The present age is the age of technology; the period during which people, especially the youths and the young adults, spend most of their time engaged on Social Media Technology (SMT).This generation of users is known by many names, for example,  generation Y,  avant-garde and the millennials. Elmore (2011) has termed them the “screenagers” while Gary (2008) refers to them as “digital natives”.  In this information age, Social Media Sites (SMS) seem to be growing in popularity rapidly (Pempek et al., 2008). The SMT active group spends so much time engaged on electronic gadgets that Drry (2008) estimated it to be not less than eight hours a day. Similarly, Sheldon (2008) estimated that more than 50% of college students go on a social networking site several times a day. Social Media Technology (SMT) denotes to web-based And mobile applications that permit individuals and groups tocraft, engage and share either the existing web-related content or the created content (e-mails included). SMT, therefore, creates virtual social space that aid and encourage various interactions among persons of the world: global networking. Baym et al., (2007)’s study found that because of so many people having busy lives or having friends and relatives in the Diaspora, these sites have helped to keep contact with those individuals that students rarely saw. The  social networking is so much in use that the current debate is no longer on whether social networking should play a role in education but has shifted to what social networking tools work best and how to deploy them (Digital Directions, June 16, 2010).

There are quite a number of utilized Social Networking Sites (SNS); they can be grouped in line with the services they provide, for instance, consumer review platforms including Yelp, the micro-bloging sites such as the twitter and the location based services like foursquare. SNS has been defined by Ellison and Boyd (2007) as public web based service that gives room to individuals to construct profiles, identify other users and display user connections, operating within these connections as well as read and react to postings made by other users on the site as well as send and receive messages either privately or publicly.

Using the SNS facility, individuals can send private messages, may write on other user’s walls, can organize social activities and keep informed about other user’s activities they choose to share. It should be noted that users have the ability to choose and control the information they would like to share publicly with others. Tufekci (2008) suggested that users may choose the following items: pictures, favorite movies, books and birthday, relationship status and location.

Due to fast change in social media, it is difficulty to point out which might be termed the most commonly used Social Networking Sites (SNS). However, literature suggests that it is the Facebook which Harvard (2011) proposed that more than 90% of college students had their profiles on it. On the same note, South African Social Media Landscape (2014) says Facebook has become the leading social network in South Africa revealing that 93% of major brands use Facebook, 79% use Twitter, 58% YouTube, 46% LinkedIn and 28% Pinterest while less than 1 in 10 use Mxit, Foursquare or Instagram. Quan-Haase and Young (2010) argued that the Facebook is basically used by students to sustain relationships with far and near acquaintances. Editorial Projects in Education Research Center (2011) proposed that the Facebook can benefit a student on academic purposes such as assignments and other class projects.

Similarly, Twitter has become a force in the professional development arena, with features such as EdChat, weekly one-hour  conversations  that  take  place  around pre-arranged educational topics (Digital Directions, June 16, 2010). On the same note, Wikis and blogs can aid students to share information with other students worldwide. Baym, Zhang, and Lin (2004), who studied social interactions of college students across all media, realized that 64% preferred face-to-face interaction, 18.4% preferred the telephone and only 16.1% favored internet for making social contacts. When considering the internet interactions, they reported that e-mail was the most outstanding form of contact followed by chat and then the instant-messaging. 

Zimbabwe is struggling to be abreast with the rest of the world technological wise; Chitanana et al. (2008) pointed out that Information Communication Technology (ICT) is progressively becoming more wide spread in university education worldwide in response to UNESCO’s policy for Change and Development in Higher Education which urges Higher Education institutions to utilize the advantages presented by the evolution of communication technology in order to improve education phenomenon.

Biriwasha (2011) propounded that, according to the World Bank, only about1.5 million Zimbabweans (which is12 percent of the nation’s population) can claim they have some kind of internet access. This means that internet literacy is rather limited in Zimbabwe. The 12% that can access the internet are largely those in the urban areas and at tertiary institutions, universities included. It is however hopped that in the recent future, the internet, and thus social media, will be widely used. This is so because Zimbabwe is currently being connected to the undersea cable; Fiber-optic infrastructure is being set up across the country.

Zimbabwe, in line with the new economic blueprint, the Zimbabwe Agenda for Socio Economic Transformation (ZIMASET), is working towards the technological development. ZIMASET is being modeled in line with the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) 2013 election manifesto and campaign under the theme “Indigenize, Empower, Develop and Create Employment”. Currently, the ZANU PF Commissariat has received computer equipment worth US$220000 from the party leadership, to be distributed to all the country’s 10 provinces (ZANU PF launches new economic blueprint 2013). It continued to say, the equipment includes 15 laptops per province, five printers per province, five guillotines per province and five cameras per province. ZANU PF Secretary for Administration, Didymus Mutasa said this is the beginning of the party being e-compliant and moving with technological trends (ZANU PF launches new economic blueprint 2013).

