CHAPTER TWO

2.0 Literature Review

2.1 Introduction

Boateng and Amankwaa (2016) defined social media as the application that allows users to

converse and interact with each other. It is an online space that is used by people to connect,

share, communicate, establish or maintain connection with others for various purposes. Social

media is an online platform which enables people to build social networks or relations with

other people who share similar personal or career interests, activities, backgrounds or real-life

connections. Social media is therefore the interaction among individuals in which they create

and share information and ideas in networks. However, social media relies on many

electronic devices like tablets, i-pads, laptops, and Internet-based technologies for connecting

people. Thus, social media can be described as technologies that facilitate social interaction,

make collaboration possible, and enable deliberation among people at the global level.

Boyed & Ellison (2007) define social media as Internet-based services that allow individuals

to construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other

users with whom they share a connection, and traverse their list of connections and those

made by others within the system. According to Ali, Iqbal & Iqbal (2016), social media is the

collection of applications such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, LinkedIn and YouTube,

among others, that link people together as they share information through social networking.

As indicated by Junco, Heibergert & Loken (2010), social media is referred to as a collection

of Internet websites, services, and practices that support collaboration, community building,

participation and sharing. From the above, it can be deduced that social media is the platform

that gives individuals the opportunity to interact, using two way communication, such that it
allows anyone who has an online account to share their opinions with other social media

users.

Social media has become one of the prominent communication tools, particularly in the

school community. Talaue, Alsaad, AlRushaidan & AlHagail (2018) emphasise that social

media platforms help with access to information and educational-related materials.

Considering the aforementioned, many students and instructors are using social media as a

teaching and learning tool. More so, academic institutions are increasingly using social media

platforms, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, to connect with current and potential students and

to deliver instructional content (Paul, Baker, & Cochran, 2012) Therefore, social media

platforms allow students to interact with one another, their teachers and communities that

share in their education and related activities (Pardo 2013). Bearing this in mind, many

universities now maintain profiles and groups on social networking sites such as Facebook,

where students and faculty can interact, share resources and express ideas Conversely,

Lenhart, Purcell, Smith & Zickuhr (2010) assert that not all students interact constantly on

social media platforms for academic purposes. This suggests that social media platforms are

explored by students for different reasons. Junco & Cotton (2012) affirm that time spent by

student on social media is slightly negatively related to time spent studying. In this same

manner, Pempek, Yermolayeva & Calvert (2009) declare that most students spend valuable

hours daily on social media platforms. Rideout (2012) reveals that young people spend time

on social media more than twice the average amount of time spent in school each year. This

supports the position of Subrahmanyam & Patricia (2008) who underscore that using social

media sites has both negative and positive effects, because there are harmful ways in which

the Internet can be used.

2.2 Historical Evolution of Social Media

used written correspondence delivered by hand from one person to another. Social media are

mere extension and explosion of traditional word of mouth networks (Sajithra & Patil, 2013).

This primitive delivery system would become widespread and streamlined in future centuries

(Hendricks, 2013). It therefore makes sense to take a step back and provide an insight

regarding where social media came from and what they include.

In 1972, the telegraph was invented. This allowed message to be delivered over a

long distance far faster than a horse and rider could carry them. Although telegraph

messages were short, they were revolutionary way to convey news and information.

Important discoveries happened in the decade of the 1980s: The telephone in 1980 and radio

in 1981. They have become more sophisticated than they were when they were invented.

They allow signal exchange (Hendricks, 2013).

In 20th Century, technology began to change very rapidly. After the first super computers

were created in 1940s, scientists and engineers began to develop ways to create networks

between those computers, and this later lead to the birth of the Internet. The earliest form of

the Internet included CompuServ, developed in 1960s. Primitive forms of email were also

developed this time (Hendricks, 2013). And it was Ray Tomlinson who invented Internet

based email in late 1971. In 1970s networking technology had improved, and in 1979

UseNet allowed users to communicate through a virtual newsletter. Usenet is a worldwide

distributed Internet discussion system. It was developed by Duke University graduate

students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis in 1980 (Sajithra & Patil, 2013).
According to Hendricks (2013) in 1980s home computers were becoming more

common and social media was becoming more sophisticated. Internet relay chats, or IRCs,

were used in 1988 and continued to be popular well into 1990s. IRC is a form of chatting.

Originally designed for group chatting in discussion forums, this also allowed one-to-one

communication via private message as well as chat and data transfers (Sajithra & Patil,

2013).

