Exploring Social Media Technologies Awareness and Use among Postgraduate Students of Library and Information Science in Nigeria: An Investigative Study

1. Introduction

The rapid advancement of information and communication technologies has had a radical effect in the field of LIS, so much so that information access is presently easily available, and its adoption and use in libraries and information exercises have changed the information philosophy to worldwide access. The mechanical headway has stimulated the use of social media in the field of LIS discipline. LIS is a profession that is made up of people who are passionate about making a positive change in the world and bridging the gaps that exist between people, information and technology (University of Washington Information School, 2017). Library and Information Science (LIS), as a discipline, is becoming highly competitive due to the emerging technologies needed to impart knowledge to students for them to compete with their contemporaries from other disciplines in the labour market. LIS schools, all over the world including Nigeria, are also embracing the use of these technologies such as social media tools for teaching and learning purposes.

The advent of social media has changed the method by which individuals, communities, and/or organisations interact. It must be pointed out that even greater importance has been attached to the use of social media technologies to create, share, communicate, upload information, collaborate and edit generated information content. Social media platforms, for example, Twitter and Facebook have encountered remarkable development in users’ numbers which has caused an expansion of information as data, feelings and connections. Social media applications have advanced gradually into all areas of human lives and impacting how people live, work, play, learn and socialise. It was further posited that social media is a set of applications such as YouTube, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Twitter, and Facebook, that connect persons as they disseminate information via social networking platforms.

In Nigeria, Clement (2019) pointed out that, in 2018, there were about 29.3 million social network users in Nigeria, and that, by 2023 the number is anticipated to get to 36.8 million social network users. Furthermore, Clement (2019) also noted that Facebook users in Nigeria as of 2018 were 22.4 million and it is likely to arrive at 30.4 million in 2023. Similarly, S’Tayo, Adebola and Yahya (2019) distinguished social media as a tool that allows clients to interact, using two-way communication; that is, social media permits an individual with an online account to communicate their views to other individuals with the tools.

It was observed that using these social media sites may become a herculean task if the students are not aware of their existence. That is, awareness of social media technologies is of paramount importance to LIS postgraduate students for their research, personal, and professional development in the 21st Century. Also, LIS postgraduates in their response to such changes ought to be aware of the variety of social media sites available to help them in their personal and academic pursuit. No doubt, social media will continue to grow and new platforms will be emerging. Thus, awareness of social media could have an effect on the utilisation of social media among postgraduate students. The main objective of the study was to assess the level of awareness and use of social media among the postgraduate students of Library and Information Science in Nigeria.

2. Research Questions

This study will be guided by the following research questions:

• (1) What is the level of awareness of social media by the LIS PG students in Nigerian universities?
• (2) What is the frequency of social media use by LIS PG students in Nigerian universities?

• Hypothesis

The following null hypothesis was tested at a 0.05 level of significance.

There is no significant relationship between awareness of social media and the use of social media among LIS postgraduate students.

3. Literature Review

The emergence of social media in this era of global information is the most active internet service that is changing today’s society and it has brought about several developmental changes in the way individuals communicate and interact with each other. Communication has gone beyond face-to-face communication to one-to-many communication, thereby, reducing the rate of time information is sent across from one place to another, making information to be easily accessible and cheap all over the globe. The awareness and popularity of social media in society cannot be over-emphasised because social network seems to have become a household name in society including Nigeria.

Hamzah, Ani, Rameli Noranifitri, Halim, Md Ali, Rahman, Attan, Khairol and Kamri (2021) investigated the level of social media awareness of university students on cybercrime. The study found that the level of university students’ social media awareness towards cyber security is at a moderate level. Moustapha (2022) examined students’ awareness and use of social media among ICT students at Kwara State University, Nigeria, findings revealed that the majority of the students are aware of social media. Also, the result of a study carried out by Okuonghae (2018) on awareness of social media usage for informal scientific communication among 284 librarians in university libraries in South-South, Nigeria, reported that librarians are aware of social media which they use for informal scientific communication but the extent of awareness was low among the librarians. A study carried out by Tolorunleke, Akoji, Ibrahim, and Ishaka (2019) on the awareness and competency of postgraduate students on academic social networking sites in South-West, Nigeria reported that the majority of the students are aware of the social networking sites.

The use of social networks assists in getting access to educational-related materials and other general information. The research from Ajegbomogun and Oduwole (2017) affirmed that the use of social media and networking tools is vital to postgraduate students in the course of conducting scholarly research and in achieving scholarly targets. Similarly, Moustapha (2022) reported that ICT students of Kwara State University use social media sites to make friends, share information, socialize and conduct research.

