Role of Social Media in the Development of Research Skills in Students at the University Level

University students now depend more heavily on social media platforms for their academic research, which has changed their approach to accessing scholarly content, knowledge sharing, and scholarly content interaction. A study investigates social media usage by university students to develop research competencies while evaluating positive and negative features. ResearchGate, along with Google Scholar, LinkedIn, and academic networking sites, gives students quick access to research content as they help researchers network and cooperate on projects. Students face two major obstacles when using these academic platforms: they need to evaluate information reliability and protect their personal data, and they must manage excessive information consistently. A structured questionnaire was distributed to university students using a quantitative research methodology for data collection. It was found that social media helps students get more deeply involved in their research through collaborative learning experiences, which provide simple access to many academic resources. Most students encounter problems distinguishing authoritative sources from fake information, while their privacy concerns prevent them from sharing their work openly. Moreover, students face performance problems in academic material processing due to the excessive quantity of research content they encounter. It is recommended that further research be conducted to examine the extended influence of social media on student academic results while evaluating how artificial intelligence-based analytic tools affect digital research in classes.