According to Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) the era of social media as we understand

it today probably started when Bruce and Susan Abelson founded ‘‘Open Diary,’’ an early

social networking site that brought together online diary writers into one community. After

the invention of blogging, social media began to explode in popularity (Hendricks, 2013).

The term ‘‘weblog’’ was first used, and truncated as ‘‘blog’’ later when one blogger jokingly

transformed the noun ‘‘weblog’’ into the sentence ‘‘we blog (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). In

1999, the first blogging site became popular, creating a social media sensation that’s still

popular today (Hendricks, 2013).

The first recognised social media site, Six Degrees, was created in 1997 (Boyd &

Ellison, 2007). SixDegrees.com allowed users to create profiles, list their Friends and,

beginning in 1998, surf the Friends lists (Ibid.). Sites like Myspace and LinkedIn gained

prominence in the early 2000s, and sites like Photobuket and Flickr facilitated online photo

sharing. YouTube came out in 2005, creating an entirely new way for people to communicate

and share information with each other across great distances (Hendricks,
2013).

By 2006, Facebook and Twitter both became available to users throughout the world.

These sites remain some of the most popular social media on the Internet. According to

ExactTarget (2014) Facebook, QQ,  Qzone, WhatsApp,  WeChat, Google+, LinkedIn,

Twitter, Tumblr and Tencent Weibo ranked as the top 10 social platforms on the globe

popping up to fill specific social networking niches. Today, there is a tremendous variety of

social media tools available to students, and many of them can be linked to allow

crossposting. For example one can be playing YouTube videos and sharing the activity with

Friends on Facebook or Twitter. This creates an environment where users can reach the

maximum number of people without sacrificing the intimacy of person-to-person

communication.

2.2.1 Types of Social Media

Considering that social media are in different categories, Kaplan and Haenlein (2010:62)

tried

to classify social media into six distinct categories:

Collaborative Projects

In the most general sense, collaborative projects are a special form of social media

application that enable the joint and simultaneous creation of knowledge related content by

many end-users. Whereas blog content is authored by a single person or a few editors and

may
later be commented on by others, collaborative projects are different in that they allow all

users

to equally post, add, or change content. In this sense they are probably the most democratic

form of social media. Collaborative projects allow community of people to add and edit

content

in a community-based data base.

There are different types of collaborative projects and they include:

2.2.1.1 Wikis

Wiki means “quick” in the Hawaiian language and its originator, Microsoft Encarta

described a wiki as a type of server software that enables users to create or alter

content on a Web page. Wikis are interlinked web pages based on the hypertext

system of storing and modifying information. Each page can store information and

is easily viewed, edited, and commented on by other people using a web browser.

Functionally, a wiki is meant to engage individuals to regularly update wiki pages

in a collaborative fashion, to add new information, and to create links between

pages. There can be benefits to student engagement when a wiki is employed as part

of a blended learning approach (Neumann & Hood, 2009). One well known

example of wiki is Wikipedia, a free online encyclopaedia that makes use of wiki

technology. Wikis helped to transform the web into a collaborative environment

(Desilets et al., 2005). A wiki enables readers to create and edit encyclopaedia
articles.

2.2.1.2 Social bookmarking sites or collaborative tagging services

The second type of collaborative project is social bookmarking sites, or

collaborative tagging services. They allow users to organize and share links to

websites; interact by tagging website and searching through website bookmarked

by others that can subsequently be organized in the form of tag clouds: visual

representations of tags, the importance of each indicated by its font size or colour.

The resulting classification of content is sometimes referred to as folksonomy, a

portmanteau of folk and taxonomy. The most widely known representative of this

type of collaborative project include Reddit, StumbleUpon, Digg and Delicious.

Delicious was founded in 2003 and today has more than 5 million users and 1 billion

linked bookmarks (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2014). Online forums or message boards

The third type of collaborative project is online forums or message boards, via

which people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. As opposed

to wikis, forums usually do not allow users to edit content posted by others, but

rather only respond to or discuss this content within their own postings. The right

of editing is limited to forum administrators or moderators. Also, forums only count

as collaborative projects when their focus is on the joint creation of knowledge

(Kaplan & Haenlein, 2014).

2.2.1.3 Review sites

relevance in human life. Here interaction is by voting for articles and commenting

on them. Prime examples in this category include Propello, TripAdvisor and

Epinions.com. Review sites usually employ some form of reputation system that

allows them to compute reliability scores based on ratings received within user

reviews. These systems are designed to avoid strategic manipulation of the content

posted (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2014).

