AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE CONSEQUENCES OF EXCESSIVE BROWSING OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND ITS IMPLICATIONS ON THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE CONSEQUENCES OF EXCESSIVE BROWSING OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND ITS IMPLICATIONS ON THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM (A CASE STUDY OF SOME SELECTED SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ABEOKUTA SOUTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA)

CHAPTER ONE 1.0    

INTRODUCTION 1.1    

BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

            Reading is one of the oldest habits of human civilization. It has been the passion of the greatest personalities of all times. One of the first documentary sources for reading was manuscript, however, accessible only to the elite class of society. Later, the arrival of the Gutenberg printing press ended such discrimination by making the printed word available to all the Gutenberg printing press brought drastic changes to the fundamentally oral society of the day. It was certainly a great jump in humanity’s onward march to the reading society.

            The emergence of the excessive browsing of social media has created an extraordinary change in the educational system. It has made its existence, fully or partially, in the reading is no longer confined to the print reading. The scope of reading sources has changed drastically in the social media revolution to include websites, webpages, e-books, e-journals, chatrooms e-papers email, discussion boards, instant messaging, blogs wikis, and other multimedia documents. Now the potential reader can access and browse the online information from the whole web while using his/her terminal at home.

            The hypertext and hypermedia technologies allow the e-readers to go from one page to another by selecting links in various directions popularly known as surfing. The term surfing of internet was first used by Jean Armour Polly in 1992 and defined it as “browsing the internet while going from one page to another, the internet surfing enables to navigate a world full of interconnected information, discover new sites, read-up-to-date information, and download things from the internet. Surfing the internet has become a daily routine of the new generation. The present generation especially the college students are well versed with the new technologies and their application in the present network society. It has been observed that the internet has fixed deep roots in the lives of the new generations of students than all other technological innovations. In the world is of the opinion that the young generation who have more experience with computers and grow up with this technology will reveal different attitude toward reading in a digital environment.

            This union of the internet and students compels researchers to take a new look at their reading habits. It is reported that corporate giants Microsoft and Adobe Systems have developed sophisticated e-book reader software that enhances the electronic reading experience. Hardware manufacturers such as Gemstar and Franklin continue to produce new reading devices. Yet despite numerous advantages offered by various e-book readers and despite the widespread popularity of personal digital assistants (PDAs) and pocket PCS capable of reading electronic books, the e-book market has thus far failed to materialize. In spite of all new technological development in the screen, text formats, and reading devices like LCE screen, PDF, and Adobe reader have been designed to make e-reading easy; however, screens are yet to optional for continuous in-depth and concentrated reading.

            It is a known fact that excessive browsing of social media has not only affected the reading practices but the educational system as well. Social media has become the World Bank of information containing information on any field of knowledge. It contains a wide range of information sources from the online versions of print equivalents to born-digital sources, image galleries to multimedia reference works, bibliographic indexes to the full-text database, plain text to digitized facsimile, primary to tertiary documents access sources. Lee Gutenberg and McCrary reveal that 93 percent of all the newly produced information is being created in a digital format. The digital achieves like Amazon, internet Archive Google Books, Gutenberg project, Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Directory of Open Access Repositories (Open DOAR), Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB), Netlibrary, Questia, library, and many others provide access to the billions of web pages. The availability of enormous information on varied subjects in one place is supposed to affect the reading choice of social media users. Social media has increased access to information, use of foreign sources, contacts with worldwide readers, and time spent on reading, and has deceased dependence on print sources, contact with print sources, reading in the local language, and reading of books (Loan, 2011).

            Therefore, the present study is conducted to investigate the effect of the internet on the educational system of secondary school students.              

1.2     STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The advent of the internet has brought great relief to human existence; thus, civilization and modernization are not far fetched. However, its advent has also contributed to the decline in education. Students in post-primary school and those in tertiary institutions of learning devote most of their time, fondling their cell phones, others visit cyber-café to access Facebook, Eskimi, 2go, and a host of other internet media (social media) at the expense of concentrating on their education.  

Consequently, excessive browsing introduces individuals to world crime. The youth of today are so versatile in internet manipulation that helps them perpetrate or carry out their evil plans (fraud). Once they succeed they assume a higher economic status and life could not be rosier. Such individuals see no reason to concentrate on education any longer and where they do, they tend to do it with levity hands. These half-baked individuals later become a nuisance to the society they belong to. Based on this, the researcher is curious as to know the extent to which education had declined due to the advent of the internet which produces these social media.    

  1.3     PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

            The purpose of the study is to investigate the consequence of excessive browsing of social media and its implications on the educational system in Abeokuta South Local Government Area of Ogun State.

1.4     RESEARCH QUESTIONS

            The research questions are formulated to direct the study.

(1)        Is there any significant effect of excessive facebook browsing on the academic performance of secondary school students in Abeokuta South Local Government Area of Ogun State?

(2)        Is there any significant effect of excessive Eskimi browsing on the academic performance of secondary school students in Abeokuta South Local Government Area of Ogun State?

(3)        Is there any significant effect of excessive Instagram browsing on the academic performance of secondary school students in Abeokuta South Local Government Area of Ogun State?

(4)        Is there any significant effect of excessive Twitter browsing on the academic performance of secondary school students in Abeokuta South Local Government Area of Ogun State?

1.5     SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

            This research work is significant in many ways. First and foremost, school administrators that are, both private and public will benefit from the findings of this write-up. As it enlightens them about the inherent danger in excessive browsing. It will serve as a guide for them to check or monitor their students especially in the class and during their lecture hour. Also, the government at all levels will have insight concerning the work the student does, especially in post-primary school; using these as a guide the government will deem it fit to review the curriculum periodically so as to bring in more activities which will help to get the students engaged most at times.

            Moreso, parents, guidance, individual student, and the general community members will benefit from the write-up as it enlightens them about the setback caused by excessive browsing. Those who will equally benefit from the write up are: corporate organizations having to do with educational activities and others dealing with adolescents. These organizations will easily lay their hands on this material especially when the decay in education and other related issues is pronounced.      

1.6     SCOPE OF THE STUDY

            The scope of the study is to examine the extents to which excessive browsing affects the academic performance of students in public secondary schools in Abeokuta South Local Government Area of Ogun State.

1.7     DEFINITION OF TERMS

Consequence: are the effect or result, or outcome of something occurring earlier.

Browsing: It is the act of looking through the pages of books, magazines, etc. without a particular purpose, just looking at the most interesting parts.

Social Media: are computer-mediated tools that allow people to create, share or exchange information, ideas, and pictures/video in virtual communities and networks.

Educational System: This is the process of facilitating learning, knowledge, skills, values, beliefs, and habits of a group of people are transferred to other people, through discussion, teaching training, or research.