facebook is bad for young people. On the contrary, it is
a wonderful thing that with balance, helps them grow, helps their mental abilities
develop and it should be encouraged.

Another study tells a different side. According to Arya Karprinskis study

of about 219 students, 148 Facebook users had a full grade point lower than those
who do not have Facebook. People that did not use Facebook reported that they
study about 11-15 hours and those who had Facebook only studies 1-5 hours per
week. The Ohio report shows that students who used Facebook had a significantly
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lower grade point average-the marking system used in US universities-than those
who did not use this site.

A team of researchers from Harvard and University of California, Los

Angeles are monitoring the Facebook profile of an entire class of students at one
college. Their goal is to study how personal tastes, habits and values affect the
formation of social relationships and how social relationships affect tastes, habits
and values.

According to a research presented at the American Educational Research

Association 2009 annual conference in San Diego, California, US, college students
who use Internet social networking sites study less and have lower grades.

S. Shyam Sundar, a professor and founder of the Media Effects Research

Laboratory at Penn State, has led students in several Facebook studies exploring
identity. One involved the creation of mock Facebook profiles. Researchers learned
that while people perceive someone who has a high number of friends as popular,
attractive and self-confident, people who accumulate too many friends (about 800)
or more are seen as insecure.

In Hargittais study, he said no evidence was found that Facebook use

correlates with lower academic achievement. He further added that basic Facebook
use simply does not have generalizable consequences for grades. According to his
study, the doubts about the use of social networking sites vis-a-vis students are
reminiscent to those cast on earlier new media, including TV and motion pictures,

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and their effect on children. He emphasized however that if students are spending
excessive time on Facebook at the expense of studying, their academic
performance may suffer.

Students are using social networking sites more than many school
administrators may realize. Despite the fact that most schools block access to such
sites via school computers, 9-17 year olds spend as much time using the Internet
for social activities as they spend watching television-about 9 hours a week,
according to a 2007 study by the Alexandria, VA-based NSBA. The study of more
than 1,200 students found that 96 % of those with online access had used social
networking technology-including text messaging- and 81 % said they had visited a
social networking website at least once within the 3 months before the study was
conducted.

B Online Gaming

In a study of the impact of online-game playing on life satisfaction of

gamers on different personality dimensions, Chen et al found that neuroticism in
gamers had a negative influence on life satisfaction. Neuroticism also has a
significant negative influence on subjective well being in teen gamers. A negative
relationship between web surfing frequency and life satisfaction has also been
found.

In another study, Parker et al found that emotional intelligence was a

strong-to-moderate predictor of addiction-related behaviours like excessive Internet

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use,

online

gaming

addiction

and

online

gambling

problems.;

youth

with

deficiencies in ability to read, express and elicit desired emotions may be more
prone to partake in online-addiction behaviours. Ko et al reached a similar
conclusion and found out that Internet addiction was related to problematic alcohol
use in a sample of Taiwanese high school students.
At the Syracuse University, Associate Professor of Psychology Joshua Smyth
has conducted one study to try to determine the negative and positive effects of
gambling. He assigned gamers to four groups: single-player console games, singleplayer PC games, single- player arcade games and fantasy themed MMORPG. For
the gamers of the MMORPG group, they reported a much lower level of overall
health and well-being than the other groups. They were also observed to not be
sleeping as well as they should and their quality and quantity of real-life
socialization and academic work saw a sharp decrease. It was theorized that
MMORPGs were so complex, so fantastical and alluring and so involved that the
gamers reported they had lost track of time while playing, had gone to bed late
and forgotten to eat. After only a few days of such activity, all the gamers of the
MMORPG group showed a dramatic decrease in all areas of health.
From the same study, Prof. Smyth found that the MMORPG gamers group
reported a much greater enjoyment and sense of reward from the game. They also
reported having a high interest of going back to the game to play some more at a
later time. One more surprising benefit found was the rise in the gaining of new
friends as compared with the single-player groups, and the level of cohesion that
often develops among players of MMORPGs.
However, although there are some positive effects that are possible from
computer game use there are mostly negative effects. Several professors conducted

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a research project to determine the effect of gaming on academic performance.
According to the Australians Journal of Educational Technology: Gaming Frequency
and Academic Performance individuals who spend two or more hours playing
games on a daily basis score lower in every subject than their non-gaming
counterparts. By spending a high percentage of time on video games there is not
enough time left to spend in studying for classes. The study found out that there
was not a single positive correlation between gaming and academic performance.

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