Harnessing Social Media to Improve Educational Performance of Adolescent Freshmen in Universities

Introduction

Social media platforms play a crucial role in education through seamless access of information in learning groups and other educational systems (Greenhow & Robelia, 2009). The use of social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube for learning has received attention even though customization of these services received ‘little’ or ‘no’ research to endow soft and practical skills in freshmen adolescents. Several pieces of research support that the use of social media has a positive correlation with academic performance (Kolhar et al., 2021; Lambić, 2016; Lavuri et al., 2019). This research solely focuses on students who are aged 19 or below according to UNICEF’s definition of adolescents (UNICEF, 2019). A methodological gap is addressed in this research since others have focused on university students in general and including adults (Kolhar et al., 2021). Most researchers have focused on the effects (positive and negative) of social media networks on academic performance (Kolhar et al., 2021; Osharive, 2015). The impact of electronic media use has received much attention but less is known about techniques to harness social media to attain academic performance are (Kolhar et al., 2021). This study prospectively informs how social media can be customized to improve academic performance in late childhood and tries to apply semantic analysis of data in coming up with academic resource centers.

The book chapter on Harnessing Social Media to improve Educational Performance of Adolescent Freshman in Universities will fulfil the following objectives.

• 1.

  To identify general strategies to improve the educational performance of adolescent freshmen

• 2.

  To enquire how to use Facebook and YouTube to boost students' academic performance.

• 3.

  To endow Industry technical skills and 4IR skills industry technical skills using Social Media

• 4.

  To come up with strategies to develop department centered educational resource centers in universities

The upcoming sections focus on the background, the main focus of the book chapter, solutions and recommendations, future research directions, and the conclusion.

Background

First-year students are essential in the university system since they’re new in the academic journey and they are the lifeblood for the continuity. The new generation of students are techno-savvy, and they are accustomed to entertainment hence engaging them on Facebook and YouTube is essential (Duverger & Steffes, 2012; Moghavvemi et al., 2018). Most researches mainly focus on the bearing, and use of social media on academic performance. ‘Little or ‘no’ research was done on the processes to follow to endow or aimed at enhancing academic performance (Abbas et al., 2019; Altawalbeh, 2021; Ansari & Khan, 2020; Faraj & Al-Abdallat, 2018; González et al., 2016; Kulidtod & Pasagui, 2017; Moghavvemi et al., 2018; Rouis et al., 2011; Talaue et al., 2018). Faraj & Al-Abdallat (2018) researched Jordan University first-year students studying the English Language. They focused on the impact of YouTube and Facebook on their performance. The research did not explicitly focus on the process of customizing these technologies to improve academic performance. Leal-Rodrígueza & Albort-Morant (2017) focused on experiential learning and did not focus on social media customization to attain this. The book chapter dovetails the concepts of expanding the social media platforms like Facebook's new pages for academic purposes. The pages contain material like specific modules, student-centered materials, learning or discussion groups linked within university subject matter domains (Bich Diep et al., 2021). Ultimately, this results in enhanced academic performance or activities rather than students being addicted to social activities (Mim et al., 2018).