SOCIAL MEDIA USE, ADDICTION AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE AMONG MEDICAL STUDENTS: A PRELIMINARY EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS
Main Article Content
Keywords
social media, addiction, academic performance, medical students, evidence synthesis
Abstract
Background: Single-institution surveys disagree on whether social media use is associated with poorer academic performance in medical students.
Objective: To summarise the available correlations between daily time spent on social media and academic performance in medical students, and to describe the evidence on addiction scores, perceived academic benefit, perceived distraction and online professional conduct.
Methods: This is a preliminary synthesis of 25 reports assembled by the authors, not a systematic search. Correlations between daily time spent and academic performance were pooled on the Fisher z scale with DerSimonian–Laird random effects and Hartung–Knapp–Sidik–Jonkman (HKSJ) intervals. Because two of the four coefficients were printed with a sign that contradicts their own reports, the analysis is presented with those coefficients corrected, as printed, and excluded. Outcomes with fewer than three comparable studies were presented study by study. Risk of bias was assessed with JBI checklists and certainty with GRADE.
Results: Seventeen studies were included. Whether daily time spent is associated with academic performance remains unresolved: four studies (n = 1,590) reported correlations, two of them printed with a sign that contradicts their own text. Entered as printed, the pooled correlation was r = −0.06 (95% CI −0.45 to 0.36); with those signs corrected, it was −0.16 (−0.28 to −0.03); with both studies excluded, two remained (r = −0.21 and −0.47) and no estimate was pooled. Two studies correlated addiction scores with performance (r = −0.47 and −0.22), one with an unverified value and one in a sample that was 11% medical students. Endorsement of benefit items ranged from 19.6% to 68.5%, with item formats differing between studies, and agreement that social media distracts from studying was 64.6% and 79.1%. Two studies of online professional conduct used outcomes that could not be compared. Certainty was very low for every outcome.
Conclusions: Whether time spent on social media is associated with academic performance in medical students cannot yet be determined from these data; the answer turns on two reporting errors. A registered systematic review with independent duplicate extraction is required.
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