Problem behaviours among secondary school students: social media usage analysis

The study sought to determine the relationship between social media usage and problem behaviour among secondary school students in Oyo State, Nigeria. 600 secondary school students were randomly selected through multi- stage sampling techniques. The respondents were students from nine public and six private secondary schools in three Senatorial Districts of Oyo State, Nigeria. Data for this research was collected using two instruments “Social Media Usage Questionnaire“ and “Problem Behaviours Scale”. Four research questions were raised and answered to guide the study. For the data analysis, percentages were used to analyse demographic information while Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) and Multiple Regression Analysis were used to determine relationship, joint and relative contribution of each variables. The results obtained indicated that six of the nine observed variables (social media) had significant positive relationship with problem behaviours. Three of the social media variables had no significant relationship with problem behaviours. ‘Youtube’ was the most potent of all the observed social media predicting problem behaviours among adolescents. It was recommended that the school administrators should curb excessive usage of social media and that parents should monitor their wards and children when using social media.