Smartphone Usage, Social Media Engagement, and Academic Performance: Mediating Effect of Digital Learning

Abstract

Smartphone has penetrated across all regions of India and all sections of the society, especially among the higher education student community. Smartphones with the internet, in turn, provide access to social media platforms. Smartphones and social media (SM) together provide several benefits to the users, and they also cause unwanted repercussions on the users such as adverse mental health, addiction, and laziness. But one of the important gains of smartphone and social media usage (SMU) is digital learning through them. Smartphones and SM are inevitable in the academic process of higher education students. The students use extensively the smartphone and SM for sharing information and content, for having peer discussion, for managing assignments, and for communicating with the instructors. So, this study tries to study the mediating effect of digital learning through smartphones and SM on the educational accomplishment of private university students in Bangalore, India. This study adopted the survey method of research which collected primary data through structured questionnaires from the private university students. The collected data were analyzed using students’ “t” test, One-way ANOVA, Chi-Square, and Structural Equation Modeling. The study results found that smartphones and SM affect the academic performance (AP) of the sample students significantly through digital learning.