Social Media Use, Digital Literacy, and Attentional Control of Self-Regulation as Predictors of Perceived Learning

The extensive use of social media among young learners has opened up new opportunities for collaboration, information sharing, and informal learning. However, its impact on perceived learning largely depends on students' ability to regulate their attentional behaviors and effectively navigate digital environments. This study explores the influence of university students' in-school and out-of-school social media utilization behaviors on the perceived learning, after controlling for the effect of digital literacy, and the attention control dimension of self-regulation skills. To this end, data were collected from 847 undergraduate and associate degree students at a public university in Northern T & uuml;rkiye. The findings of a two-step hierarchical regression analysis indicated that the attention control dimension of self-regulation and digital literacy variables emerged as significant predictors of perceived learning and after controlling for the effect of these variables it was demonstrated that out-of-school social media behaviors were found to have a negative impact on perceived learning, whilst in-school social media behaviors are positively associated with it. The study yielded recommendations for researchers and educators based on the results.