Investigating electronic media viewing by undergraduates in federal universities in Southwestern Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated electronic media viewing among undergraduates in selected federal universities in Southwestern Nigeria with a view to identifying the contents viewed, purpose of viewing and attitude exhibited during viewing. The survey research design was adopted for the study while questionnaire was used as the major instrument of data collection. Multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select a total of 723 undergraduates across 3 federal universities in Southwestern Nigeria to constitute the sample for the study. The data were analysed with frequency counts, percentages, mean and standard deviation. The findings revealed that movies, entertainment news, general news, games, e-books and educational programmes are the major electronic media contents which undergraduates in Nigerian universities viewed and that the undergraduates viewed electronic media content for the purposes of information, entertainment and socialisation than for academics. On the attitude exhibited by the undergraduates while viewing electronic media, finding from the study established listening to music, social networking and text messaging as major attitudes exhibited. The study also established the multi-tasking abilities of the undergraduates. The study recommended that undergraduates should use electronic media technologies properly for widespread educational purposes and that university authorities should strategically engage the undergraduates in purposeful electronic media usage for assignments, projects and term papers, among others in order to reduce excessive use of electronic media, thereby redeeming their time for gainful exercise.