CHAPTER ONE

1.0            INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND STUDY

The speed of Internet has changed the way people receive the information. It combines the immediacy of broadcast with the in-depth coverage of newspapers making it perfect sources for news and weather information. Even with the multimedia excitement of the web, Electronic mail (email) is the most frequently used application of the Internet. Many people, who have access to the Internet at school, home and at work place use the Internet for no other purpose than to send and to receive the mail. It‘s not just friends and co-workers that are receiving email. Wherever you look, the web is providing email addresses. This has made communication between the strangers easier than ever. Chatting is one of the more popular activities on the Internet- people can talk to anyone across the world.

Social media is most recent form of media and having many features and characteristics. It have many facilities on same channel like as communicating ,texting, images sharing , audio and video sharing , fast publishing, linking with all over world, direct connecting. It is also cheapest fast access to the world so it is very important for all age of peoples. Its use is increasing day by day with high rate in all over the world. Majority of youth is shifting speedily from electronic media like as television viewers and radio listeners to the social media among all age of group. Youth rate is very much to shifting into social media so its influences are much on youth. This craze of social media has led to a host of question regarding its impact on society, while it is agreed that the social media affects people’s living styles and it is an ongoing process to identify the nature of these influence in every society and country specially on youth .this study also focused the influences of social media on youth and their life style, trends, educational and political awareness, physical activities, social life, their learning and so on.

Andres Kaplan (2010) described in his study that social media is a set of internet based application that constructs on the ideological and technological foundation of wed and that permit the design and exchange of user generated content (Chukwuebuka, 2013).

Merriam Webster encyclopedia Britannica Company defines: youth is the time of life when someone is young. Youth is the time when a young person has not yet become an adult. Youth is very important for future of any nation and country’s progress and development. Now a day Social media is essential for youth in the field of education to learn new trends in education, to improve writing and communicating skills, cultural promoting, religious and political information gathering and sharing links, better living style, growth and development of society (Merriam Encyclopedia, 2001).

Social media such as Facebook, Skype, Twitter, YouTube and MySpace may have been freshly marketed as great leveler as gathering in which divides of races, classes, and ethnicity.

Shrestha lucky (2013) described that social media is means of connections among people in which they create, share, and exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks (Shrestha lucky, 2013). Alison Doyle an American Psychologist: She define Social media as, it is various online technology tools that enable people to communicate easily and people use social media to share information , text, audio, video, images, podcasts, and other multimedia communication. Therefore, this study focuses on the impact of social media on the lifestyle of youth, using Lagos state university students as a case study.

1.2     STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Over the years, it has been discovered that social media has both positively and negatively influenced youths in our society. The lifestyle of so many changed the moment they get exposed to the social media. The level of moral decadence is gradually reaching it acme and this has been traced to the influence of social media.

Youths are always eager to socialize and meet new people and the social media is the fastest mean to achieving this, most youth meet people who influence them negative and introduce them to various kinds of crime thereby debasing the moral values.

Technology has many positive aspects but, in the wrong hands, it can become dangerous. For the young people it is experiments to do what they feel is good or exciting to them and the friends and at the same time avoid adult supervision. Livingstone (2008) opines that for teenagers, the online realm may be adopted enthusiastically because it represents their‘ space, visible to the peer group more than to adult surveillance, an exciting yet relatively safe opportunity to conduct the social psychological task of adolescence – to construct, experiment with and present a reflexive project of the self in a social context, as well as, for some, for flouting communicative norms and other risk-taking behaviors. These problems make it glaring that there is a need to carry out a study on the impact of social media on the lifestyle of youth, using Lagos state university students as a case study.

1.3     OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The general objective of this study is to carry out a study on the impact of social media on the lifestyle of youth, using Lagos state university students as a case study. The specific objective are :

1.     To ascertain if students of Lagos state university frequently use the social media.

2.     To analyse how students of Lagos state university use the social media.

3.     To determine the influence of social media on the behavioral change of students of Lagos state university.

4.     To find out the attitude of students of Lagos state university toward social media.

5.     To examine the effect of social media on the academic performances of students of Lagos state university.

6.     To investigate the relationship between the use of social media and the level of moral decadence among students of Lagos state University.

1.4     RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The relevant research questions related to this study are:

1.     Do students of Lagos state university frequently use the social media?

2.     How do students of Lagos state university use the social media?

3.     What is the influence of social media on the behavioral change of students of Lagos state university?

4.     What is the attitude of students of Lagos state university toward social media?

5.     What is the effect of social media on the academic performances of students of Lagos state university?

6.     What is the relationship between the use of social media and the level of moral decadence among students of Lagos state University?

1.5     SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

It is hoped that the findings of this study will bridge the gap of lack of sufficient information on the effects of social media on the youth and behavior change. The findings of this study may also be useful to the policy makers in various sectors of the government. For instance, in the educational sector curriculum developers will be informed when developing curriculum for the youth. In the health ministry, it will help doctors especially those dealing with counseling of the youth to know which tools to use to effectively communicate to the youth.

This study will enhance the existing body of literature by contemplating the areas of the literature that have not yet been examined or considered and incorporating these factors into the current study. The study will thus form the basis for further studies in the field.

1.6     SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The scope of this study is restricted to the impact of social media on the lifestyle of youth, using Lagos state university students as a case study.

1.7     LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

Some of the major constraints the researchers encountered in putting up this research include lack of time, lack of willingness to give information by respondent and also limited resources.

1.8     DEFINITION OF TERMS

Social media is the collective of online communications channels dedicated to community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration.

Internet: is a global computer network providing a variety of information and communication facilities, consisting of interconnected networks using standardized communication protocols.

Lifestyle: is the habits, attitudes, tastes, moral standards, economic level, etc., that together constitute the mode of living of an individual.

Technology refers to methods, systems, and devices which are the result of scientific knowledge being used for practical purposes