TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE                                                                                                            i

DECLARATION                                                                                                       ii

CERTIFICATION                                                                                                    iii

DEDICATION                                                                                                          iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT                                                                                        v

TABLE OF CONTENT                                                                                           vi

LIST OF TABLE                                                                                                      viii

ABSTRACT                                                                                                               ix

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY                                                                           1

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM                                                                          8

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY                                                                                      9

RESEARCH QUESTIONS                                                                                        10

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY                                                                           10

SCOPE OF THE STUDY                                                                                           11

OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF TERMS                                                            12

CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

MEDIA SYSTEMS DEPENDENCY THEORY                                                       14

SOCIAL MEDIA                                                                                                       16

CATEGORIES OF SOCIAL MEDIA                                                                        18

SOCIAL NETWORKING                                                                                          22

DANGERS ASSOCIATED WITH USING SOCIAL MEDIA SITES                      30

SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES COMMONLY USED BY STUDENTS              32

SOCIAL MEDIA- A TOOL FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING                          36

CHALLENGES OF USING SOCIAL MEDIA                                                         38

EMPIRICAL REVIEW                                                                                              41

LITERATURE REVIEW                                                                                           47

CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODS  

RESEARCH DESIGN                                                                                                49

POPULATION SAMPLE AND SAMPLING TECHNIQUES                                  49

INSTRUMENTATION                                                                                               50

PROCEDURE FOR DATA COLLECTION                                                              51

METHOD OF DATA ANALYSIS                                                                            51

CHAPTER FOUR: PRESENTATION OF RESULTS

ANSWERING RESEARCH QUESTIONS                                                               52

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS                                                                                      58

CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

DISCUSSION OF RESULTS                                                                                    60

CONCLUSIONS                                                                                                         62

RECOMMENDATIONS                                                                                            62

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDIES                                                            63

REFERENCES                                                                                                           61

APPENDIX                                                                                                                66

ABSTRACT

The use of social media by undergraduates cannot be overemphasized. Social media sites are online networking applications that is used for interactions by one, two or more people in a place or an organisation. The purpose of this study is to determine the usage of social media sites by undergraduate students in University of Ilorin and it is also to determine the extent to which social media influences the learning process of undergraduates’ students in University of Ilorin, it will also show the extent to which social media influences their communication skills and How they get relevant information from the social media. The study employed the use of structured questionnaire containing 18 items to elicit the responses of the sampled population of 150 undergraduate students in University of Ilorin, Nigeria. The data gathered from the questionnaire was subject to statistical analysis using frequency and mean for the data analysis.The findings from the analysis showed that the research questions were satisfactorily answered. The conclusions drawn from the study is that Social media has very positive influence on undergraduate learning process, Social media has very positive influence on undergraduate information acquisition, Social media has very positive influence on undergraduate communication skills.