SOCIAL MEDIA USE AND SEXUAL BEHAVIOUR OF YOUNG ADULTS UNDERGOING VOCATIONAL TRAINING IN IDO LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, OYO STAT

Abstract

Interest in the reproductive health of young people continues to grow all over the world and their reproductive health needs remain poorly understood and underserved in many parts of the world. In Nigeria, most existing research focusing on the effects of social media on young adults’sexual behaviourare few. This study was therefore designed to investigate the use of social media and its effects on the sexual behaviour of young adults undergoing vocational training in Ido Local Government Area, Oyo State, Nigeria. The study employed a cross-sectional survey design involving a sample size of 422. Out of this, only 413 interviewer-administered questionnaires were returned and found valid for analyses making a response rate of 97.7%. A three-staged sampling technique was used to recruit the respondents (male and female) aged 15-24 yearsfor this study. The questionnaire explored the socio-demographic characteristics, the time spent on use of social mediacategorised into 3 domains namely 0-3 hours (low), 4-7 hours (moderate) and ≥8 hours (high), sexual behaviour, the sources of reproductive health information, factors that motivate social media use and the perceived effects of social media information on the sexual behaviour. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and Chi-square at 0.05 level of significance. Themean age of respondents was19.9±2.8 years. More than half of the respondents (52.8%) were males and 78.5% of them had completed secondary school education while 4.1% of respondents had no formal education. Many (56.2%) started the use of social media between ages 11 to 15 years and the highest used social medium was Facebook (75.8%) followed by WhatsApp (19.1%) with respondents (65.1%) admitting to daily use of social media. The mean age of sexual debut was 16.2±3.8 years and 55.2% of the respondents reported ever experienced sexual intercourse. In the past 6 months preceding the study, findings indicated that 62.7% had had sexual intercourse, 63.6% did not use the condom consistently during sexual intercourse. It was found that close to half (48.3%) reported having had multiple sexual partners.Socio-demographic characteristics of respondents such as age, age at first use of social media, gender and living arrangement significantly influenced their daily social media usage.On daily basis, the males (13.3%) reported higher social media use than the females (7.7%). The use of social media significantly influenced respondents’ sexual behaviour. This indicated that respondents who had had sexual intercourse (14.0%) reported higher social media usage than those who havenever had sexual intercourse (6.5%). Respondents disclosed that unavailability of parents (42.4%) and easy internet accessibility (85.7%)motivated them to seek reproductive health information on social media.The study also revealed that parents, internet and boyfriend/girlfriend were significantly associated with the respondents’ sexual behaviour. An increased number of young people used social media and engaged in activities that could predispose them to risky sexual behaviours especially those who had ever experienced sexual intercourse. Public enlightenment of young persons to the risks of sexuality and social media will go a long way in improving young adults’ sexual behaviour.