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Social Media and Academic Performance: Does The Intensity of Facebook Activity Relate to Good Grades?

  • Social Media and Academic Performance
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Schmalenbach Business Review Aims and scope

Abstract

We analyze how Facebook use and students’ social network positions within it relate to their academic performance. We use a unique data set obtained from a survey of students’ perceptions, actual Facebook connections to measure social network positions, and objective grades provided by the university registrar to measure academic performance. We find that Facebook activities during class relate negatively to academic performance, that students located in densely connected subnetworks earn better grades, and that in contrast to female students, male students benefit from a general use of Facebook, particularly if they are highly connected.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Marketing, School of Business and Economics, Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main, Grueneburgplatz 1, 60629, Frankfurt, Germany

    Bernd Skiera (Chair of Electronic Commerce)

  2. Faculty of Law and Business, TU Darmstadt, Hochschulstraße 1, 64289, Darmstadt, Germany

    Oliver Hinz (Chair of Electronic Markets)

  3. Martin Spann, Institute of Electronic Commerce and Digital Markets, Munich School of Management, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU Munich), Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, 80539, Munich, Germany

    Martin Spann

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  1. Bernd Skiera
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  2. Oliver Hinz
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  3. Martin Spann
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Correspondence to Bernd Skiera.

Additional information

The authors thank Anton Kistner and Janis Stenner for their support in collecting the data.

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Skiera, B., Hinz, O. & Spann, M. Social Media and Academic Performance: Does The Intensity of Facebook Activity Relate to Good Grades?. Schmalenbach Bus Rev 67, 54–72 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03396923

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