Rising Trend in the Use of Social Media Networks by Students in Seeking Information
CHAPTER ONE
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The main purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the rising trend in the use of social media networks by students in seeking information, but to successfully complete the study; the researcher intends to achieve the following specific objectives:
- To investigate the impact of social media on the accessibility of information by student
- To investigate if social media network serve as a reliable source of information to student
- To examine the role of social media in improving the academic performance of student
- To ascertain if there is any relationship between social media network and student academic achievement.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Introduction
Social networks are online services, platforms or sites that focus building and reflecting social relations among people, who, for example, share interests and or activities. Social networking sites are websites that allow those who have account with them to communicate with a selected group of friends (Awake,2011). Social networks comprise a representation of each user (often a profile), his or her social links, and a variety of additional services (wikipedia, 2011). Most of the social networks are web-based and provide mean for their users to interact via the Internet, such as e-mail and instant messaging; social networks allow activities, events and interact within their individual networks. The inception of social networking sites, to facilitate new forms of computer-mediated social interaction, evolved from early suggestions. Measure and efforts to support social networks via computer-mediated communication (CMC) were made in many early online services; include unset, bulletin board service like America online, prodigy, and CompuServe. Early social networking on the World Wide Web began in the form of generalized online communities such as the glob.com (1995), Geocities (1994) and Tripod.com (1995) (wikipedia, 2011). Characteristically, many of these early communities focused on bringing people together to interact with one another through chat rooms and encouraged users to share personal information and ideas via personal web pages by providing easy-to-use publishing tools and free or inexpensive web space. Some network such as classmates.com, Facebook, Twitter etc. took a different approach by simply having people link to each other through e-mail addresses. New social networking methods were developed at the end of the 1990’s and many sites began to design more advanced features for users to find and manage friends. This newer generation of social networks began to blossom with the emergence of six degrees.com in 1997, followed by make out club in 2000, freinster in 2002 and myspace in 2003. Social networking sites have become a new means through which individuals can interact and communicate with friends in distance places. As at September, 2011, facebook had a total number of 800 million active users (wikipedia, 2011).
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research design
The researcher used descriptive research survey design in building up this project work the choice of this research design was considered appropriate because of its advantages of identifying attributes of a large population from a group of individuals. The design was suitable for the study as the study sought to examine the rising trend in the use of social media network by students in seeking information.
Sources of data collection
Data were collected from two main sources namely:
Primary source and Secondary source
Primary source:
These are materials of statistical investigation which were collected by the research for a particular purpose. They can be obtained through a survey, observation questionnaire or as experiment; the researcher has adopted the questionnaire method for this study.
Secondary source:
These are data from textbook Journal handset etc. they arise as byproducts of the same other purposes. Example administration, various other unpublished works and write ups were also used.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION ANALYSIS INTERPRETATION OF DATA
Introduction
Efforts will be made at this stage to present, analyze and interpret the data collected during the field survey. This presentation will be based on the responses from the completed questionnaires. The result of this exercise will be summarized in tabular forms for easy references and analysis. It will also show answers to questions relating to the research questions for this research study. The researcher employed simple percentage in the analysis.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was to investigate the rising trend in the use of social media network by students in seeking information.
In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing the challenges of social media networks by students seeking information
- Summary
This study which examines the use of social media by students of as a means of getting information, the researcher is of the opinion that the students use the social media in their interactions with friends and members of their family. They mostly use facebook, whatsApp, Myspace, Twitter, 2go and BBM. That they use the platform to chat, gossip, tract the activities of their friends, reconnect with their friends whom they have lost contact for a long time and in addition make new friends. This is because the activities makes it imperative to use the social media platform because of the prevailing security challenges in the state to keep tap of what is happening in the environment and take precaution where necessary. Some of the respondents have confirmed how it has save them from visiting areas under attack by insurgents.
- Conclusion
The results obtained from this study have shown that a reasonable number of Undergraduate students use the social networking sites. Therefore, The popularity of the social networking usage by undergraduate students in Nigerian universities, and the benefits it has on the student –users have been confirmed from the findings of this study. There are also various purposes for which the students use the social networking sites to achieve and that have been investigated. Finally, from the results of the study the researcher sees the reason why a famous media scholar argued that technology can be used in ways beneficial and otherwise. Technology is a double-edged sword. Its power for bad and good resides in the users Baran(2010).Based on this, it is instructive to note that the relevant government authorities and other sponsors of the students, have to take good measures to ensure that they(student) are made to be aware of how and why they use the social networking sites.
- Recommendations
The social networking sites fall within the ambit of the Ministry of communications Technology of the federal Republic of Nigeria. This is the Ministry saddled with the duty or responsibility of initiating and co-ordinating all the policies and programmes towards the use and development of information and communication Technologies (ICTs) in Nigeria. Social networking is part and parcel of the ICTs, as such from the findings. From this work; these recommendations are made to the ministry:
- The ministry has to liaise with Nigerian Communications commission: to mandate all the social service providers Nigeria to make it mandatory that the condition for one to open an account on any of the social networking sites is having a GSM SIM card duly registered in Nigeria. The service providers have to keep the personal details of each of their account owners including their GSM phone numbers; and make the information available to an appropriate government Agency if the need arises.
- Enactment of social media use act: The ministry has to propose to the national assembly to enact a new law that would guide the users of the social network sites with the do’s and don’ts. This is quite necessary now, as one of the findings of this study shows that some of the students use the social networking sites to engage in cybercrimes. Such act shall provide the legal framework that would help Law courts to adjudicate on cybercrime cases in Nigeria, as the federal ministry of information and communication Technology ICT policy draft (2012) states that the ‘‘major challenges facing the country in the area of ICT development include cybercrimes.’’ It will equally give the universities the legal back-up to check their student’s uses of the social networking sites.
Reference
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- Anderson, P. (2007). What is web 2.0? Ideas, technologies and implications for education; A report for JISC Technology and standards watch.
- Anim, E. (2007). The influence of geo-political affiliations on newspapers’ coverage of national issues. In international Journal of Communication: an interdisciplinary Journal of communication. Awake! “What should you know about social networking?” (2012, February) Awake, 3-9.
- Awake, (2011, July). What Should I know social networking? Part 1, pp. 24.25.
- Bahney, A. (2006, March 9). “Don’t talk to invisible strangers. “NewYorkk Times. Retrieved December 16, 2011 from http://www.nytimes.com/2006/0/3/09/fashion/thursdaystyles/09 parents.html.
