The prospects and constraints of integrating social media into the nigerian higher educational system: Students’ and lecturers’ perspectives

Abstract

The discussion and debate on integrating social media into the formal education remain largely speculative rather than well informed and certain. Only limited studies and mainly from developed nations attempted to describe specific learning gains and benefits of social media as a formal tool in the learning environment. Studies that attempt to understand students and lecturers’ perspective regarding integrating social media in the formal educational setting are even in their embryonic phase. This paper reports students’ and lecturers’ perspectives on the formal integration of social media platforms into the Nigerian university educational system. The study took a qualitative approach based on online audience discussion with lecturers and students at a large public university in Eastern Nigeria. Results reveal that social media has become very popular among students and might be valuable instruments for teaching as they promote collaborative and cooperative learning among students and lecturers. Yet, issues of security, poor network, distractive tendencies, and addiction beyond academic walls pose challenges to social media use in higher education.