Social Media Usage and its Association with Academic Performance of Undergraduate Physical Therapy Students

Background: Social media has become popular among the young generation around the globe. The students are under much influence of this platform and spend their maximum time and energy on it which may affect their personal, academic and professional lives. Objective: To find out the role of social media usage and its association with the academic performance of undergraduate physical therapy students. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted from March to September 2022 using an online survey of three public and private sector universities in Lahore, Pakistan. Data was collected from 325 undergraduate physiotherapy students and a pre-designed self-reported questionnaire was used to collect data. Cross tabulation and chi-square analysis was used to determine the association between characteristics of social media use and academic performance. The p-value was set at ≤0.05. Results: Among 325 participants, 211 (65%) were females and 114 (35%) were males and the mean age was 21.92 ± 1.75 years. About 145 (45%) undergraduate physical therapy students had been using social media for the last 3 to 4 years, 203 (63%) had used it more than six hours/day and 190 (59%) mainly used that for educational stuff. A total of 165 (51%) had excellent grade point averages and no association was observed between social media usage and academic profile. Conclusion: The majority of students used social media for more than six hours per day for educational and informational purposes and had excellent CGPA. WhatsApp, YouTube and Instagram were the most commonly used social media platforms by the students.