NAKKU JOANITAH2026-09-162026-09-162026-09-16https://bdears.busitema.ac.ug/handle/123456789/9560ABSTRACT This study examined social media platforms and mathematics achievement among university students: A case study of Busitema University, Faculty of Science and Education. Adopting a quantitative, cross-sectional descriptive survey design, the study targeted a population of 850 mathematics education students. A representative sample of 272 students was selected using simple random sampling, and data was collected via structured self-reported questionnaires. Descriptive analysis revealed that WhatsApp and YouTube were the most frequently used social media platforms for academic and non-academic activities whereas the inferential analysis using a simple linear regression model (Y = β₀ + β₁X + ε) demonstrated a statistically significant negative relationship between average daily hours spent on social media (X) and students' final mathematics percentage grades (Y). The model accounted for approximately 26.16% of the variance in mathematics achievement (R2 = 0.2616, F (1, 270) = 97.7, p <.001) where the slope coefficient (β₁= -2.3725) indicated that for every additional hour spent daily on social media platforms, a student's mathematics percentage score decreased by 2.37 percentage points. Consequently, the null hypothesis (H0) was rejected. The study concluded that excessive, unguided daily social media usage duration displaces essential self-regulated study and practice intervals, thereby lowering mathematics performance. It is recommended that the faculty of science and education establish structured digital time-management guidelines and integrate academically focused online peer-learning groups to mitigate social media induced cognitive distraction, guide students toward video tutorial usage and establish self-regulatory frameworks to limit daily recreational screen time.en-USThesis