The research examined the influence of social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, 2go, Pinterest, LinkedIn, TikTok and others) on academic performance of students of Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi. Three research questions and three research objectives guided the study. To achieve this, a descriptive survey research design was carried out amongst students of the Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi, which has a population of 20, 000 full students at the time of the study. A simple random sampling using the Creative Research System Software (CRSS) at a confidence level of 95% was used to select the sample of 100 students. Survey questionnaires were administered to collect data from students. The descriptive statistics of frequency was used to analyse the demographic data. The research findings revealed that a large percentage of students rely on social media for information that aid their studies. However, students also spend significant time on social media networking other than academic purposes. Thus, the impact of social networking is both positive and negative. Therefore, it is recommended that managements of higher institutions device measures to encourage students on how best to utilise social media to maximum academic performance.

Keywords : Social Media, Networking, Influence, Performance, Academic.