Influence Of Social Media Addiction On Moral Development Of Students In Federal College Of Education (Technical) Asaba

ABSTRACT

This study examined the influence of social media addiction on moral development of students in Federal College of Education (Technical) Asaba. A descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. Three research questions guided the study. The population of the study comprised 1400 students in Federal College of Education (T) Asaba, Delta State. The sample was made up of 100 respondents selected through simple random sampling techniques. The instrument for data collection was a 20-items questionnaire titled Influence of Social Media Addiction on Moral Development of Students (ISMAMDS) which was validated by the project supervisor and an expert Measurement and Evaluation, Federal College of Education (Technical) Asaba. 100 copies of the questionnaire were administered out of which 92 copies were retrieved and analyzed. Mean statistics was used for data analysis. The findings of the study revealed among others that social media sites students are addicted to in Federal college of Education (T) Asaba includes Snap chat, Telegram, Instagram, Google+, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp Messenger, Twitter, and YouTube which negatively influence students sexual orientation and attitude towards constituted authority. On the basis of the findings, it was recommended among others that school management should enact laws that will reduce social media addiction among students; students should be enlightened about the negative influence of social media addiction on their moral development and parents should be enlightened to educate their children on the negative influence of social media addiction on their attitude towards constituted authority in Federal College of Education (T) Asaba.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background to the Study

Good moral development is a virtue and a core value of the African setting. People are often judged by their moral standard in Africa and Nigeria in particular. Different families have their moral values that all the family members must develop and demonstrate in their daily life. However, there is alarming rate of moral decadence in the society today which seems to be caused by the advent of social media. Moral development refers to the process whereby people form a progressive sense of what is right and wrong, proper and improper (Obed, 2016). As implied by the term development, human moral sense is commonly seen to involve a movement from simple and finite definitions of right and wrong to more complex ways of distinguishing right from wrong.

Social media is a recent development made possible by the internet which has become very popular across the globe mainly with young people. This is mostly because it affords users the opportunity to interact with one another making it possible to share information, pictures and videos. This new form of social interaction also brings people of different social background together in a forum and enables them to interact regardless of location and time. According to Asemah and Edegoh (2016), social media is a social structure made up of individuals or organizations called “nodes”, which are tied or connected by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige. Obed (2016), stated that social media can also be referred to as a map of specified ties, such as friendship, between the nodes being studied. The nodes, to which an individual is thus connected, are the social contacts of that individual. The network can also be used to measure social capital, which is the value an individual gets from the social network. Social media sites include: Yahoo Messenger, Facebook Messenger, Blackberry Messenger (BBM), WhatsApp, Google (Obed, 2016).

Social media was made possible by web and mobile based technologies, which were used to turn communication into interactive dialogue among organizations, communities and individuals. It has also been described as an interactive mechanism on the internet. The high interactive stance of the social media has made it a vital part of social life all over the world. Kaplan and Heinlein (2015), defines social media as a group of internet-based application that allows the creation and exchange of user generated content.

Social media can be viewed as social instruments of communication which are different from the conventional instruments like newspapers or magazines. They are online content, created by people using highly accessible and a scalable publishing technology to disseminate information across geographical boundaries, providing interaction among people. It supports demonstration of knowledge and information, thereby making the people both information producers and consumers. This feature of making the people information producers and consumers is one of the distinguishing features of social media from traditional mass media that only make the people consumers only (Adelabu, 2015).

One criticism often leveled against the social media is that they are contributing to the decay in moral values (Adelabu, 2015). Every day, one comes across innumerable images and commercials for various products. This excessive amount of media in our day to day lives cannot be sidelined and impacts all those surrounded by it. It is an expression of the society of which we are a part, its mirror-image for all practical purposes and has a far-reaching influence on the social, cultural and moral values of its people (Ciochetto, 2014). The world is changing rapidly today and in its footsteps our core values are changing too. The last two decades on account of globalization have seen an unparalleled change, which has expressed itself in the form of diminishing community values. Social values are getting eroded, moral values have become fragmented and the society is facing an unprecedented cultural evasion (Ronald, 2015).

The world has become a global village with the advent of the internet. The internet has brought about faster ways of communication through the information and communication technology gadgets such as the computer and smart phones.

Today, people from all parts of the world can interact with each other with the aid of social media which has helped to strengthen relationships and brought about new ways of passing information faster and convenient. Social media refers to all applications and websites or blogs that enable people around the globe to interconnect via the internet, chat, and share content, video call among many other functionalities it offers to its users. For a person to be a member of any social media, he or she has to first signup and then sign in to access content and be able to share and chat with other users of that social media platform. Some of the common and widely used social media platforms include Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Snapchat many among others (Olaniyi, 2016).

Over the past two decades, social media have gained so much growth and fame worldwide to an extent that many researchers are now interested in learning more about these social platforms and their effects on the community. Despite the fact that almost everyone in the community is connected to at least one social media platform, the youth (students) are the leading and most fanatic of these social platforms to the point that they even social network while in class or even church.

