Social Media and Sexual Behaviour: A Study of Undergraduate Students in a Public University in Imo State, South East Nigeria

Objective: To determine the effect of social media use on sexual behaviors among undergraduate students in public universities in Imo State, Nigeria.

Materials and Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study employed multistage sampling technique in selecting 300 undergraduates. Data on social media use and sexual behaviors were collected with self- administered semi-structured questionnaire and analysed using statistical package for social sciences version 22.0. Chi-square test was used to identify statistically significant associations between variables. A p value of < 0.05 was considered significant.

Results: The mean age of respondents was 22.13+ 4.26 years, while 252(84%) were youths (ages 15 to 25 years). The mean age at sexual initiation was 18.25+ 3.67 years. There was 100% awareness of social media, 170 (56.67%) heard about it from friends, while the commonest reasons cited for its use is 213 (71.0%) solving school assignments, while the favorite platforms cited was 102 (91.9%) Facebook. There were statistically significant associations between ever had sex and gender and between use of social media and [the sexually active (p=0.001); type of sexual acts practiced (p=0.000) and number of sexual partners (p=0.000)] respectively.

Conclusions: This study found an association between ever had sex and gender, as well as between use of social media for sexually explicit content and some risky sexual behavior. We recommend that measures such as correct sexuality education should be instituted for these students to help in curbing such use of social media and so minimize risky sexual behaviors and their attendant consequences.