ABSTRACT
This ex-post facto research study determined the influence of social networking on academic adjustment of in- school adolescents in selected secondary schools in Udi local government of Enugu State. The total population for the study is 200 staff of selected secondary schools in Udi local government of Enugu State. The researcher used questionnaires as the instrument for the data collection. Descriptive Survey research design was adopted for this study. A total of 133 respondents made up principals, vice principals administration, senior staff and junior staff were used for the study. The data collected were presented in tables and analyzed using simple percentages and frequencies.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Electronic communication has become an integral part of our global society. Presently, information is at the doormat of everybody because the world is in the era of information technology. This cannot be compared to few decades back when it takes weeks for one to communicate through letter writing to a beloved one within in or outside the country. In this technological era, information is no longer left for only a few privileged people who can afford the use of land line telephone in offices and homes. Even the people in the remotest village in Nigeria and elsewhere can access information through the cell phone, available internet and social networking sites.
Social networking is a means of communication through which tools like wall posts, status updates, activity feeds, thumbs ups and profiles are used and perhaps characterized online communications namely face book, Myspace Metlog, flicker and twitter (Akaneme, Ibenegbu & Nwosu, 2013). Also, Mashable (2015) opined that social networking service is an online platform or site that focuses on facilitating the social relations among people who, for example, share interests, activities, backgrounds or real life.
In the opinion of Ferguson (2007), social networking is online destination which focuses on connecting people they already know and those they do not know. Similarly, Abd-Rahman (2013) described social networking as the use of online sites (social networking sites) for people to get to know new people, share their profiles, trace their old friends, share pictures, videos, publish upcoming events of their societies, and counties.
In operational terms, social networking is a platform through which individuals’ interest, profiles, pictures, activities, events or news and academic issues are shared and communicated so as to maintain and adopt substantial balance between their academic requirement and individual interest. Social networking as advent of era of information is the use of dedicated websites which enable social interaction and applications to interact with other users or find people with similar interest to their own.
Presently, social networking as a new development has been described as a stage for facilitation and development of adolescents’ social adaptation (Subrahmanyam & Green-Field, 2008; Zhao, Grasmuck & Martin, 2008). Also, people use social networking to share their feeling and disposition to individuals of their networking (Young, 2011). It is a platform through which people communicate and disclose their personal thoughts, feelings and life events (Zhao, Grasmuck & Martin, 2008). Operationally, social networking, therefore, imply platform or online media where individual privately unleash their identities, problems and views to life for others in the same network to comment. Social network platform includes 2go, facebook, whatsapp, twitter, instagram, google, to mention a few.