Some studies such as Ozmen and Atici (2014) and Yang and Dehart (2016) noted that students have positive attitudes towards the use of social networking sites and the use of social media increased frequency of usage (Ozmen & Atici, 2014; Yang & Dehart, 2016). Similarly, Amuda and Tella (2017) and Sahal and Guha (2019) noted that Facebook is the most popular and frequently used social network tool by students while Aboalshamat, Alkiyadi, Alsaleh, Reda, Alkhaldi, Badeeb, and Gabb (2019) submitted that most popularly used social media among the dental teachers and learners were Instagram, Snapchat, and WhatsApp in Saudi Arabia.

The frequent use of social media has proven that many people are aware of its importance in society and that social media applications are relevant and provide great opportunities for business organisations and academic fields including librarianship at a cheap cost and high level of efficiency. Presently, there are many library schools in the country producing LIS postgraduate students to serve the demand for librarians. In the course of training LIS postgraduate students, some library schools and lecturers are now using the great potential of social media to facilitate teaching and learning.

As observed by Mustafa (2018) majority of postgraduate students in society make use of social network sites to gain knowledge and also to stay connected with their social circle. Also, Aba and Makinde (2023) conducted a study to examine the use of social media in libraries and its impact on students at Ambrose Ali University, Edo, Nigeria. Analysis of the result shows that there was a positive relationship between social media usage and the academic performance of students. The study recommended that awareness programs of the use of social media platforms should be provided by the university and library to the students as well as providing access to the use of social media resources to the students.

4. Theoretical Framework

5. Methodology

The descriptive survey research method was used for the study. The sample population for this study includes all postgraduate students in the 16 universities offering postgraduate programmes in Library and Information Science in Nigeria as of the 2018/2019 academic session. Nine hundred and nineteen (919) postgraduate students participated in the survey and 742 were returned and found usable given a response rate of 81%. The data collection instrument was a structured questionnaire developed by the researchers. The questionnaire has Three (3) sections: Section A: This covers the demographic information of LIS postgraduate students. It consists of seven questions comprising the level of study, age, gender, and work experience. Section B: “Level of awareness of social media” measured the level of awareness of social media by LIS postgraduate students with 38 items. The rating scale adopted is Fully Aware (FA) = 4 Partially Aware (PA), = 3 and Lowly Aware (LA) = 2 and Never (N) = 1 Data collected were analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences and results were presented in the form of descriptive statistics of frequency counts and percentages while Section C measured the frequency of use of social media. It consists of 38 items using social media tools such as social network sites, collaborative projects, social bookmarking tools, blogs, microblogs and content communication tools with options such as Daily =6; Weekly =5, Monthly =4, Quarterly =3, Annually =2, Never =1. Copies of the questionnaire were administered to the respondents by the researcher and trained research assistants in each of the sixteen (16) universities for eight (8) weeks. Data collected were analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences and results were presented in the form of descriptive statistics of frequency counts and percentages while simple correlation analysis (Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation method) was used in testing the hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance.

6. Results

6.1 Demographic Characteristics of Respondents

Table 1 presents the demographic characteristics of the respondents. According to the analysis, 531 (72%) are Master’s students while 211 (28%) are PhD students. This showed that the majority of respondents that constituted the population sampled were master students. On the mode of study, the result shows that the highest number of respondents were in full-time study 525 (71%) while 217 (29.2%) were in part-time study. The marital status of the respondents indicated that 455 (61%) were married, 261 (35%) were single, 20 (3%) were divorced and 6 (1%) were widowed. Results on gender show that the majority of the respondents were female 402 (54%) while males constituted 340(46%). This implies that females are dominant to male postgraduate students in the library and information programme. On the employment status of the respondents, results showed that 579 (78%) were employed while 163 (22%) were not employed. Findings from the study also indicated that the work experience of the respondents ranges between 3 years and 22 years with an average of 7.6 years. As for age, the result indicated that respondents’ ages range between 20 years and 62 years with an average age of 32.5 years and a standard deviation of 9.1 years.

Table 1.

Demographic characteristics of the Respondents

• Research Question One: What is the level of Awareness of Social Media by LIS Postgraduate Students?

Table 2 presents the results on the level of awareness of social media by LIS postgraduate students in Nigerian universities. Level of awareness of social networks revealed that Facebook (x̄=3.36) was ranked highest by their mean score rating followed by Google+ (x̄=3.30), while Hi5 (x̄=2.66) had the lowest mean score. Based on the level of awareness of collaborative projects, the result indicates shows that Wikipedia was ranked highest with a mean score rating of (x̄=3.18), followed by the Wiki (x̄=2.93) while other collaborative project tools such as Google Docs, Dropbox, and Skype, GoToMeeting and WebEx and ProofHub scored the least with a mean score of (x̄=2.59).

