Impact of Internet Usage on Undergraduates’ Academic Performance in South West, Nigeria.

Abstract

The way and manner students generally, and undergraduates in particular use the internet at their disposal is highly worrisome. A cursory look at this issue revealed the fact that many of the students do not make judicious use of this expensive and all-encompassing facility at their disposal. This study therefore investigated the impact of internet usage on the academic performance of undergraduates. Three hundred (300) undergraduates, randomly selected from 100 to 400 levels were involved in the study. A structured questionnaire designed by the researcher, titled Questionnaire on Internet Usage and tagged (QIU) was used to collect pertinent data for the study. Data were analyzed, using mean scores, mean rating, frequency count, and simple percentages. Findings showed that the main purpose for which undergraduates use the internet was to watch pornography and that they spent between 6 – 10 hours per day surfing the internet to upload pictures, for recreational activities, to get up-to-date news and to make cool money.  It was also found that internet usage by undergraduates had negatively impacted on their academic performance due excessive use of internet on other activities other than academics amongst others.  It was recommended that uncensored sites should be blocked and that Internet surfing should be encouraged in open places amongst others.

Keywords: Internet usage, Academic performance, Recreational activities, Pornography, Counseling Services, Uncensored Sites