The use of social media has both negative and positive impacts on its users today. The positive impacts of social media on its users today include making them up to date on the events happening around the globe and also enables them network and stay connected with their fellow youths and friends without physical meetings. It bridges the gap between friends since a person say in Africa can network and interact with his or her friend in the United States. This in turn helps in strengthening relationships. Additionally, users can create pages and groups in the social media platforms based on their professions, faith, among others and this leads to more connections being built and more opportunities being opened for their respective disciplines. This can even lead to more employment opportunities being created for the unemployed youths (Olaniyi, 2016).

Even though social media sites seem to connect more people and make them stay up to date, it leads to isolation socially (Ronald, 2015). It reduces the number of face-to-face interactions amongst the youths because they normally spend most of their time on these online social platforms. An evaluation from a number of studies done by various scientists show that social isolation can cause a number of effects such as physical, emotional, mental and psychological issues in their users (Ronald, 2015). This can in turn lead to depression, anxiety and many other problems. It also leads to misspelling of words and misuse of words and tenses through the use of short forms and abbreviations. This has a high negative impact more so on students because it affects their language capabilities directly and this lead to poor grades in languages (Johnson, 2016).

Also, it exposes young students to online predators who get to woo them into sexual acts such as lesbianism and other general sexual misconducts. It also exposes these teens to pornographic content being spread in some the social groups online. This in turn leads to early pregnancies amongst young girls causing them to drop out of school. It also can lead to contraction of sexually transmitted diseases such as Human Immune Deficiency Virus (HIV) and this can lead to early deaths of our young generation. The morals of these teens is also tampered with as they now get access to immoral literature and videos (Austin, 2017).

Spending long hours chatting in social media sites decreases productivity amongst the youths (Robert, 2017). This in turn causes the youths not to be self-dependent and instead depend on their parents and families for upkeep. The long hours wasted online on social media can be channeled to productive activities that can enable one earn a living or even acquire an education for instance through online tutorials and make good use of online research materials.

Addiction is seen as a great interest in a particular thing to which a lot of time is devoted. When one devotes so much time doing a particular thing more often, he or she is said to be addicted to that thing. Therefore, social media addiction is the act of spending more time on social media than other productive things. Many people today, especially young people who are mostly students spend more time on social media than any other activity. This has affected many areas of their lives. It has affects their academic, social, moral and psychological development. Hence the need to carry out this study on influence of social media addiction on moral development of students.

 Statement of the Problem

There is a public cry of moral degradation everywhere. Good moral development be a concern, due to this, students now exhibit certain demoralized attitude such as fraud, indiscipline, selfishness, materialistic attitude, social disorganization, bad character, violence, corruption, disloyalty many other vices.

Students seem to spent most of their time on social media. They seem to be addicted to it that they no longer have time for their studies which in most cases has led many to joining bad gangs, learning immoral acts like lesbianism, homosexuality, masturbation, and many others. They are used to the extent that  that they no longer have regards for their teachers and the management as a whole.  This has brought about public outcry on which has led to the question of whether their addiction to social media influence their moral development.

It is against the light of the above that this study is carried out to ascertain the influence of social media addiction on moral development of students in Federal College of Education (Technical) Asaba, Delta State.

 Purpose of the Study

The main purpose of this study is to ascertain the influence of social media addiction on moral development of students in Federal College of Education (Technical) Asaba. Specifically, the study sought to examine:

1. the social media sites students are addicted to in Federal college of Education (T) Asaba.
2. the influence of social media addiction on students’ sexual orientation in Federal College of Education (T) Asaba.

• the influence of social media on students’ attitude towards constituted authority in Federal College of Education (T) Asaba.

Research Questions

The following questions were raised to guide the researcher in carrying out the study:

1. What are the social media sites students are addicted to in Federal college of Education (T) Asaba?
2. What is the influence of social media addiction on students’ sexual orientation in Federal College of Education (T) Asaba?

• What is the influence of social media addiction on students’ attitude towards constituted authority in Federal College of Education (T) Asaba.

Significance of the Study

The study could be of benefit to students, teachers (Lecturers), parents, government, field of Primary Education and researchers as a whole.

The study could go a long way in helping the students to understand how social media addiction negatively influence their moral development. This could enable them reduce the use of social media for good moral development and improved academic performance.

It could also be of benefit to the lecturers by enabling them understand the influence of social media addiction on students’ moral development in other to devise a means of reducing the rate of the addiction for better moral development.

Parents could also find this study useful because it would call their attention to the influence of social media addiction on their children’s moral development which could help them work with teachers and other experts to reduce the rate of social media addiction by the students.

The findings of the study could help to call the attention of the government through the National Commission for Colleges of Education to the high rate of social media addiction by the students and how it influences their moral development. This could enable them introduce courses with more practical activities to keep the students busy in other to reduce social media addiction.

Scope of the Study

This study is focused on the influence of social media addiction on moral development of primary education students in Federal College of Education (Technical) Asaba, Delta State, with particular emphasis on social media sites students are addicted to, social media addiction and students’ sexual orientation and social media and students’ attitude towards constituted authority.

Pages:  50

Category: Project

Format:  Word & PDF               

Chapters: 1-5                                          

Source: Imsuinfo

Material contains Table of Content, Abstract and References.