Internet Usage by Nigerian Secondary School Students: A Case Study of Selected Students in Ibadan Metropolis

Abstract

This study investigated the use, extent of use, and the specific purposes for which secondary school students in Nigeria use the Internet. It also studied the factors responsible for the widespread or limited use of the Internet. The study location for this research is limited to Ibadan and its environs. While 20 cyber cafés in different local governments in Ibadan were purposively selected as the study population, the target study population (respondents) were the secondary school students who visit each of the cafés for Internet browsing. The study used 300 questionnaires that contained 20 items subdivided into four sections. The analysis of the collected data using SPSS was purely descriptive. 261 copies of the questionnaires representing 87% of the total copies that were returned and analyzed. Findings indicate that 59.0% of the respondents perceive using the Internet is an inexpensive modern technology to use. Furthermore, 56.3% of these students affirmed that they receive a lot of encouragement from their school teachers to use the Internet. Though motivated to use, yet they identified factors such as uneasy access, lack of good guidance, time consumption, inability to get required information, attached health risk and boredom as barriers to their full exploitation of the Internet. Based on the findings of this study, recommendations were proffered.