SOCIAL MEDIA NETWORKS AND ASSOCIATED VULNERABILITY TO SEXUAL RISK BEHAVIOURS AMONG UNDERGRADUATES

This study explored web 2.0 popularly called Social media network and the associated vulnerability of sexual risk behaviours of undergraduates. 422 undergraduates served as participants in the study. The participants; 199 males and 223 females were drawn from the population of undergraduates in Nnamdi Azikiwe University and Imo State University. The age of the participants ranged from 17 to 26 years, with a mean age of 22.50yrs and standard deviation of 1.30yrs. The participants were selected through simple random sampling technique. Two hypotheses were formulated to guide the study while correlation design and Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient was the adopted design and statistics for the study. Two instruments: Social Media Use/Abuse Scale and Associated Vulnerability to Sexual Risk Behaviour Scale both developed by Ifeakandu (2011) were used to collate data. After analysis, the result confirmed that there is a significant correlation between use/abuse of social media networks and associated vulnerability to sexual risk behaviours of undergraduates at r = .62, p < .05 (n = 422). Also, the study confirmed that females had more associated vulnerability to sexual risk behaviours than their male counterparts at mean score of 73.44 with standard deviation of 1.106 for females and M = 71.29 and SD =1.859 for males. The study therefore recommended that stakeholders should sensitize and regulate the youths on the positive use of the social media networks while all hands must be on deck to discourage youths from abuse of social media keeping in mind that there are associated sexual risk behaviours with explicit social media consumption.