THE IMPACT OF INTERNET SERVICE ON STUDENTS ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF BENIN

The study focused on the impact of internet service on students’ academic performance in the University of Benin, to make this possible, three research question were raised to assess the extent does students’ usage of internet service impact their academic performance, For what purposes do students use the internet service and if there gender difference in the student’s usage of internet service? Descriptive survey research design which is a non-experimental method was adopted for the study. Convenience sampling technique was used to select one hundred (100) accessible respondents for the study. The instrument for data collection was questionnaire; it was a self-designed instrument, built around the research questions and was validated by the researcher's. Its reliability value was established as 0.69, indicating that the instrument was reliable. The data collected for the research question was analyzed using simple percentage and mean. The study concludes that there are many reasons why students use internet service platform and sites. In this study, the most common reasons in the order of their popularity include; to share knowledge and information with other people, to stay in close touch with family and maintain valued relationships with other people and for entertainment purposes and also there is no relationship at all between internet service usage and student academic performance among students in the University of Benin. Finally With internet access currently available on mobile devices owned by almost every student in universities, it is recommended that a similar study be conducted VIII focusing on how students use current advancement in technology available to them to satisfy their information needs.