Abstract
This paper dealt with the importance of social media in engaging young people on Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) prevention. The data used in this study, was obtained through a social media survey conducted among young unmarried tertiary graduates between the ages of 15 to 35 who are working in Abuja Nigeria and activities of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) on Facebook from 9 August, 2010 to 30 April, 2014. Respondents were made up of 42.6% males and 57.4% females. The predominant age group is between 26 and 30 (49%). Facebook was the most popular social media site as indicated by respondents. Out of 48% of the respondents who indicated they had sex within the last three months, only 38% claimed to have used condoms and 20% respondents have never had a HIV test. As at 30 April, 2014, NACA Facebook page amassed 2,593 likes. Males were predominant (80%) and 2,404 of the fans are from Nigeria. NACA sponsored competition for youth aged 18 to 29 years on the development of HIV prevention posters attracted a good amount of attention. The winning poster attracted 242 likes and 187 comments and the first runner up got 243 likes and 93 comments. The use of social media networking services to engage young people is recommended to organisations engaged in HIV and other related infections. Key words: Social media, HIV/AIDS, HIV prevention, young people, Nigeria.
Highlights
From 1997 to 2010, social media users grew to 1.5billion and Facebook topped the list with over 901million users.Over 500 million people interact daily with Facebook and Facebook provides an invaluable resource for fulfilling the basic human need for social connection (Kross et al., 2013)
With regards to total number of hours spent on social media sites in a day, the respondents predominantly indicated that they spend between 30 mins to 1 h a day on social media sites
There were important indications that social media is widely used for education, learning and sharing of messages (Figure 3)
Summary
From 1997 to 2010, social media users grew to 1.5billion and Facebook topped the list with over 901million users. Over 500 million people interact daily with Facebook and Facebook provides an invaluable resource for fulfilling the basic human need for social connection (Kross et al., 2013). Majority of social media users fall within the age bracket of 16 to 44 years (Olowu and Seri, 2012). Nigeria has a population of 167 million people (Olokor, 2012) out of which 48, 366, 178 are internet users and 113, 195, 591 are mobile subscribers (Terragon, 2013). Of Nigeria’s population is under the age of 35, and about. 50% below are 18 years old (Ogunlesi, 2013).
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