An Analysis of Social Media Influence on the Sexual Behaviour of the Youth at Agona Bipoa

Thèse de Bachelor , 55 Pages

Sociologie - Individu, Groupe, Société

The purpose of this study is to analyse the impact of social media on the sexual behaviour of the youth of Agona Bipoa. The problem of social media and its impact on the youth in Agona Bipoa has a cause and effect. Agona Bipoa is located at Sekyere South District Assembly, Ashanti Region. As a result of individuals being social beings, they tend to take part in social learning, where one finds themselves following the ideas of others on about everything on social media platforms, with sexual behaviour not being an exception. The problem described can be defined by the naivety and easy access to the internet by the youth in Agona Bipoa. The study employed the use survey, specifically, questionnaires and archival research to collect data. The respondents under the study were 97 members, youth of Agona Bipoa. Question 20 of the questionnaire had a mean(x) of 4.2 meaning, social media influence on sexual behavior and choices on youth is high, thereby concluding the findings of the study. The findings helped understand and also make recommendations to stakeholders on how to go about social media influence on the sexual behaviour of the youth.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES

LIST OF FIGURES

LIST OF APPENDICES

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CHAPTER ONE.INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the study
1.2 Problem Statement
1.3 Research Objectives
1.4 Research Questions
1.5 Significance of the study
1.6 Scope and Limitations
1.7 Organization of the long essay

CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Social Media Usage
2.1.1 Definition of Social Media
2.1.2 Description and Types of Social Media
2.1.3 Factors influencing the usage of social media
2.2 Sexual Behaviour
2.2.1 Definition of Sexual Behaviour
2.2.2 Descriptions and Types of Sexual Behaviour
2.2.3 Factors influencing sexual behaviour
2.3 Effect Analysis
2.3.1 Perception Analysis
2.3.2 Social unit and unit of analysis
2.3.3 Expected results and effects
2.4 Agona Bipoa.
2.4.1 Geographical location and population of Agona Bipoa
2.5 Conceptual framework of the study
2.5.1 Social media input factors
2.5.2 Agona Bipoa throughput factors
2.5.3 Sexual behaviour output factors

CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research Design
3.1.1 Population
3.1.2 Sampling and sample size
3.2 Data and information collection and processing
3.3 Data and information processing and analysis

CHAPTER FOUR. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.1. Presentation and analysis of Respondent Characteristics
4.1.1Tabular presentation and analysis of respondent characteristics
4.2. Presentation and analysis of social media usage
4.2.1 Tabular presentation and analysis of the perception of social media usage
4.3 Presentation and analysis of the status or level of sexual behaviour
4.3.1 Tabular presentation of the status or level of sexual behaviour
4.4 Presentation and analysis of the effects of social media on sexual behaviour
4.4.1 Tabular presentation of the effects of social media on sexual behaviour

CHAPTER FIVE SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1. Summary of findings
5.2. Conclusion
5.3. Recommendation

REFERENCE LIST

APPENDICES

ABSTRACT.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the impact of social media on the sexual behaviour of the youth of Agona Bipoa. The problem of social media and its impact on the youth in Agona Bipoa has a cause and effect. Agona Bipoa is located at Sekyere South District Assembly, Ashanti Region. As a result of individuals being social beings, they tend to take part in social learning, where one finds themselves following the ideas of others on about everything on social media platforms, with sexual behaviour not being an exception. The problem described can be defined by the naivety and easy access to the internet by the youth in Agona Bipoa. The study employed the use survey, specifically, questionnaires and archival research to collect data. The respondents under the study were 97 members, youth of Agona Bipoa. Question 20 of the questionnaire had a mean(x) of 4.2 meaning, social media influence on sexual behavior and choices on youth is high, thereby concluding the findings of the study. The findings helped understand and also make recommendations to stakeholders on how to go about social media influence on the sexual behaviour of the youth.

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Tabular representation of respondent characteristics.

Table 2: Perception about social media

Table 3: Status or level of sexual behavior.

