Numerous efforts have been made to understand the impact and particularly the use of social media in education. However, how do the youths see the benefits of using social media for improved academic performance? This research is spurred by the aim to know if students think social media could be used to enhance their academic performance. The study assessed the use of social media among young students by exploring their views about the academic benefits that could be derived from its usage with the objectives of knowing if there is a link between social media usage and academic performance, which social medium platform has greater impact on the youths, which gender use social media the more and if it translate to good academic performance among the gender and thereby make recommendations on how to use social media to enhance their academic performance. This study is based on completed questionnaire survey of students and the method of data analysis adopted is chi square. The study is conducted in Benin City, Edo state, Nigeria. The result of this research shows that there is a link between social media and academic performance of youths. In the survey, 91% of the students use social media out of which 65.9% appreciate the impact of the social media on their academic achievements. The study also reveals that Facebook has the highest usage among the students. The research also concluded that the higher usage of social media by female does not translate to higher academic achievement. This makes gender usage of social media insignificant in academic achievement of youth. One of the recommendations of this study is that Students should be encouraged to create study groups or forum on social media to facilitate the exchange of information relating to their class work.