Table 2.

Awareness of social media tools by the LIS postgraduate students

Results on the level of awareness of social bookmarking tools indicate that other social bookmarking tools such as E-learning tags, Pinboard and Evernote scored the highest mean ranking of (x̄=2.89) followed by Del.icio.us (x̄=2.59) while Reddit had the least mean score of (x̄=2.43). On the level of awareness of blogs, the result revealed that Webs has the highest mean score of (x̄=3.03) followed by blogger.com (x̄=2.94>2.50) while Tumblr has the lowest mean score of (x̄=2.63). Similarly, results on the level of awareness of microblogs indicated that Twitter has the highest mean score of (x̄=3.00) while Emotions has the lowest mean rating of (x̄=2.45).

Results of the level of awareness on content communication indicated that YouTube was ranked highest with a mean score rating of (x̄=3.33), followed by Snapchat (x̄=2.85), other content communication tools such as Zoom, Fleep and Google Photo (x̄=3.00) has the least mean score of (x̄=2.26). To determine the level of awareness of social media by LIS postgraduate students, a test of norm was conducted (see Table 2.1).

Table 2.1.

Test of norm showing the level of awareness of social media

Table 2.1 presents the result of a test of the norm on the level of awareness of social media of the respondents. The maximum score of awareness of social media is 152. A score of 1-51 indicated low awareness, a score of 52-103 indicated moderate awareness while a 104-152 score represented high awareness. 1 (0.1%) of the respondents showed low awareness of social media, 245 (33.0%) showed a moderate level of awareness of social media and 496 (66.8%) revealed a high level of social media. The overall mean index recorded was 106.3989 which fall within the “High awareness” range. This implies that the level of awareness of social media by the respondents was high.

• Research Question Two: What is the frequency of social media use by the LIS PG students?

Table 4 presents the result on the frequency of use of social media tools by the LIS postgraduate students in Nigerian universities. The result on use of social networks indicated that Instagram was ranked highest (x̄ =3.86>3.50) followed by Facebook (x̄=3.85>3.50), Google+ (x̄=3.69>3.50), Linkedln (x̄=3.69>3.50), MySpace (x̄=3.36<3.50) while Hi5 (x̄=3.29<3.50) was ranked the lowest. This implies that Instagram, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn were the main social network tools used by the respondents.

Table 4.

Frequency of use of social media tools by the LIS postgraduate students

The result on the frequency of use of collaborative tools revealed that Wikipedia ranked highest with a mean score of (x̄=3.94>3.50), followed by other collaborative tools such as Google Docs, Dropbox, Skype, ProofHub, Slack, Redbooth, Asana, GoToMeeting and WebEx (x̄=3.50) while Wiki has the least mean score of (x̄=3.17<3.50). The mean score indicates that Wikipedia and other collaborative tools were the major collaborative tools frequently used by the students.

On social bookmarking, findings showed that Del.icio.us was ranked the highest (x̄=3.46<3.50), followed by Reddit (x̄=3.42<3.50), while Digg.com has the lowest mean score of (x̄=3.27<3.50). Inference to be drawn from the result revealed that Del.icio.us was the major frequently-used social bookmarking tool while Digg.com was the least social bookmarking tool used by the respondents. In addition, the average mean of a six-item score is (x̄=3.50) and the mean score of all the items on social bookmarking tools was less than (x̄=3.50) which signified that the respondents do not frequently use the tool. In addition, it could also be attributed to the fact that majority of the respondents were not aware of the social bookmarking tools and, hence, they do not frequently make use of the tools.

On blogs, the result indicates that Web was ranked the highest with a mean score of (x̄=3.88>3.50), followed by other blog tools such as Live Chat, Canva, Feedly and Flipboard with a mean score of (x̄=3.54>3.50) while Tumblr (x̄=3.37<3.50), was ranked the least. This implies that Web and other blog tools such as Live Chat, Canva, Feedly and Flipboard were the major blog tools frequently used by the respondents. Based on Microblogs, other microblog tools such as Twitter were ranked the highest with a mean score of (x̄=3.60>3.50) followed by Scoop. it and Plurk (x=3.52>3.50), while Moodmill (x̄=3.33<3.50) was ranked the lowest. This implies that other microblogs such as Scoop. it, Plurk OGoing and Twitter were the major micro-blogging tools frequently used by the respondents.

