EFFECTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE ON RURAL YOUTH FARMERS’ LIVELIHOOD IN OYO STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The world is fast arising in becoming a global village with the use of social media thereby making a non-user or one who uses it less as an indirect outcast. Social media usage allows for a better way of doing things, increased knowledge, attitude and skills thereby bringing about a sustainable livelihood. In-spite of all the advantages of social media usage, its actual use in rural areas of developing countries is still low due to economic conditions and infrastructure availability. Thus, the study examined the effects of social media usage on rural youth farmers’livelihood in Oyo state, Nigeria. A multistage sampling procedure was used to select 150 respondents for this study. Data were collected using a structured questionnire. Descriptive statistics such as frequency counts, percentages and Weighted Mean Score (WMS) were used to describe the socio economic characteristics of the respondents, the livelihoods of the respondents, the types of social media used for livelihood activities, the frequency of various social media usage, the livelihood related information accessed through social media and the constraints associated with the use of social media. Pearson Product
Moment Correlation (PPMC) and Chi-square analysis were used to test the study hypotheses. The PPMC results revealed positive significant relationships between the selected socio-economic characteristics of the rural youth farmers such as age (r ⹀ 0.16, p = 0.050), years spent in school (r ⹀ 0.232, p =0.004), household -size (r ⹀ 0.338, p = 0.000), farm size (r ⹀ 0.168, p =0.039) and years of residency (r ⹀ 0.367, p =0.000) and the effect of social media usage on their livelihood. Also, Chi square results revealed that a significant relationship exists between the frequency of social media usage (ꭓ²=164.553; p= 0.000) and the effect of social media usage on livelihood. In conclusion, the study revealed that the rural youth farmers utilize Facebook mostly followed by Whatsapp while Zoom ranked the least. High cost of procurement of gadgets is the major challenge the rural youth farmers encountered therefore, the study recommends that Government agencies, Agricultural institutions and private organizations should collaborate to provide subsidized smartphones and internet-enabled device for youth farmers. Also, flexible payment plans, discounts, or loan schemes for purchasing gadgets should be introduced so as to ease the procurement of gadgets.