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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background to the Study
Social media are communication interactive platforms that the contemporary youths pride themselves on and enjoy access to information at wider, varied and faster rate when compared with generations before them. Besides, contemporary youth enjoy social networking relationships and are able to initiate and form personal relationships in distant lands without physical contact with those they enter into relationships with. Like the traditional mass media, they are also means for education, information sharing, entertainment, advertisement, socialization, mobilization, integration and motivation, etc.
Kaplan and Heinlein in Ijwo and Ikani (2011, p. 226) define social media as:
A group of internet-based applications that build on ideological and technological foundations of web-2.0 and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content.
The speed with which social media enable user-generated contents to filter through to communicators is as easy as the touch of a button which connects hundreds if not, thousands of users within minutes and at cheaper rates. No wonder the youths of today find social media platforms so fascinating that they are easily glued to them for hours daily. Another study by Rone Jones in Ibidapo (2017), define social media as: “A category of online media where people are talking, participating, sharing, networking, and bookmarking online”.
Besides, social media are quick access for survey kind of research as well as blogging. Unlike, traditional mass media, social media have specific characteristics which are peculiar to the nature of social media and their users. Among such is audience segmentation which characterizes audience according to special interest. For example, people with special interest would normally form a group that share and exchange information that meet their common interest. Users of Face book for instance, have the opportunity to form relationship that is geared toward common goals and objectives. Audience have the capacity to control whatever information they want to expose themselves to unlike the traditional mass media. In this case, they can decide to pull from a particular social media, a specific information on an area of interest. Social media are also varied and new ones keep springing up by the day therefore, audience have alternatives to choose from for whatever purposes. Again, unlike the traditional mass media where information is controlled by the gatekeeper, social media are not subject to regulations therefore anybody with interest can post whatever information he/she wants. As such, users can generate their own content to suit their desires (Okunna and Omenugha: 2012).
In as much as contemporary youth enjoy these advantages, they are also faced with myriad of challenges that militate against their moral formation. Giving the lack of control of social media posts and information, contents do not always reflect societal values. As such Okunna et al opines that this raise ethical concerns as information sent to social media are not censored therefore, they can present ethical challenges that militate against moral formative values which this study seeks to examine. It is the view of this study that there is no youth that grew up in isolation of moral upbringing. The parents and even older siblings and extended members of the family did their parts to ensure the moral formation of the youth through inculcation of values and beliefs that helped in forming the moral life of the youth. The immediate community through the social structures such as folklores, schools, churches, mosques, etc. also contributed to the moral formative life of the youth. But that as a result of encounter with social media, this nurtured process is heavily impacted upon.
Oekumene (2016), defines moral formation as:
A nurturing process in which a certain sense of identity, a certain recognition of community, and a certain pattern of motivation, evolve. Such formation can be gradual work of culture and upbringing, or it may be self-conscious and intentional. ..
The youth comes from a family and lives within a society that has taught its moral values of nurturing and respect for life and the dignity of the human person. This has also continued to uphold to the youth such moral values as indispensable values upon which the youth should act responsibly and with self-restraint. Therefore, before the advent of social media, the youth already possessed some form of moral values which are influenced by other factors particularly, the social media.
1.2 Statement of the Research Problem
In their effort to advance in communication technology, humans have succeeded in turning the world into a global village as predicted by Marshal McLuhan. As a result, human interaction is now possible with a touch or a click of the button owing to the varied social media networking sites which are easily accessible on the internet. As such, keying into this technological advance successes, Nigerians rank the highest internet and mobile phone users in Africa, (Umeogu, Bonachristus and Ojiakor, Ifeoma: 2014).
These successes notwithstanding, the rate of decline in the moral life of the youths in Nigeria is of grave concern. The survival and progress of any society is dependent on its youths because they are the future leaders of that society. With high dependency on social media and their attendant impacts on the youths, what sort of youths will the Nigerian society produce and what sort of society will Nigeria be? It is in the light of these concerns that the study undertakes to examine the extent of influence social media have on the youths in Jos Metropolis.
1.3 The Objectives of the Study
The objectives of this study are to examine the following:
- To determine how the youths in Jos Metropolis use social media in their day to day living.
- To establish the extent to which the youths prefer social media to other means of communication
- To find out the nature of the influence social media have on the moral formation of the youths in Jos Metropolis
- To determine the risk involved in the use of social media on the youth in Jos Metropolis.
1.4 Research Questions
The following research questions guided the study:
- How do the youths in Jos Metropolis use social media?
- What is the extent to which the youths in Jos Metropolis prefer social media to other media in their day to day interaction?
- What influence do social media have on the moral formation of the youth in Jos Metropolis?
- What are the risks associated with the use of social media by youth in Jos Metropolis?
1.5 Significance of the Study
The researcher hopes that this study would add to existing literature. The findings may also be a useful material for parents to ensure the scrutiny of their children and the kind of social media platforms and materials they are engaged in with a view to safeguarding them. It may also be helpful to policy makers to ensure policies that can regulate profane social media materials through outlawing for duration of time social media platforms that do not comply with such laws.
