Use of Mobile Phones in Scholarly Publications: A Review of the Emerging Behaviour of the 21st Century Scholar

Scholars engage in intellectual enquiries which is why they are considered to be the cornerstones of 
any research geared towards solving societal problems or testing phenomena. This makes their 
research outputs needed to be readily available for public consumption. For quite long, scholars 
are rated based on the number of scholarly contributions they make. While mobile phone has 
diffused, adopted and used as part of our everyday life, researchers neglected the dimensions of 
attitudes of scholars for adopting and use of mobile phone technology in the course of their scholarly 
communication. The components of attitudes of scholars for adopting and the use of technologies 
depend solely on their strengths, accessibility and ambivalence. The paper examines the emerging 
behavior of the 21st century scholars in the digital age in using tools like Facebook, Tweeter, blog, 
social networking sites, etc. for accessing and using information. The paper is largely informed by 
consulting different literature and focusing on contemporary issues to support its claims. 
Technology advancement, globalization and its penetration into scholarly community clearly 
indicate how scholars should adopt the technology for increased content globally. Alternatively, the 
paper argued that, despite the potentialities of these online platforms the same cannot be said about 
Nigeria as many factors hinder the possibilities for harnessing these benefits. The study concluded 
that, unless the national bibliography is metamorphosed, the Nigeria’s scholarly contents will be 
less visible and competition with scholarly global environment would be a challenge.