Solusi University, like its sister institutions, has become social. Over the last few years, the SMT has transformed the institution in terms of relationships, and connectivity at home and abroad. It is currently used by administration, faculty and students in the admissions offices, grades dissemination, e-learning, recruitment and alumni communications, just to mention a few. Since universities and other tertiary institutions are the major sources of human resource for every nation, they are naturally expected to excel in generating and advancing knowledge in order to develop talent and skill for national develop-ment. The result of increased SMT usage has, therefore numerous impacts on this Y-generation. Prensky 2001, Small and Vorgan (2009) argued that SMT users may benefit a lot by developing fundamentally different brain development that favors constant communication and multitasking.

Despite the obvious benefits of the social media usage by university students, some educators wary about security, nature of information-sharing and the time spend on it at the expense of learning activities (Editorial Projects in Education Research Center 2011). Florida University (2014) proposed that these Information Technology (IT) resources are intended for university-related purposes which include direct and indirect support of the university’s instruction, related research and service missions; university administrative functions; student and campus life activities; and the free exchange of ideas within the university community and among the university community and the wider local, national and the global community.

 

 

The internet technologies have particularly attracted the attention of researchers (Omoniyi and Quadri, 2013; Bisht, 2013; Archibong et al., 2010 quoted in Tsvere et al., 2013). Of particular interest are the relationships between information technologies and the social dynamics including demographic factors such as gender, age and technological experience among other factors. Although this area of information technology has attracted a number of researchers worldwide, this is not so in Zimbabwe where research in general is rather limited. Tsvere et al. (2013) argued that there is a dearth of literature on internet related digital competencies linked to university teaching, research and demographics characteristics in Zimbabwe. To this effect, literature has been reviewed worldwide.

Chitanana et al. (2008) researched on the state of e-learning at universities in Zimbabwe. They realized that e-learning was still grassroots at most of the universities. Tsvere et al. (2013) researched on the use of Information Technology in University Academic Business at Chinhoyi University in Zimbabwe. Their findings revealed that there is a significant relationship between university academics’ digital competence and their gender and experience in using the internet, that is, male academics’ IT competencies were higher than those of females. A significant inverse relationship was also observed between digital competence and age of respondents. The findings led to the conclusion that university academics were fairly competent in using the internet  for  research  and  faced challenges in using the internet as a teaching tool.

In a similar research Hargittai and Shafer (2006) established that males perceived themselves as more competent than females while Tufekci (2008)’s study found that women were four to five times more likely than men to use social networking sites. Sheldon (2008) study realized that overall women usually used the social media for maintaining relationships with family and friends, passing time and entertainment while men generally used it to meet new people.

Current research about SMS in South Africa, South African Social Media Landscape (2014) says Facebook has become the leading social network in South Africa overtaking Mxit (6million users) for the first time. The study showed that Facebook has 9, 4-million active users in South Africa, up from 6,8-million in 2013. The effects of the competing instant messaging services like WhatsApp and 2Go, as well as from the growth of social networking on phones is felt as well; about 87% of Facebook users and 85% of Twitter users are accessing these tools on their phones.

Omoniyi and Quadri (2013) researched in Nigeria on teacher ICT competency and they found that the majority of school teachers lack prerequisite ICT competencies. Their findings also revealed that teacher competencies were neither influenced by teaching experience nor academic qualifications. In a similar study, Ojedokun and Owolabi (2003) realized that their respondents were more able to use the internet research than they did for teaching purposes.

While Social Media (SM) has brought a lot of good in the entire life of scholars, the following researches have shown that Social Media has contributed negatively in the academic performance of university students. Schill (2011) confirmed that SM sites have negatively impacted on the students’ academic work through procrastination of school work in order to catch up with friends. A lot of time is spent on SM sites such as; Facebook, My Space or LinkedIn, You Tube, Blogs and Twitter, Martin, (2008). In a research conducted in June 2011, Jacobbsen and Forste discovered that the university students used almost 25% their time on the Internet chatting on SM websites. The research also revealed that multitasking resulted in this use of SM as students used both electronic media while studying and socializing with friends, consequently, this has resulted in lack of concentration and poor performance. The researchers also reported that out of a sample of 102 respondents, 57% confessed that SM had contributed to their low performance.