Table 4: Mean score and Level

Table 5: Effects of social media on sexual behaviour.

Table 6: Mean score and Level

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: conceptual framework of study

Figure 2: Questionnaire

Figure 3: Krejcie & Morgan (1970), sample size table

Figure 4: Map of Agona Bipoa

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

IT- Information Technology.

KNUST- Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

RQ - Research Question.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.

We first want to thank the Almighty God for giving us strength and good health to pursue this journey. We render a sincere appreciation to our supervisor, Dr. Albert Saah and the Teaching Assistant, George Owusu. We thank you for the ample time that you make for us and also your valuable suggestions and patient guidance, enthusiastic encouragement and useful critiques during this study. We also like thank our colleagues (other groups) whom we meet together on every Thursday and share ideas on how we would go about this study. Our appreciation to the Agona Bipoa Community for availing themselves during the data collection. We would also like to thank our amazing parents and guardians, whose love and guidance are with us in whatever we pursue. May God Almighty bless you.

CHAPTER ONE.INTRODUCTION.

This chapter is about background of the study, research problem, research objectives, research questions, significance of the study, scope and limitation and organisation of the essay.

1.1 Background of the study

The world has become a small village that everyone walks in and out anytime to associate with everyone irrespective of their location, unlike the days where we have to send information ahead before we communicate. Day in Day out, the world keeps advancing communication technology to ease communication. Now, individuals can send multiple messages at a time with the help of social media.

Social media has no specific definition because; a lot of scholars and researchers have defined it as how they understand it. Social media is defined as those that facilitate online communication networking and or collaboration. (Russo A., Watkins, Kelly, & Chan, Participatory communication with social media, 2010). Also, social is defined as “any interactive communication channel that allows for two-way interaction and feedback" (Kent, 2010). Social media refers to applications such as Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, Facebook, TikTok, Telegram, Tango, websites and others through which individuals share or transmit information. In the 21st century, social media has become very useful and has given some people the opportunity to learn different cultures and assimilate them into their lifestyle. Some have taken advantage of social media to promote or market their businesses. Politically, political activist and politicians use social media to campaign. The social media has also expanded news outreach unlike the days where Television, radio, newspapers and magazines were the only means to get news updates. Media house have taken advantage of social media to reach out to a lot of audience.

Social Media has become a medium that people use to reach out to others across the globe. Before internet came, there were ways of communication such as letters, scrolls and others. But now, social media has replaced all these means. Technology has open up to all these transformations that we are seeing in the globe today. Social media has benefited every aspect of humanity that is, economic, social, political and cultural. When Covid-19 arrested the world with restrictions, lockdown and others, many businesses shrink in profit whereas others resulted in laying off some workers. Social media became a haven where peoples’ businesses were saved. Online businesses boost and a lot of businesses were tolling to social media.

The use of social media has affected our behavior in the world today, especially, Ghana. Our social environment has changed. Unlike the early days where we pay much attention to our culture and were mostly morally conscious, that has changed drastically. People are free to express themselves on the social media space regardless of their age or portfolio. There have been ways that the society is using to curve the uproar of social media behavior transcending into our social space. Laws are being made to control the cyber behavior but some people will always fault them.

Social media has been widely adopted in the twenty-first century, with high enthusiasm among the youth around the world (Markwei & Appiah, 2016). The global social media usage has reached 49 percent, with East Asia and North America having the highest penetration rate at 71 and 69 percent respectively, followed by Northern Europe at 67 percent (Dixon, 2022). The active global social media population worldwide as at that time was 4.2 billion, with active global mobile social media population worldwide being 4.15 billion (Dixon, 2022).Also, “Ghana had registered approximately eight million social media users”. The total number of internet users in Ghana as at 2021 is approximately 15.7m. Meaning, half of the population are using the internet which is good news for communication technology. 2021, in August, there was an estimated number of 8.9 million Facebook users. In third quarter of 2020, “83.9 percent of the internet users in Ghana were using WhatsApp” (Sasu, 2022).

