SOCIAL MEDIA AND ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR AMONG THE YOUTH IN NIGERIAN UNIVERSITIES: MYTH OR REALITY

Although the early promises of social media usage focuses on strengthening and promoting positive social behaviour among the users by given voice to the voiceless and turning the world into utopic connected village, nevertheless, in recent years, social media is also linked with anti social behaviours online particularly among the teeming youth. This study examined the effect of social media on anti-social behaviour among the Nigerian University students with special reference to Universities located in Kano State. Survey method using cross sectional design was used and data was collected quantitatively by administering questionnaires to a total of 330 undergraduate students. Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used in testing the hypotheses. The findings shows that knowledge acquisition has a significant negative relationship with anti-social behaviour. Also, sharing information has a significant negative relationship with anti-social behaviour. However, result shows that interpersonal behaviour has no significant negative relationship with anti-social behaviour among students in public universities in Kano- Nigeria. The study conclude that the more university students engaged in knowledge acquisition and information sharing on social media the less likely they engaged in anti-social behavior like harassment, cyber bullying, blackmailing, and involvement into fraudulent activities like financial scam or yahoo-yahoo, impersonation, simulation, among others.