A SURVEY ON STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVES OF SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE IN NORTHERN NIGERIAN HIGHER INSTITUTIONS

Motivation and attention are two fundamental concepts in learning theory. A learning technology tool that motivates and attracts the attention of billions of people in the global digital population is social media. However, people’s perceptions of its usage and purposes vary among individuals or groups, depending on cultural and religious beliefs. This paper examines social media usage among higher education students in Northern Nigeria. A survey research was conducted across North West, North Central, and North East using a structured questionnaire administered to 600 respondents, with 356 responses analyzed. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data using MS Excel. The results show extremely small p-values; 3.8558E-12 for North West, 1.87E-04 for North Central and 5.92E-09 for North East (near zero), all below the alpha level of 0.05. This indicates that social media is not being utilized for academic purposes. The findings also indicate that SMP usage mirrors everyday activities, such as posting and content sharing, excessive time spent online, frequent usage, and entertainments through popular platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, and LinkedIn.