Social Media Addiction among Nigerian Students Abroad
Evidence from a Focus Group Discussion
Abstract
The results of this research provide a detailed account of social media addiction among international students. A qualitative investigation using a focus group discussion was carried out among 25 affirmative Nigerian students studying at one public university in Northern Cyprus. It was found that Facebook is the most used and preferred social media among the students. In addition, the students primarily use social networking technologies for chatting, commenting and posting, reading news feeds, dating, and only occasionally employ it for academic purposes. Hence, the excess use of social networking sites transformed students into addicts as the entire respondents divulged that they use social media for more than 6 hours in a day. It was similarly discovered that depression and anxiety trigger students higher social networking sites involvement. Furthermore, social loneliness was likewise established as a factor that triggers their constant use of social media. This implies that the use of social media reduces boredom and provides maximum relaxation. In addition, higher levels of perceived support from online social networking friends similarly encouraged students to stay more online, thereby resulting in excessive social media use. This study concludes that the utilisation of social media has no direct negative influence on the students’ academic performance, rather has a negative effect on their psychological well-being and health, resulting to sleep deprivation, fatigue, weakness, tiredness and blurry vision.