Roles of social media on polarisation of information disorders among undergraduates of a Nigerian university

This study examined the roles of social media on polarisation of information disorders among undergraduates of a Nigerian university. Descriptive survey design was adopted for this study. The population consisted of 2,806 undergraduates of Faculty of Communication and Information Science (FCIS), University of Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria. The Krejcie and Morgan sample size table was used to select 346 respondents. An adapted questionnaire designed with Google Form was used to gather data from the respondents. Two hundred and ninety-seven (297) responses, representing 86.13% were received. The data was presented in frequency, percentages and mean. Findings revealed that the respondents polarised fake news, rumours, propaganda, hoaxes, trolling as well as biases on Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter (X) and TikTok. Meanwhile, the respondents polarised information disorders because they don’t know the consequences of sharing wrong information and because they want to feel relevant and popular. This study concludes that social media is contributing to information disorders among the undergraduates of University of Ilorin, Nigeria. Among the recommendations of this study is that management of University of Ilorin, media houses, information agencies and bodies should collaborate on orientating undergraduates of the institution on information disorders.