2.2.1.4 Blogs

Blogs are Web information sharing technology (Boulos, Maramba, & Wheeler, 2006).

According to Kaplan and Haenlein (2010), blogs are the social media equivalent of personal

web pages and can come in a multitude of different variations, from personal diaries

describing

the author’s life to summaries of all relevant information in one specific content area.

Functioning as an online journal, blogs have unique date entries about an issue with the most

recent comments shown first in reverse chronological order (Mayfield, 2008). Composed of

text, image, videos, commentary, and links to other Web sites, the contents are contributed by

individuals or a group of both professionals and amateurs. Boyd (2006) distinguished blogs

from generic Websites in that blogs capture ongoing expressions, not the edits of a static

creation and because the expressions are captured locally, not in a shared common space.

Moreover, blogs are easily subscribed through RSS technology. Popular blogs include
Wordpress, Blogger, Movable, LiveJournal, and Xanga. Although blogs did not originate in

education sectors, they have become useful in various educational levels and settings, and as

an authoring tool. According to Kist (2013) Blogs offer students the chance to keep

multimedia

records, incorporating video and sound files, as well as images into their written record. The

ability for students to comment on each other’s blogs allows classroom discussions to

continue

around the clock. Åkerlund (2011) remarked that the assignment to the students in traditional

teaching is often based on production of written texts that are submitted to the teacher and/or

presented to the class. With blogging from and the use of cameras inside or outside the

classroom, the mission can be to tell a factual story in words and pictures. Thus engaging in

dialogues in the form of blog comments are associated with positive attitudes towards online

peer interaction and academic achievements, as well as positive motivation to learn from

peers

(Yang & Chang, 2011).

2.2.1.5 Content Communities

Content communities according Dewing (2012) allow users to share photos or videos

and commenting on other users’ submission. They allow users to organize, share and

comment

on different types of contents such as images, videos. The main objective of content

communities according to Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) is the sharing of media contents
between users. Content communities exist for a wide range of different media types,

including

text (e.g., BookCrossing), photos (e.g., Flickr), videos (e.g., YouTube), and PowerPoint

presentations (e.g., Slideshare). YouTube footages enable direct access to a vast array of

performance techniques, interpretative decisions and visual cues that can be replayed and

reviewed at will, thus affording a learning tool of great potential thus it may be used as a tool

to inform and display and as a forum for critical analysis and commentary (Jones & Cuthrell,

2011). Since its creation in February, 2005, YouTube saw rapid growth; sixteen months after

its creation, 100 million clips were being viewed per day (comScore, 2006). Exposure to

YouTube as a teaching tool in the curriculum has been beneficial: the development of critical

awareness and judgement in that forum would appear to have contributed to this cohort being

willing to engage extensively with this audio-visual resource as a tool for personal learning

(Monkhouse & Forbes, 2015). YouTube was established primarily to enable users to share

personal objects, experiences and observations with the world (Kietzmann, Hermkens,

McCarthy & Silvestre, 2011).

Social Networking Sites

This category of social media allow users to connect by creating personal information

profiles, inviting friends and colleagues to have access to those profiles, and sending

messages

between each other (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). SNSs have achieved phenomenal success

since
the launch of sixdegrees.com in 1997 (Kent, 2008). According to Statista 1.4 billion people

used social networking sites around the globe in 2012; by 2016, this number will grow to an

estimated 2.13 billion. While Facebook remains the dominant platform with just over 1.5

billion registered users many other platforms and apps have considerable audiences. Created

in 2004, Facebook according to NOIPolls (2016) is the most popular SNS in Nigeria. To join

Facebook, a user had to have a harvard.edu email address. Beginning in September 2005,

Facebook expanded to include high school students, professionals inside corporate networks,

and, eventually, everyone. The change to open signup did not mean that new users could

easily

access users in closed networks—gaining access to corporate networks still required the

appropriate dotcom address, while gaining access to high school networks required

administrator approval (Boyd and Ellison, 2007). Facebook allows each user to create a

profile, updating it with personal information

such as home address, mobile phone number, interests, religious views, and even data like

relationship status. In addition to creating individual profiles, Facebook users can also

“designate other users as friends, send private messages,” join groups, post and/or tag

pictures

and leave comments on these pictures as well as on either a group’s or an individual’s wall

(Grossecka et al., 2011). Other SNSs include Pinterest (a site where the user can “pin” the

things he/she likes in a particular category to create a “board” to group them all together, for
example, future research ideas) and Instagram (a site dedicated to taking pictures and

allowing

them to tell an entire story) allow members to instantly see the creativity of a friend and can

help the user to brainstorm new ideas (Diercksen, DiPlacido, Harvey & Bosco, n.d.).

