THE INFLUENCE OF ENTERTAINMENT MEDIA ON YOUTH ATTITUDES TOWARD EDUCATION IN NIGERIA
Keywords:
Entertainment Media, Mouth Attitudes, Education, Nigeria, Mixed-Methods, Academic Motivation, Social Media.Abstract
The study investigated the effect of entertainment media on attitudes of the youths towards education in Nigeria. As more and more young people have become exposed to digital entertainment, like social networking, streaming, music videos, celebrity culture, and more, there are concerns regarding the implications of these for education and academic engagement. The research design used in the study was a mixed-methods research design that comprised a convergent parallel design because quantitative and qualitative approaches were used. The respondents were sampled from 428 students from secondary schools, and 20 respondents, consisting of students, teachers, and parents from tertiary schools, were interviewed for qualitative data. The data were analysed quantitatively using descriptive and inferential statistics such as percentages, correlation and regression and qualitatively, thematically. Results indicated that most participants spend a considerable amount of time every day engaging in entertainment media and that most indicated that their engagement with entertainment media had an impact on their attitudes regarding education. The study revealed that there is a significant relationship between the consumption of entertainment media and the decrease in academic motivation, the decrease in reading culture and the increase in entertainment lifestyles. It also found that there are positive educational uses of entertainment media, such as access to online tutorials, educational videos and edutainment content. The study concluded that entertainment media has a double meaning to education, but the negative influence is more dominant if entertainment media use is excessive and unregulated. The study calls for media literacy education, parental monitoring, the integration of digital learning tools in the curriculum and the promotion of educational entertainment content to improve positive academic outcomes among the Nigerian youths.