(Ghana Youth Policy, 2010) defines “youth” as “persons who are within the age bracket of fifteen (15) and thirty-five (35)”. These are people who are active and have more energy to help develop the society. Statistics on youths using social networking in Ghana are not available, but 2014 statistics on African Internet (Pew Research Center, 2014) reveal that “approximately 1,630,420 Ghanaians are using Facebook”. This was about “6.6% of the total population of 24,658,823” as at then.

Now, Information Technology (IT) is almost everywhere. (Darko-Adjei, 2019) Information Technology gadgets like computers, tablets and mobile phones have become valuable in the lives of most Ghanaian youths merely because it helps them to interact and communicate freely (Ocansey, Ametepe, & Oduro, 2016). Technology has a lot of positive impact but can become dangerous when it is in the wrong hands. Social media offers several benefits and opportunities to the young, such as, access to information, extended social networks, social skills practice, identity expression, informal learning opportunities, development and maintenance of friendships and fun (Kusuma, 2020). Social media has been described as an essential aspect in the youth life and a platform for experimentation and creative self-expression.

The use of the internet and social media has many advantages, but the users, especially the youth use it wrongly (Ocansey, Ametepe, & Oduro, 2016). Some advantages of social media are; enhances the communication skills of an individual. Because social media has a larger audience and different categories of people come there to share content, interact and connect to other people across the globe, they interact differently. People will learn how to communicate with people with different background like nationality, tribe and others. This will help the individual to know how to communicate and also improve his or her communication skills.

The youth lack the necessary supervision they need and this is a major problem. The online realm may be enthusiastically adopted because it represents "their" space, visible to peers rather than adult surveillance, an exciting yet relatively safe opportunity to conduct the social psychological task of adolescence –to construct, experiment with, and present are flexible project of the self in a social context, as well as, for some, for flouting communicative norms and other risk-taking behaviors (Livingstone, 2008). TikTok came not too long ago and has already taken over the world. People usually visit platform to make videos of them on a daily basis. In as much as there is the making of entertaining and educational videos such as preaching the gospel, giving motivational speeches and educating the global village of each other’s culture, people tend to do silly things like explicit videos and others on there as well, due to the overwhelming need for TikTok fame, while some have completely lost sight of what’s important and therefore needs to be done in serious situations and or emergencies. A typical example is what happened at Bogoso Apatia, where some people decided to take pictures and videos of the accident, rather than helping the driver out and warning the community about it and at the end of the day, resulting in the loss of lives and properties.

1.2 Problem Statement.

The problem of social media and its influence on the youth in Agona Bipoa has a cause and effect. Agona Bipoa is located at Sekyere South District Assembly, Ashanti Region. From 2020 to date, some youth have been actively using social media especially during the Covid-19 pandemic era. As a result of the fact that individuals in the society take part in social learning, one finds themselves following the ideas of others. Due to cultural orientation and fear of being labelled a “spoilt child”, some of the youth result to social media platforms to seek answers to and learn about sexual behaviours.

The problem described can be defined by the naivety and easy access to the internet by the youth in Agona Bipoa.

The study sought to analyse the influence of social media on the sexual behaviour of the youth in Agona Bipoa.

1.3 Research Objectives.

1. To identify the individual characteristics of the youth of Agona Bipoa
2. To analyze the perception of social media usage by the youth of Agona Bipoa.
3. To know the level to which the youth in Agona Bipoa discuss and go about topics and issues related to sexual behaviour.
4. To know the effects of social media on the sexual behaviour of the youth in Agona Bipoa.

1.4 Research Questions.

1. What are the individual characteristics of the youth in Agona Bipoa?
2. What is the perception of Agona Bipoa youth on social media usage?
3. What is the level to which the youth in Agona Bipoa discuss and go about topics and issues related to sexual behaviour?
4. To what extent has the sexual behaviour of the youth in Agona Bipoa been influenced by social media usage?

1.5 Significance of the study.

This research will give detail report on some of the sexual issues discussed among or between and patronised by students on social media and how they interpret these issues and use information to make decisions on their sexual behaviour and preferences.