Virtual Game Worlds

The virtual game worlds have the features of choices, the framing of the game world

through a set of rules for how to interact with it, and the possibility of interacting with the

game

environment. In virtual game worlds users are usually required to follow strict rules that

govern

their behaviour (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2009). Many multi-player worlds are intrinsically

associated with the role-playing game genre, inspired in its computerised format by the

tabletop

role-playing games; “you” as player inhabit the body of a character, your avatar, through

whose

eyes you see the world (Klastrup, 2003). Virtual game world has no definite outcome, the

game never stops (in principle; in practice virtual world publishers may go bankrupt!), and

hence you can never win the game (Ibid.). Generally game world has an open structure within

which many variations of the game rules can be carried out, however many in-world

activities
actually have finite goals with predetermined methods of completion, such as quests.

Klastrup

(2003) noted that the implicit goal here is to improve the “stats” (statistics of health, stamina)

and skills (dexterity, intelligence, fighting skills with sword, arrow) which the character is

born

with by gaining experience points, which at some point sends the character to a new “level”

where he or she gains access to more skills, new objects in the world, improved health etc. In

Sony’s EverQuest for example, one needs to be a wizard to perform magic or a cleric to heal

others. In commercial worlds a stats and skills structure is typically not implemented, rather it

is through activities and wealth your character gains a reputation and progresses in the social

hierarchy (Klastrup, 2003). However, virtual game worlds often do not allow one to engage

in

economic activities with other users within the world, including the sale and purchase of

content. Instead, such activities are conducted using means from outside the world, such as

the

online auction house eBay and virtual game worlds have also reached the interest of

academics

(Kaplan & Haenlein, 2009). Generally, the urge to advance one’s character, socially or

“statistically” often remains an important part of the motivation for returning to the world

(Klastrup, 2003). The popularity of virtual game worlds have been on the increase. The

applications that have gained popularity in recent years, as standard game consoles include
Microsoft’s X-Box and Sony’s PlayStation. They now allow simultaneous play among a

multitude of users around the globe.

Virtual Social Worlds

EDUCAUSE (2006) described virtual social worlds as online environment whose

“residents” are avatars representing individuals participating online. Users of virtual worlds

design their environments and often their avatars as well, from gender to clothing and

hairstyle,

and control how those avatars communicate, move, create things, and interact. The

functioning

of a virtual world can mirror that of the real world, or it can allow residents to do such things

as fly, wander around underwater, or teleport themselves to other locations (Klastrup, 2003;

Papp, n.d.; EDUCAUSE, 2006). Having lived in the world for so long that you have had

significant experiences or experienced significant changes you have shared – or want to share

– with other players also familiar with the world, your story of “the world as lived” can,

retrospectively, become a compelling story to be told (Klastrup, 2003).Furthermore, it also

seems closely related to the experience of the emergence of a social

space (for instance in massive multi-player games a guild, or an in- or out-of-world

community

founded on a common interest) – so it could easily also be a story of inclusion into or

exclusion

from smaller or larger social networks (Ibid.). What we find in virtual worlds is exactly
performances (people acting) and thus, transposing but of real events, realised and performed

by players (and subsequent readers) in interaction with each other and the world, which

would

retrospectively make good stories (Klastrup, 2003). Today’s virtual worlds are immersive,

animated, 3D environments that operate over the Internet, giving access to anyone in the

world.

Although many online games take place in such environments, the concept of a virtual world

does not require the elements of a game, such as rules or an explicit objective. Residents of a

virtual world have the freedom to do and be nearly anything they want, limited only by the

design of the environment (EDUCAUSE, 2006).

