The Impact of Social Media use on Academic Performance at one Urban University: A Pilot Study Sam Mozee, MPPA Mississippi Urban Research Center Abstract. The purpose of this study was to begin exploring the possible impact of social media use on the academic performance of students attending one urban university. The study's primary goal is to identify key themes, trends, and/or perceptions that can be used as a foundation for more in-depth empirical research, and can be used to develop policy recommendations to deal with this growing phenomenon. A qualitative research design was used, and three preliminary research questions were formed to guide this study: (1) How common is the use of social media (i.e., Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and LinkIn) among college students? (2) For those students who do utilize social networking sites, on average how much time do they spend on those sites collectively per day and/or per week? and (3) How does the academic performance of students compare between students who utilize social media sites and students who do not use social media sites? Findings from this study seem to confirm perceptions of high student usage of social media among college students; however, they also seem to contradict other research literature findings regarding intensity of usage and gender-usage inclinations. Introduction Recently, there has been considerable discussion regarding the frequent use of social media tools (e.g., Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Xanga, Friendster) by high school and college students, and the possible effect of those tools on students’ academic performance (Connolly, 2011; Hargitai, & Hsieh, 2010; Karpinski, & Duberstein, 20009). At the core of this debate is whether the growing use of social media by high school and/or college students actually improves or worsens a student’s academic performance. With the expected continued growth