Social Media: Does Usage Have Impact on Academic Performance?

University students are continually engaged with and exposed to information technology particularly social media for various motives. They spend their daily activities substantially on social media due to the availability of mobile devices and accessibility to internet that make utilizing social media more convenient. Due to inconclusive empirical evidence on the impact of social media, this study investigates the impact of social media usage intensity on the academic performance of accounting students after considering the students' personal attributes such as proficiency, gender, semester and ages differences. Adopting quantitative approach, questionnaire survey was distributed to accounting students in Melaka state and data from 113 accounting students were gathered. The result suggests that social media usage intensity has negative impact on students' performance. With regards to students' attributes, proficiency, gender and semester have impact on their performance. However, the findings may be different if the respondents come from rural areas. Thus, future research should address latest social media platforms in different regions and fields. This study is expected to contribute to the knowledge on social media usage and provide guidance to academics in adopting social media as part of teaching and learning activities in enhancing accounting students' performance.