Social Media and Youth Empowerment: An Empirical Inquiry

The flight of global unemployment is frightening especially with more jobs being rendered redundant due to the advent of Information Communication Technology notably the internet. Despite this ugly trend, stakeholders are optimistic that the internet if effectively applied would create more job opportunities. Anchored on Uses and Gratification theory of communication, the study is an inquiry into specific areas of social media economic empowerment among users. In the method section, mixed method design which involved descriptive survey and factorial design was employed using descriptive analysis and ANOVA statistical tools. The sample population was 143 social media users in Anambra State whose ages ranged from 23-37 years. The participants were sampled from a pool of social media users using purposive and convenient technique. The result revealed that youths’ awareness on the empowerment potential of social media is high, while indicating that majority (65.7%) of the youths are attracted by social media by its leisure appeal and they use it for chatting, connecting friends and leisure compared to 34.3% of youths who use it for learning, empowerment and opportunities. Furthermore, significant differences were observed between males and females on social media user appeal. It is recommended that youths be mentored on the empowerment potentials of social media by the successful leaders in the industry.