Assessment of the usage of social media among agricultural extension workers in Kwara State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study assessed the usage of social media among agricultural extension workers in Kwara State, Nigeria; structured questionnaire was used to obtain data. Descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentages and mean were used while chi-square was used to test the stated hypothesis. Findings revealed that (77.5%) of the respondents were males, they fall between age categories 24-30 (33.3%) and 31-40 (48.4%), majority (82.5%) were married and 43.3% are B.Sc holders having 1-10 years of extension experience. There is a moderate level of usage of social media in the study area. The relationships between the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents and the usage of social media revealed that age (x²=80.250, p=0.000) marital status (x²=135.050, p=0.000), level of education (x²=32.333, p=0.000), years of extension experience (x²=112.000, p=0.000 and salary received per month (x²=137.833, p=0.000) were significant with the level of usage of social media. It is recommended that the extension workers should be paid befitting salaries to boost their morale and encouraged to open multiple social media accounts, to take advantage of the benefits provided by social media to improve their knowledge level and finally, the Government should put more efforts in power generation and distribution to improve the power situation in the country in order to make for beneficial use of social media among extension workers.

Keywords: Social media, Usage, Extension workers, ICT, KWADP, Assessment