Social networking in Bangladesh: Boon or curse for academic engagement?

The number of social networking services (SNSs) users in Bangladesh is increasing at an accelerating rate. There are many who argue that SNS usage is destroying the students’ future by diminishing their academic engagement. The authors aim to investigate whether there is any relationship between students’ academic performance and their SNS usage. The study chose Facebook as a representative of SNSs because this is the most popular platform for online social connectivity and conducted a survey regarding the usage of Facebook among students of Business Administration from three private Bangladeshi private universities. The research results show that Facebook can be used for at least 21 academic tasks or goals and that these can be grouped into six major factors. Moreover, students opine that their online socializing does not reduce their study time, instead it helps them get the latest study related information, sharing courses, class schedules etc. After running a regression analysis, the authors conclude that the students’ level of engagement with the academic life through Facebook does not influence their academic results. The reason for this insignificant relation between academic results and academic engagement through SNSs may be due to the non-diversified course curriculum, the traditional way of delivering lectures and evaluating, limited study materials, non-receptiveness to technology-based learning etc. However, the authors propose to include SNSs as a study tool as it is a popular media and to conduct further research to better understand the effective way of using it in the education system.