Social Media Addition and Undergraduate Students' Self-Perception in University of Ibadan

Abstract

Social media networks have become popular among the students because of the great potential they have in facilitation, collaboration, communication and sharing among the students. Students’ self-perception has been attributable to their exposure to social media networks. Previous studies have concentrated more on social media usage and social media addiction without considering their influence on self-perception. This study, therefore, examined the influence of social media utilisation and addiction on self-perception of undergraduate students in University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
The study adopted the survey method of ex-post-facto design. Multistage sampling procedure was adopted to select 907 undergraduate students from 7 Faculties in University of Ibadan. A questionnaire named “Social Media Utilisation, Addiction and Self-Perception Questionnaire” (r=0.77) was used for data collection. Seven research questions were answered in the study.
Facebook (751 or 90.2%) and Twitter (646 or 77.6%) were the most commonly accessible social media networks while meeting with friends (651 or 78.2%), getting news (566 or 67.9%), communication (554 or 66.5%) and online learning (450 or 54.0%) were major purposes for social media usage among the undergraduate students. Low level of social media addiction and positive self-perception were also established among the undergraduate students. Self perception is significantly positively related with social media utilisation (r = .181, p<0.01) and social media addiction (r = .195, p<0.01). The relative contribution of social media utilisation and social media addiction to self perception were (β = .111, t = 2.852) and (β = .140, t = 3.569) respectively. Social media utilisation and addiction to social media relatively contributed significantly to University of Ibadan undergraduates’ self-perception.

Keywords: Social media networks, Social media utilisation, Social media addiction, Selfperception, Undergraduate students,