Cyberloafing Behavior in Educational Settings

The current research endeavours to examine the phenomenon of cyberloafing within educational environments and to classify its various forms. The study additionally investigates how the demographic attributes of individuals can serve as indicators of cyberloafing tendencies within academic environments. A correlational study method was utilized for this study. A total of 431 employees (48%) and 475 students (52%) participated from Saudi Arabia. A questionnaire developed by the researchers was used with a demographic information section and cyberloafing behavior items. The findings indicated that the attitude of participants toward cyberloafing was not highly favorable. Users were more likely to cyberloaf to increase their skill set and to learn new things. The participants’ reasons against cyberloafing were mainly the negative impact of cyberloafing in decreasing productivity and poor academic and work performance. Reasons for cyberloafing were related to taking a break from lessons and long working hours and feeling fresh. Lastly, participants’ use of the internet was related to reading news online. Furthermore, a regression analysis was conducted using the demographic variables: position, educational level, age, and hours spent using the internet, as independent variables, and general cyberloafing behavior, as the dependent variable, to measure the degree of impact each demographic variable had on cyberloafing behavior. The results demonstrated that age and hours spent using social media were predictive of the attitude variable, where the attitude toward cyberloafing decreased with the increase in age. Meanwhile, the attitude toward cyberloafing increased with the increase in hours of using social media. The results are discussed, and recommendations for future studies are presented