Another research carried out at Ohio State University on the relationship between SM and students grades revealed the same results with the one above in that they too found out that college students who used Facebook spent less time on studying and resultantly had lower grades than those who did not use SM networking sites, Kalpidou et al. (2011). The research further showed that 90% of the students wasted time on entertainment, 80% admitted that they posted and responded to friends’ messages while working on their assignments and this definitely affected negatively their academic performance. This shows that some students are unable to balance their academic work with social life. Lenski (2006) echoes the same sentiments by reporting that most of the students at universities who spend much of their time on the computer fail to maintain their work in their studies. Mertz (2004)’s report revealed an admission by the students that most followers of the Internet have had academic repercussions.

Nielsen (2011) explains some of the disadvantages of social networking among students. One of the major disadvantages is that social networking can be a big waste of time that sucks 17% of the Internet down to non-productivity as students are distracted from their studies to spending valuable time on games, or other non-academic related activities.

Another disadvantage relates to health issues; Sigman (2009) reported that too much time spent on social networks has caused extensive mental and health problems. For instance, some individuals have experienced withdrawal symptoms, that is, they have retreated from the actual interaction with fellow humans. Regular recreational or social activities have been ignored and the result is anxiety, distress, boredom and loneliness. The doctor further reiterated that lack of face to face networking could alter the way genes work; upset immune responses, hormone levels and the function of arteries thereby negatively affecting mental performance.      

Metz (2004) reports a research carried at Indiana State University by Christine Macdonald and Robert on Cyberbullying. They found out that almost 22% of college students said that social networks can be tools of malicious behavior as students were harassed or bullied online. Yet, on the other hand, the opposite was true, as students themselves used SM sites to bully or intimidate teachers and staff.

In a telegraph report, online, Donna Cosmato, sales management professional reported that 40% of students spent their time posting messages, disregarding spending time in face to face interactions with their peers. This behavior barred them from developing social skills for future success. Online socialization has robbed them of the privilege to learn how to resolve conflicts in the outside world.

In a nutshell, the above reports have clearly shown that both positive and negative impact on the use of the social Media. Social Media, when handled recklessly, can contribute negatively to students ‘academic performance. SM too can cause both social and health hazards to students and hence their performance in school will definitely be affected.

Statement of the problem

The current advance in technology has seen the increased use of the Social Media Technology and the betterment of information and communication systems. Universities have responded by embracing this change and Solusi University is one of them. While some educators see the academic benefits of social networking, there is a number of educationalists and scholars who have foreseen dangers in undue dependence and misuse of technology by university students. This research therefore wants to find out if Solusi University students productively use the social media.

Research questions

1. Which types of social media do Solusi University students usually use?

2. For which purposes do Solusi university students use the social media?

3. Which are the benefits and challenges encountered by Solusi University students in the use of the social media? 

A quantitative research design was used for this study. Questionnaires were drafted by the researchers and, after getting research permission from Solusi University Administration, they distributed them to the convenience sample of respondents (N=108), that is, Solusi University students whose composition is shown 1n Table 1a, according to gender and Table 1b, according to faculties.

 

 

 

The collected data were analyzed by SPSS and findings were presented in a summary description accompanied by table and numerical values.

 

 

 

 

Research Question 1:  Which  types  of  social  media  do Solusi University students usually use?

Table 2 shows the use of computers and mobile phones by the respondents; figures show that the majority of the respondents used computers and mobile phones (75 and 81.5% respectively) for their social media needs.

 

 

 

The table shows extensive use of computers and mobile phones for social media aspect. The table shows homogeneity response and the popularity of computers and mobile phones among the respondents.

The respondents also showed that they were knowledgeable on the use of the social media as shown by Table 3.

The table shows that students had social media know-how; only 9.5% of the respondents had poor social media

 

 

know-how while the majority had at least a fair knowledge of it. This is contrary to findings by Omoniyi and Quadri (2013) in Nigeria on teacher Information Communication Technology competency who found that the majority of school teachers lacked prerequisite ICT competencies.

Table 4 shows the type of social media the respondents used. Among the 14 social media types given on the table, the respondents usually used b3, that is, social networks for example Facebook and MySpace (mean 3.8131). This tallies Harvard (2011) findings that more than 90% of college students had their profiles on Facebook. On the same note, South African Social Media Landscape (2014) says Facebook has become the leading social network in South Africa revealing that 93% of major brands use Facebook. Respondents also used b10, which is, Social Search for example Google and yahoo (mean 4.0748); and b12, Wikis for example Wikipedia (mean 3.4000).

