The Impact of Social Media on the Academic Performances of School Students in Rural Sri Lanka

This research studied social media's impact on rural school students' academic performances in Sri Lanka. The study focused mainly on exploring the relationship between social media usage and academic performance. The sample was a randomly selected 100 students aged 15-16 from two purposively selected private educational institutions. The data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS. The main findings reveal that prolonged social media usage can disrupt focus, delay assignments, and reduce academic performances; the students primarily use social media for entertainment (e.g., watching videos, listening to music) and secondarily for educational purposes. The study concludes that there is a significant negative relationship between excessive social media use and academic performance.