INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL NETWORKING TOOLS ON THE CHANGING NATURE OF STUDENTS’ INFORMATION ACCESS IN THE FACULTY OF EDUCATION AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA

Abstract

This paper discusses the influence of social networking tools in changing nature of information access by the students in faculty of education, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria. The study was guided by three objectives and three research hypotheses. A descriptive survey design was adopted in this research, with population of four thousand, nine hundred and sixty-six (4,966) and sample size of three hundred and seventy (370) students selected randomly from the faculty of education. The instrument used to generate data is questionnaire and the data generated was analyzed using a non-parametric statistical tool of Kruskal Wallis (H-test) and Mann Whitney (U-test). The paper reviews some related literature on the concept of social networking in relation to information access. However, the finding shows that use of social networking tools has significant influence on extents of using social networking tools for information access among faculty of education students and there was also significant difference between the opinions of respondents on the use of social networking tools to access academic resources and those accessing non-academic resources. The study also revealed that the social networking tools used by the students to access information includes: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WhatsApp, and LinkedIn e.tc. Equally, the paper identifies poor wireless connectivity, erratic power supply as challenges faced by students when accessing information using social networking tools. Possible recommendation was made such as the university library should improve the provision of online library services to the university community and the university management should also improve the network facility for efficient internet access to their students. Finally, the paper concluded that social networking tools are highly used and had influence the students’ information access to both academic and non-academic resources in the faculty of education.