There is no doubt whatsoever that social networks affects our lives both positively and negatively. Social media addiction is one of the negative impacts of social networking and affects students on a global scale. The research seeks to find out whether there is a statistically significant relationship between the patterns of social addiction and the academic performance by gender of students at the university. The study used the descriptive approach, through a random sample of 383 students from Al Ain University, United Arab Emirates. The results of the study showed a strong negative relationship between social media addiction and academic performance. 68.93% (264 participants), were within the moderate level of addiction, and the Mann-Whitney U test for nominal qualitative variables revealed that social networking addiction was higher. In male participants compared to social networking addiction in female participants. The results of the research are important at the local level due to the social and economic well-being of the Emirati society, and consequently the spread of the Internet in a wide field and the ease of children's possession of information technology tools. The researchers recommend conducting more studies at the local and global levels to spread awareness of the effects of this phenomenon. We suggested to university leaders, lecturers, and parents to adopt effective educational and training measures in guiding children to exploit social networks in effective education and to advise them about the dangers of Internet addiction and unhelpful networks. © 2023 Eskisehir Osmangazi University. All rights reserved.