 

 

Details of the sites briefed in the table above be seen in details on the Appendix page.

Research Question 2: For which purposes do Solusi university students use the social media?

Findings showed that the respondents usually used social media for beneficial causes, that is, for academic and social communication. Table 5 shows that the respondents used the social media for C5, which is, inquiries,  (mean 3.1154);  for c6, that is, finding social contacts (mean 3.0192) and for  c7, that is, Bible study (mean 3.2404). The latter was possible mainly because of a number of respondents who belonged to the Theology Department at the university. Respondents also indicated that they used the social media for c8, that is, sending  and receiving  assignments  (mean  3.8558);  for c9, that is, university communications (mean 3.8269); for c10, that is, online registration (mean 3.51490; c11networking with friend (mean 4.0777) and  c12 for general communication (mean 4.0686). This is in line with Baym et al. (2007)’s findings that because of so many people having busy lives or having friends and relatives in the Diaspora, these sites have helped to keep contact with those individuals that students rarely saw. Respondents also used the social media for c13online learning (mean 3.3800) and for c14, that is, time passing (mean 3.1275).

 

 

The table shows that the respondents used the social media according to ethical expectations; Florida University (2014) proposed that these Information Technology (IT) resources are intended for university- of the university’s instruction, related research and service missions; university administrative functions; student and campus life activities; and the free exchange of ideas within the university community and among the university community and the wider local, national and the global community. This is also what the respondents used the social media for. The step wise regression analysis below shows a coefficient of .784 which is an indicator of a strong relationship between what the social media is intended for and what it was used for.

Research Question Three: Which are the benefits and challenges encountered by Solusi University students in the use of the social media?

Research findings indicated that there were both benefits and disadvantages of using the social media by the university students at Solusi University. Among the disadvantages are the limiting factors of the social media, that   is,    d7  ( I  communicate only with friends and acquaintances) with a high mean of 3.2887 on the table below. Other disadvantages include, lack of privacy, d8 related purposes which include direct and indirect support mean of 3.0204 and the negative impact of technology on one’s health, d9 mean 3.0707 which concurs with Sigman (2009)’s report that too much time spent on social networks has caused extensive mental and health problems.

 

 

 

Social   media    operation   is   also   effort   and    time consumption, d10 mean 3.1313. This tallies with the findings of Schill (2011) who confirmed that SM sites have negatively impacted the students’ academic work through procrastination of school work in order to catch up with friends. Martin (2008); Jacobbsen and Forste (2011); Kalpidou et al. (2011) and Lenski (2006) also found out that a lot of time is spent on SM websites. Another disadvantage is detachment from direct conducts, d12  mean  3.1717  and possibility of fraud related cases, d14 mean 3.3571 (Table 7). Despite the disadvantages of the use of the social media above, there is a plethora of conveniences that no one can deny shown by Table 8.

 

 

 

The table shows that social media makes marketing to students easier, e1 mean 3.9694 and brings people together, e2 mean 3.8557. These findings are similar with those by Baym et al. (2007) whose study found that because of so many people having busy lives or having friends and relatives  in  the  Diaspora,  these  sites  have helped to keep contact with those individuals that students rarely saw. Social media also improves English proficiency, e4 mean 3.1939; builds long term relations, e5 mean 3.2323; exposes authentic data, e6 mean 3.7245  ; promotes creativity, e12 mean 3.5and increases knowledge, e15 mean 3.8632 as  Prensky (2001), Small and Vorgan (2009) exposed that SMT users may benefit a lot by developing fundamentally different brain development   that  favors  constant  communication  and multitasking.

From the findings of the study, it can be concluded that university students were knowledgeable about the social media. They heavily depended on computers and mobile phones for their social media needs. They also mainly used the following social media types: social networks, for example, Facebook and MySpace, Social Search, for example, Google and Wikis for example Wikipedia. Thus, the university students, contrary to fears by some researchers on abuse, used the social media for academic purposes and social communication. However, despite the conveniences and the utility of the social media, findings revealed lack of privacy, negative impact of technology on one’s health and that a lot of time is spent on SM websites. Another disadvantage is detachment from direct conducts and possibility of falling into fraud related cases when using the social media.

It can, therefore, be recommended that although there are benefits of using the social media by university students, they need to be cautioned so that they use it ethically and usefully. This study also recommends that students should be taught how to balance their academic work with their social life so that they do not waste time on the social media at the expense of academic work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The author has not declared any conflict of interests.