Social Media Use Among Library and Information Science Students: A Case Study

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to identify the prevailing conditions of social media use among undergraduate students of Library and Information Science in a Nigerian University. Simple random sampling technique was used to select a sample of 180 full-time undergraduate students purposely. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze data collected through the administration of questionnaire. Research findings showed that a great number of students of Library and Information Science are addicted to social media for wrong academic purposes. The levels of addiction varied according to four Likert scale type. The highly addiction was among student using WhatApp (40.82%) and not addicted among students using BB chat (13.12%). The demographic indicators provided the obvious results of singles (77.78%) possessing prevalence tendency of addiction, and surprisingly those between the ages of 27-30 (40%) were most addicted. The paper recommends awareness programmes that are tailored to reveal the ills of social media addiction and pave ways to balance use of social media platforms that benefit academic activities among students.

Students awareness, willingness and utilisation of facebook for research data collection: Multigroup analysis with age and gender as control variables

“…This corroborates earlier literature in Africa, which ascertained that males tend to display superior proficiency as Internet, ICT, or social media users in comparison to their female peers (McGregor et al, 2017;. Kasa et al (2021) highlighted a worrying trend of students' obsession with social networking, potentially affecting their academic, social, and spiritual well-being. Parents express concerns about their children's absorption in the virtual world, leading to detachment from reality.…”

Use of social media by LIS students in Kuwait and Taiwan: A comparative analysis

“…SM multitasking has been growing prevalent [2,17]. The heavy SM usage among undergraduates and its impact on their university performance was studied by Kasa et al [48], who found that a large proportion of students in a Nigerian University were addicted to social media for academic objectives. WhatsApp were the most addictive [40,48], and unexpectedly, those between the ages of 27 and 30 were the most obsessed.…”

“…In this regard, the research indicated that SM should be employed for educational requirements, extending social networking platforms, creating new pages to improve learning activity, and monitoring must be conducted by teachers and parents on how the students use these sites. However, specialised awareness programs can be developed to highlight the dangers of social media addiction and to pave the path for students to balance their usage of social media platforms with academic activity [48].…”