Vol.:(0123456789) Education and Information Technologies https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-022-11196-0 1 3 Measuring the efect of social media on student academic performance using a social media infuence factor model Mohammed Nurudeen 1  · Siddique Abdul‑Samad 2  · Emmanuel Owusu‑Oware 1  · Godfred Yaw Koi‑Akrof 1  · Hannah Ayaba Tanye 1 Received: 17 January 2022 / Accepted: 28 June 2022 © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2022 Abstract With the advent of smartphones and fourth generation mobile technologies, the efect of social media on society has stirred up some debate and researchers across various disciplines have drawn diferent conclusions. Social media provides uni‑ versity students with a convenient platform to create and share educational content. However, social media may have an addicting efect that may lead to poor health, poor concentration in class, poor time management and consequently poor academic performance. Using a random sample of 623 students from the University of Pro‑ fessional Studies Accra, Ghana, this paper presents a social media infuence factor (SMIF) model for measuring the efect of social media on student academic perfor‑ mance. The proposed model is examined using linear regression analysis and the results show a statistically signifcant negative relationship between SMIF variables and student grade point average (GPA). The model accounted for 30.7% of the vari‑ ability in student GPA and it demonstrated a prediction quality of 55.4% given the data collected. * Mohammed Nurudeen mohammed.nurudeen@upsamail.edu.gh Siddique Abdul‑Samad siddique.a‑samad@upsamail.edu.gh Emmanuel Owusu‑Oware emmanuel.owusu‑oware@upsamail.edu.gh Godfred Yaw Koi‑Akrof godfred.akrof@upsamail.edu.gh Hannah Ayaba Tanye hannah.tanye@upsamail.edu.gh 1 IT‑Department, FITCS, University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), Legon, P. O. Box LG 149, Accra, Ghana 2 University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), Accra, Ghana