On content communication, other content communication tools such as Zoom, fleep, Google Photo, and Hip Chat have the highest mean rating of (x̄=3.78>3.50) followed by YouTube (x̄=3.54>3.50) while Snapchat has the lowest mean score of (x̄=2.69<3.50). The result indicated that other content communication tools and YouTube were the major content communication tools frequently used by the respondents.

To ascertain the frequency of social media use by LIS postgraduate students, a test of norm was conducted (see Table 4.1)

Table 4.1.

Test of norm showing the frequency of social media use by the respondents

Table 4.1 revealed the test of norm on the frequency of social media use. The maximum score of frequency of use is 152. A score of 1-51 indicated low use; 52-103 indicated moderate use while 104-152 showed high use. The overall mean score of use of social media by the respondents is =127.8625 SD 33.19, the mean score falls within the range of 104-152 which revealed that respondents’ use of social media tools was high. 4 (0.5%) of the respondents had a low frequency of use, 120 (16.2 %) had a moderate frequency of use and 618 (83.3%) had a high frequency of social media use. Therefore, the result showed that the frequency of social media use among the respondents was high.

Table 5 revealed that positive and significant relationships existed between social networks awareness (r=0.280, p<0.05), collaborative project awareness (r=0.298, p<0.05), social bookmarking tools awareness (r=0.259, p<0.05), blogs awareness (r=0.125, p<0.05), microblogs awareness (r=0.323, p<0.05), content communication awareness (r=0.820, p<0.05) with use of social media. The analysis also indicates a stronger relationship was observed between content communication awareness with the use of social media tools. This implies that a significant relationship was found between awareness of social media and the use of social media among postgraduate students of Library and Information Science in Nigeria (r=0.351, p<0.05).

Table 5.

Correlation between awareness of social media and use of social media by the LIS postgraduate students

7. Discussion of Findings

The awareness and utilisation of social media technologies among the postgraduate students of Library and Information Science in Nigeria have been on the unparallel rise over the past years since its emergence also the frequent use of these sites is growing among students. Results showed that the level of awareness of social media by the LIS postgraduate students was high. This result is an encouraging development because of the changing nature of technology and innovation, especially in social media application, adoption and use. Postgraduate students in the field of library and information studies are expected to keep abreast of new technological developments to carry out their daily activities effectively. This is not surprising as studies such as Moustapha (2022 posited that there is a high level of awareness of social media tools among students in tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Also, the result on awareness inferred that the majority of the respondents were aware of most of the social media tools such as Facebook, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, Hi5, Myspace, Wikipedia, WordPress, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and Snapchat. This aligns with Tolorunleke, Akoji, Ibrahim, and Ishaka (2019) and Okuonghae (2018) who reported that the majority of the students are aware of most social networking sites.

In addition, the result indicated that the frequently used social media tools are popular among the students and that the students use the social media tools with high levels of frequency in respective of their age, colour and educational level. This result supports the findings of Clement (2019). The results also indicated that Facebook, LinkedIn, Hi5, Instagram, Wikipedia, Webs, Twitter, YouTube and Google+ were frequently used social media tools by the LIS postgraduate students in universities in Nigeria. The finding corroborates that of Ozmen and Atici (2014) and Yang and Dehart (2016) who found that students frequently use social media and its use has positively improved communication while the result of the study also revealed that the majority of the students do not frequently use some social media such as Hi5, Myspace, Reddit, Del.icio.us, Pinterest, WordPress, Flickr, MetaCafe, and Snapchat. This implies that the reason for the lowest frequency of social media could be attributed to the fact that most of the LIS postgraduate students in universities in Nigeria are not aware of these tools and do not have accounts with them, hence they do not use the social media tools.

8. Conclusion and Recommendations

The awareness and utilisation of social media technologies among the postgraduate students of Library and Information Science in Nigeria have been on the unparallel rise over the past years since its emergence also the frequent use of these sites is growing among students across the globe including postgraduate students in Nigerian library schools. Thus, the study established that LIS postgraduate students use social media tools frequently. Also, a high level of awareness, high level of accessibility, and high level of use of social media tools were found in the study.

Based on the above findings, the study recommends:

• ⅰ) Library and information science postgraduate students should constantly improve their ICT skills and competence in the area of social media application since social media tools are constantly evolving;
• ⅱ) Use of social media should be incorporated into the LIS curriculum including training sessions for the students on how to use the media;
• ⅲ) For effective utilisation of social media tools by LIS postgraduate students, heads of library schools, lecturers and university librarians in the various universities should continuously create awareness among LIS postgraduate students about social media sites relevant to their studies or professions.

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