EXPLORING THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA USE ON SOCIAL HEALTH AND ROMANTIC BEHAVIOURS AMONG IN-SCHOOL ADOLESCENTS IN GOMBE STATE

Abstract

This study examined the problems of social media influence by adolescents at various secondary schools across the eleven local governments in Gombe state. It mainly focuses on how the social media influence the adolescents’ sexual behaviours and their social wellbeing. The study was guided by five research objectives, three research questions and four hypotheses that were tested at 0.05 alpha levels. Descriptive survey research method was employed as the research design. However, the study area was Gombe state with only secondary school students as target population. A multistage sampling technique was used to get the representative sample for the study. Ten (10) schools representing 20% were randomly selected using simple random sampling technique. Systematic sampling technique was used to obtain 5% of the population of students out of each selected school, and then convenience sampling was finally employed by the researcher. Structured questionnaire was designed and used for data collection. Data in this study were analysed using frequency counts and percentages, mean and standard deviation as swell as Chi-square. The finding reveals that there was a significant influence in the romantic behaviour engaged by male participants and female participants in the study; X2 (398) = 6.085. P < .05 level of significance. Hence, male participants engaged in high level of sexual behaviours than their female counterpart. Also, there was a great influence of social media on social health of adolescents. The independent variable accounted for 52.8% (X2=0.528). This implies that the social media has an influence on social health of in-school adolescents. Based on this finding, it was recommended among others that both parents and teachers should try as much as possible to set good examples for their adolescent children to follow on sexuality.