Spatial analysis of digital technologies and impact on socio - cultural values in selected communities in Nigeria

Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine the spatial distribution of digital technologies and ascertain whether digital technologies have significant impact on socio - cultural values or not. Moran’s index and Getis and Ord’s statistic were used for cluster and hotspots analysis. The unique locations of digital technologies were investigated through standard deviational ellipse and standard distance deviation, while, the Chi-square statistic was used for test of significance. The Nigerian 2008 Demographic Household Survey report on counts of households with television and land phone was used. Through systematic sampling, 200 households were investigated within 10 wards in Mopamuro Local Government Area (LGA) of Kogi State, Nigeria. Questionnaires were administered to identify households with television and mobile phone and the impact on socio - cultural values: communal gatherings/meetings, local songs and farming. For television, there was 5-10 % likelihood that the clustered pattern could be a result of random chance. No apparent clustering was detected at this scale for land phone. The concentration of televisions and mobile phones across all communities in Mopamuro LGA was high. At 5% level of significance, results showed that the advent of digital technologies have significant impact on socio - cultural values. The study reveals strong spatial dependence of households with television and mobile phone in Nigeria. The findings should enable the orientation of social transformation programmes geared towards preserving socio - cultural values through digital technologies.

Keywords: Digital technology, hypotheses tests, impact, socio - cultural values, spatial analysis