It will also give information on how social media can influence youth sexual choices.

The results of this study will also help the Senior High Schools in designing important sexual education that will help students with their sexual behaviour challenges.

Also, this the results will help both parents and youths to learn on how they can confront each other on sexual related issues.

Again, the youth especially students will learn to be mindful and conscious of some of the ways social media has been able to influence their sexual behaviours and it will limit them to the kind of information they can access on the social media.

1.6 Scope and Limitations.

The research seeks to find out the impacts of social media on their sexual behaviour of the youth in Agona Bipoa. That is, this study will limit itself only to the youths in Agona Bipoa. The study will focus itself only on those in the town who fall under the category of youth. Because of the limited tie for this research, the research will focus on the youth between the ages of 16-24years. There is not enough fund to fuel this research so the research will be limited to these ages.

1.7 Organization of the long essay.

This project will comprise with five interrelated chapters. Chapter one will detail the background of the study, statement of the problem, research objectives, research questions, scope and limitation of the study and significance of the study. Chapter two will be dedicated to the relevant literature review and conceptual framework. Chapter three will account for the research methodology. Chapter four will be results and discussions while Chapter five will be drawing summary of findings, conclusion and making relevant recommendations. The entire long essay is expected to be completed by September, 2022.

CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter captures social media usage, definition of social media, descriptions and types of social media, factors influencing the usage of social media, sexual behaviour, definition of sexual behaviour, descriptions and types of sexual behaviour, factors influencing sexual behaviour, perception analysis, social unit and unit of analysis, expected results and effects, milieu of Agona Bipoa and conceptual framework.

2.1 Social Media Usage

Social media has been described as a modern way of communication (Panchal, 2020). 4.62 billion people around the world now use social media, 424 million new users have come online within the last 12 months (Chaffey, 2022). Social media has it pros likes making new friends, connecting with relatives, ability to educate others and other pros (Jessica, Needa, & Beth, n.d.). The side effects of social media are a lot and some are exposure to fraud and scam, exposure to explicit contents.

2.1.1 Definition of Social Media

Social media has no unique or standard definition; however, a lot of scholars and researchers have defined social media in their own understanding.

According to (Russo A. , Watkins, Kelly, & Chan, 2008), they define social media as those that facilitate online communication, networking and/or collaboration. Social media has no specific definition because; a lot of scholars and researchers have defined it as how they understand it. Social media is defined as those that facilitate online communication networking and or collaboration. (Russo A. , Watkins, Kelly, & Chan, Participatory communication with social media, 2010) also, social is defined as “any interactive communication channel that allows for two-way interaction and feedback" (Kent, 2010). (Kaplan & Haenlien, 2010) also came out with their definition for social media as is a group of internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content. Social media is a digital technology not only as a digital platform but also allow people to connect, interact, produce and share content. (Lewis, 2010)

(Howard & Parks, 2012) defines social media in three forms and they are

a. Social media as the information infrastructure and tools used to produce and distribute content.
b. Social media content that takes the digital form of personal messages, news, ideas and cultural products.
c. The people, organisation and industries that produce and consume digital content.

According to (Manning, 2014), "social media is the term often used to refer to new forms of media that involve interactive participation. Social media is an internet-based, distrained and persistent channels of mass personal communication, facilitating perceptions of interactions among users, deriving value, primarily from user-generated content. (Carr & Hayes, 2015). Social media are computer-mediated communication software that enable users to create, share and view content in publicly networked one-to-one, one-to-many, and/or many-to-many communications. (Hopkins, 2017).

After reading through and reviewing some of the researchers and scholars’ definition of social media, the researchers came out with their own operational definition of social media. Social media is an electronic form of communication, education, entertainment and business avenue through a platform for people, societies and organisations.

2.1.2 Description and Types of Social Media.

Social media can be described as internet-based form of communication (University of Florida, 2022). Social media platforms allow various organisations, group and people across the globe to interact, communicate, share information contents and other social media activities. It is a virtual platform for engagement. Before an individual, group or organisation can access the social media, they have to create an account. Social media can be described as create, share and receive information or content virtually and digitally.