2.2.3 Functions of Social Media

Considering that social media offer different opportunities, Kietzmann, Hermkens,

McCarthy, and Silvestre (2011:423); and Kietzmann, Silvestre, McCarthy and Pitt (2012)

provided a framework for examining the functionality of social media. According to them,

the

seven functional blocks of social media are anchored on:

 Identity: The identity functional block represents the extent to which users reveal

their

identities in a social media setting. This can include disclosing information such as

name, age, gender, profession, location, and also information that portrays users in

certain ways. Aggarwal (n.d) is of the opinion that social media contain a tremendous
information about the individual in terms of their interests, demographic information,

friendship link information, and other attributes. This can lead to disclosure of different

kinds of information in the social network, such as identity disclosure, attribute

disclosure, and linkage information disclosure. For instance, Kaplan and Haenlein (2010)

explain that the presentation of a user’s identity can often happen through the

conscious or unconscious ‘self-disclosure’ of subjective information such as thoughts,

feelings, likes, and dislikes. According to

Steinfield, Ellison, Lampe, and Vitak (2012), the information disclosures on social

media are key to their successful functioning──facilitating relationship initiation, dev

elopment, and maintenance that permits the establishment of bridging and bonding so

cial capital. Identity is core to many social media platforms.

 Conversations: The conversations block of the framework according Kietzmann et al

(2011) represents the extent to which users communicate with other users in a social

media setting. Many social media platforms are designed primarily to facilitate

conversations among individuals and groups. These conversations happen for all sorts

of reasons. People tweet, blog, ping and chat to meet new like-minded people, to find

true love, to build their self-esteem, or to be on the cutting-edge of new ideas or trending

topics. Social media makes it easy for one to get involved discussion by answering

questions or taking part in the conversation without having to take a day off school.

Cabral (2011) express the opinion that social media is a web-based technology that
transforms how people communicate by enhancing interactive conversations. There is

more about conversation than identity in most social media networks.

 Sharing: Sharing represents the extent to which users exchange, distribute, and

receive

content. The term ‘social’ often implies that exchanges between people are crucial

(Kietzmann et al, 2011). Social media technologies comprise a wide range of tools and

technologies, such as media sharing sites, blogs, social bookmarking sites, virtual

communities, SNSs, and virtual worlds. These tools provide people with various ways

to interact and share information and knowledge with friends and the public. Steinfield

et al (2012) are of the opinion that rich interaction such as sharing photos and videos among

friends can enhance and sustain strong ties that are a source of bonding

social capital.

 Presence: The framework building block presence represents the extent to which users

can know if other users are accessible. It includes knowing where others are, in the

virtual world and/or in the real world, and whether they are available. In the virtual

world, this happens through status lines like ‘available’ or ‘hidden.’ Given the

increasing connectivity of people on the move, this presence bridges the real and the

virtual (Kietzmann et al, 2011). Social media afford users who prefer to engage in realtime

communication the platform to stipulate their presence or status line indicator,

along with a suitable mechanism through which these users can contact each other and
interact.

 Relationships: The relationships block according to Kietzmann et al (2011) represents

the extent to which users can be related to other users. By ‘relate,’ they mean that two

or more users have some form of association that leads them to converse, share objects

of sociality, meet up, or simply just list each other as a friend or fan. The popularity of

social media by implication, provide a simple interface for individuals to establish some

form of association.

 Reputation: Reputation is the extent to which users can identify the standing of others,

including themselves, in a social media setting. Reputation can have different meanings

on social media platforms. In most cases, reputation is a matter of trust, but since

information technologies are not yet good at determining such highly qualitative

criteria, social media sites rely on ‘mechanical Turks’: tools that automatically

aggregate user-generated information to determine trustworthiness.

 Groups: The groups’ functional block represents the extent to which users can form

communities and sub-communities. The more ‘social’ a network becomes, the bigger the

group of friends, followers, and contacts. Facebook and WhatsApp have groups, for

instance, with administrators who manage the group, approve applicants, and invite

others to join. The direct implication of groups is fairly straightforward. It can be

assumed that a social media community would enjoy a way to group its users, even

when the number of likely contacts is low for each member initially. Groups in social
media are more than just alisting of users.

2.2.3 Challenges of social media network

Despite the benefits of social media on student learning and achievement with respect to

knowlede sharing, Rithika & Sara (2013) underline that even when social media is used for

an educational purpose, students incorporate the technology into their lives in a way that may

differ from the intentions of the course instructor. Extant literature has provided an array of

challenges of social media on students’ academic life. O'Keeffe & Kathleen (2011) highlight

the negative impacts of social media to include accessing inappropriate content, online

harassment, and cyber bullying.

The following challenges are the most prominent ones posed by social media as shown in the

literature.

2.2.1 Internet Addiction

Decades ago, the main issue was the addiction to television; today’s issues deal with Internet

addiction and the increased amount of time young people and adults spend searching the

Internet.

