Abstract

In today’s society of rapidly increasing information and technological advances, children and youth are surrounded by a burgeoning array of technologies that are used for communicating information and ideas. Students’ access to affordable social technologies such as blogs, podcasts, wikis and social networks, will for some time to come continue to have an impact on education. The use of social networking sites (SNSs) such as Facebook, MySpace and a host of others, have proved to be extremely popular among students. Pegrum (2009, p. 27) states that “the reality is that students are already using SNSs and the educators have the choice to work with or against them.” The obvious choice is to work with them; hence, this study seeks to explore undergraduate students’ perceptions of the use of SNSs in higher education. One hundred fifty-two undergraduate students of the University of Benin completed a survey questionnaire from which their use and perception of SNSs were examined. Descriptive statistics and t-test for Independent sample were computed and data were also analyzed in light of gender, age, and academic level factors. Findings from the study emphasize the need to reconceptualise staff training and curricular design in order to harness students’ skills in SNSs in higher education.