Cyber-Bullying: Assessment of its Awareness and Threats to Social Media Development

The wake of new media has turned the world into a global village. The internet in recent times, has opened doors for users to connect with people across other parts of the globe. Few can deny the huge technological advancement that are constantly taking place in the modern world. However, this advancement have brought a dramatic shift from what it means to ‘chat’ and ‘socialise’ with other people to a whole gamut of development spinning off from cyber related contingency. This study is aimed at assessing cyber-bullying in the context of undergraduate students in Nigeria, their awareness of cyber-bullying and its threat to social media development. A further aim is to establish whether the respondents have been exposed to bullying on any of the social media platforms. Drawing 396 respondents from a population of 38,000 running across four faculties randomly selected from the fourteen faculties in Nnamdi Azikiwe, University, Awka, the study found out that a majority of the respondents own internet-enabled devices, have access to social media sites through their devices and have been exposed to cyber-bullying on these sites at one point in time. The Computer Mediated Communication theory was the basis from which this study drew its framework.