Investigating the Influence of Social Media on Sociability: A Study of University Students in Nigeria (Published)
This article investigates the influence of social media on the university students’ sociability in Nigeria. Structured questionnaires were used to collect data from 250 students at BIU and 350 students at DELSU through heterogeneous samples in different faculties and departments of respective institution. The data derived were subjected to descriptive statistics with simple percentage, chi-square test and one-way ANOVA. Findings revealed that age, year of study, family income plays decisive role in respondents’ ability to exploit the benefit of social media utilization for sociability. Further, majority of the respondents were observed to use Facebook as major platform for friendship sociability, with mobile media (feature phone with internet connection and smartphone) as a medium of constructive sociability behaviour and respondents’ friendship size of above 200 demonstrate the strength of respondents’ sociability practice. The study also found that the respondents’ frequency of interaction with friendship groups cut across different time frame with communication relations and socio-pleasure as a means of strategic sociability fulfilment. Future research should focus on why university students use social media for romantic sociability since evidences are emerging on the relations of social media sociability and romantic behaviour of young people.
Keywords: Abraka (DELSU), Benin City (BIU) and Delta State University, Benson Idahosa University, Nigeria, Social media, sociability