Students can get very involved in social media activities, such that they become social media

addicts. Due to this addictive behaviour, students use social media even while in the

classroom,

which creates a disturbance for other students and concentration issues for them. Inability to

carefully follow lectures affects their grades. Many students spend much time on their

laptops,
tablets, desktop computers and smart phones to check Tweets and status updates of their

friends

and families. Addiction to the use of social media platforms can squander an individual’s

time that could be used for profitable tasks and exercises. Christakis & Moreno (2009)

consider addiction to social networks to be capable of frustrating precious time and the lives

of individuals.

2.2.2 Distraction

Spending immeasurable hours on social sites can deflect the focus and concentration from a

particular task. Thus, excessive use of social media networking takes most of the time of

students and redirects it towards non-constructive, sometimes unethical, deceptive and/or

improper activities. As a result, social media platforms increase students’ tendency towards

non-instructive, unscrupulous and inappropriate activities. Students have been found

oftentimes utilising social media to while away time and for purposes which disengage them

from real academic engagement.

The results of a study by Owusu-Acheaw & Larson (2015), showed that the use of social

media

had affected students’ academic; most of the respondents used social media sites to chat

rather

than for academic purposes.

2.2.3 Anti-Social Behaviour

Anti-social behaviours are actions that are not acceptable in a given society. However, some

of
these unacceptable actions do find expression on social networks and thereby make its users

vulnerable to such. Social network websites grab the attention of some students and then

divert it towards unethical and inappropriate practices. Some students, instead of taking

advantage of

social media for learning purposes, have diverted their attention to, erroneous usage which

includes sexting, hacking, fraud and scams. Several cases are available where people have

committed fraud and scams through online networking. According to Fodeman & Monroe

(2009), many students use social media platforms to post embarrassing, humiliating, and

hurtful content in text, photos, and videos which harm others. Engaging in these habits may

impede students’ studies and academic life.

2.2.4 Cyber Bullying

Cyber bullying involves any behaviour performed through electronic media by individuals or

groups that repeatedly communicates hostile or aggressive messages intended to inflict harm

or discomfort on others (Tokunaga, 2010). Cyber bullying uses different forms of writing and

posting mean or inappropriate things online. These include threatening messages, sexual

harassment, and ridiculous posts on somebody’s personality, posting of lies, rumours or

gossip, and encouraging others to share and circulate the posts. Lenhart, Duggan, Perrin,

Stepler, Rainie & Parker (2015) postulate that cyber bullying among students is associated

with their increased access to social media platforms.

2.2.5 Writing and Spelling Skills Deficiency

Students generally utilise slang words or word abbreviations on long range interpersonal

communication when interacting on social media platforms. This habit has the capacity to

affect their communication skills with respect to writing and spelling. Some social media

users often depend on their smart phones for language structure and spelling check highlights.
This reduces their command of language and language use and their creative writing skills

(Hashem, & ElBadawy, 2015).

2.2.9 Problems of Social Media

The numerous problems of social media usage have recently been the major focus of

attention worldwide (Buhari & Ashara, 2014). Even though many schools have created many

strict rules that forbid the use of handheld technology during school activities or that block

certain social media applications, many students are still able to connect during lecture hours

as they please (Subrahmanyam & Greenfield, 2008). According to moralists like Onah and

Nche (2014) while social media have fuelled or deepened the level of immorality among the

youths in the country; new acts of immorality have cropped up as result of the negative

influences available on these social sites. According to them, some of the moral issues that

have arisen from the abuse and obsession with social media include: Sexual promiscuity,

Internet crimes, indecent dressing and sexual harassment, loss of sense of sacredness of

human

life and neighbourliness, impatience and quick syndrome. Other scholars have equally

expressed their concerns about the problems of social media. They are angered that social

media have caused distractions during instruction time (Al-Sharqi, Hashim & Kutbi, 2015),

encourage terror (Buhari & Ashara, 2014; Bloem et al., 2013), cause students to become less

sociable, make students become mentally dull (Al-Sharqi, Hashim & Kutbi, 2015; Bloem et

al., 2013).
Bloem et al., (2013) remark that social media have brought us attention and knowledge

deficits that tend to darken the bright benefit which was so badly sought after. They have

given

rise to information overload. Information is causing lack of focus and flow and this corrodes

the productivity and innovation capability of students (Bloem et al., 2013). Based on the

information in our profiles, social media will automatically bury all true serendipity if we do

not watch out, and thus also eliminate an important source of creativity and innovation,

resulting in increasing cocooning and tunnel vision (Bloem et al., 2013).