SEX AND SEXUALITY DISCOURSE AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

ABSTRACT

Social media sites are best known as a platform for building social relations with persons who share similar interests, activities, background or real life connections. Over the years, social media have become sources of sexuality discourse and education among students. These social platforms have also provided opportunities for discussing sexualities and this has created concerns among sexual health professionals especially in addressing the impact of the consumption of sexualized content and risk sexual behaviour and attitudes. This research work, present and discuss the findings of a survey on the University of Benin students about their social media usage as it pertains to sex and sexuality. The study adopted the survey design method, with the use of questionnaire as instrument which was administered to 296 users of social networking sites in the department of Mass Communication. 264 of the questionnaires were retrieved and analysed. Findings revealed that students were active users of social networking sites. Findings also revealed that social media contains explicit sexual content displaying images/videos of sexualized content. The findings further revealed that some of the students were actively generating and seeking sexual materials and contents. The study therefore recommends that students should be educated on the proper use of the media. It also recommends that advocacy should be intensified to address the engagement in risky sexual behaviours by students in tertiary institutions.