1.6 The Scope of the Study
The study seeks to examine the extent of social media influence on the moral formation of contemporary youths only in Jos Metropolis. While the researcher recognizes that social media have influence on youths elsewhere, this study will limit itself to the influence of social media only on youths in Jos Metropolis. The researcher has therefore chosen students from four selected Secondary Schools and one tertiary institution. The characteristics of those chosen population comprise both male and female of different ages, religion and educational levels.
1.7 Definition of Terms
Definition of terms explains the operational term in the study i.e. it gives explanation as to how the terms are understood and used in the study.
1.7.1 Social Media
Social media sites consist of a number of internet websites set up to allow user create networks of friends as well as share messages and audio visuals materials which are generated online for the members of the public. Kaplan and Heinlein (2010) classify social media in six distinct categories: Collaborative projects (e.g. Wikipedia), Blogs and micro blogs (e.g. Twitter), Content communities (e.g. YouTube), Social networking sites (e.g. Face book/WhatsApp), Virtual game worlds (e.g. World of War craft), Virtual social worlds (e.g. Second Life). Such contents as generated on social media web are varied, wide, touching on virtually every aspect of life whether morally ethical or not, are current and often meet the needs of especially young people. This explains why young people are ready to spend so much of their time on social media.
In time past, to visit any social media site, users were restricted to internet connectivity through either laptops or desktop computers. To get through to the sites was not as easy as it is today because of poor network systems. But nowadays because of advancement in technology, access to social media sites are made easier by their introduction into the mobile phones and the use of broadband connectivity which makes it easier and cheaper to get connected. Such sites provide an unlimited information ranging from photos download, tips on building relationship and maintaining them, music and even movies, etc. And because purchasing of phones are so easy, virtually everyone has a phone which as explained by Wiki: (https://en.wikipedia.org), provides sites for “highly interactive platforms” that allow individuals, communities and organizations to share, co-create, discuss and modify user generated contents or pre-made contents posted online”. Ironically, because social media platforms are cheaper and open to anybody to generate and post whatever information those users so wish, as a result, all kinds of junkies are loaded on the social media sites which have their adverse effects on users.
1.7.2 The Internet
This is a web-based communication platform that consist of numerous computers that house varied communication materials of intellectual and social nature. As pointed out by Umeogu et al, the internet is an umbrella that connects countless computers that serve as sources of information for millions of people globally. The internet is relevant to this study because it is through the internet that social media sites are created and multitasking are executed. There can be no mention of social media without the mention of the internet. Because of this connection the researcher may sometime use the internet term to highlight an idea for clarity on social media influence.
1.7.3 Moral Formation
The word, moral is the derivative of the word, “Morality”. Morality is the difference between what is good from what is bad. It is based on a set of code of conducts and differs in assertion in the sense that what is morally acceptable in a particular community may not be so in another. Yet, there exist certain universal ways of acting that are universally accepted (Wikipedia: 2015). While the word, formation means the nurtured orientation received by the youth from the family and community within which the youth was born, grew and lives. In the course of the formative life of the youth, certain values were impacted in him/her which shaped the behaviour and attitude of the youth. Such values as can identify the right conduct of the youth which sets him on the part of uprightness or being morally good as opposed to being morally bad. Again as pointed out earlier, Oekumene defines moral formation as:
A nurturing process in which a certain sense of identity, a certain recognition of community, and a certain pattern of motivation, evolve. Such formation can be gradual work of culture and upbringing, or it may be self-conscious and intentional. Any community to which we are members forms us in the sense of orienting us to the world in a certain way, encouraging certain kinds of behaviour and discouraging others. A focus on formation points us towards emphasis on actual communities with their cultures…
This definition reiterates the view of this study that there is no youth that grew up in isolation of moral upbringing. Not only did the parents and even older siblings and extended members of the family did their part to ensure the moral formative life of the youth, the community through its social structures formed part of, and contributed to the formative life of the youth. The community here means the society which with the family of the youth form the social systems within which the youth was born, lives and grows.
It is within these social systems that the youth acquires besides personal values, the values that empower him/her to be morally sound or upright. Values here refer to the formative tools that the family and the community or society handed down to the youth which shape and form his/her behaviour and attitude. Highlighting this, Wikipedia defines values as:
The broad preferences concerning appropriate courses of action or outcomes. As such values reflect a person’s sense of right and wrong or what ought to be. Values tend to influence attitudes and behaviour. Types of values include ethical/moral values, doctrinal/ ideological (religious/political) values, social values and aesthetic values…What ‘makes an action valuable may in turn depend on the ethical values of the objects it increases, decreases or alters…,
The believe that such values as exist within the family/community or society within which the youth lives and which have been impacted in the youth are the outcome of the moral formation of the youth. It is these values that are influenced by social media thus resulting in the adoption of other values contrary to those the youth imbibed from the family and community.