Types of Social Media

There are numerous types of social media and they are as follow;

1. Social Networks: Such types of Social Media are used to associate with individuals (and brands) on the web (Kakkar, 2018). This type of social media network helps people, individual and organization to share and receive information online and it can be either text, video or audio for example Facebook, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Clubhouse, TikTok, Skype, Zoom, Twitter, Instagram, Telegram and others. It also helps to ease link up or connect with friends, brands, relatives and also make new friends with the unknown. It also helps business to reach out to large number of people and make new customers or buyers. There is high privacy in this type of social media network because everything is sole seen by the individual or organization. It also allows self-expression and intimacy. Social networking sites are places where youth can encounter sexual text, photos, and videos and can also create and/or post such materials themselves (Collins, Martino, & Shawrand, 2011). In a research by (Jordan, Sean, Young, & Alexandra , 2013) shows that, young people in the USA with low prevalence of sexual content on Facebook show a low percentage of having sex compared to young people with high prevalence of sexual content on Facebook. (Deshmukh, 2015) research has shown that, over 20 million people subscribe to WhatsApp and 18% of the new users are between 17-25 years.
2. Media Sharing Network: This kind of social media network is use to find and share photo and video contents. Examples are TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and others. With this type, some people are able to reach out to a lot of numbers especially companies and organization. Brands are mostly found in this type of social media network that is, they give individuals and brands a place to discover and share media so the target audiences can be targeted and converted into a convincing and result-driven way possible (Kakkar, 2018). Any video content that you publish should be designed to entertain, educate, and/or inspire your audience (Wong, 2021).
3. Discussion Forum or Sites: With the discussion sites, anyone is free to ask question and anyone is free to give his or her opinion about the question. Example of these sites are Quora, Digg, Reddit and others. Because it is an open forum, people ask any question like relationship, sexual related question, academic and others. It is use for asking and answering questions, networking, forming communities around niche- and interest-based topics (Wong, 2021).
4. Blogging and Publishing Networks: it allows users to post about interesting niche topics, like memes, events, politics, and pop-culture (Bump, 2020). This allows the users to reach out to a lot of people. Blogging provided a safe environment in which victims could deal with the ongoing challenge of coping with, and recovering from the abuse. Moreover, blogging enabled victims to use their negative experience to educate and support others going through a similar experience, therefore allowing the bloggers to achieve some positive growth (Fawcett & Shrestha, 2015).

2.1.3 Factors influencing the usage of social media.

Social media came about at a period after the world had in many ways become one that is global village. Technology and the Internet have made it so we can connect with anyone, anywhere, anytime. We know more about each other than we ever did before (Leiter, 2014).

There are a lot of factors that influence people to use social media. Some are as follow;

1. To connect with friends, relatives and also find new friends. The main reason why some people use social media is to keep in touch with their friends and family (Kemp, 2022). Some the youth use mobile phones and the internet to interact both the known and unknown peers to establish and maintain social connections (Landy, Turner, Vyas, & Wood, 2017). Social media has made it easy for relatives and friends to connect to each other irrespective of the location. Some people also connect with new friends from different location and also, find lovers on social media (Full Editorial, 2020). In much people use social media to connect with others, some youth use chat rooms to connect with others were more likely to engage in a variety of risk behaviors, including initiating sexual intercourse (Collins, Martino, & Shawrand, 2011). Meaning, some of the youth are using social media to exchange sexually related materials.
2. E ntertainment purpose. Some people use social media to tackle boredom (Kemp, 2022). The fun and flirt that goes on social media pushes people to spend much time on social media (Truex, 2019). Daily, some people are updating their social media platforms with entertaining contents. USA teens spend an average of more than seven hours per day on screen media for entertainment (Rogers, 2019). An update came this year that American teenagers spend an "astounding" nine hours a day with digital technology, entertaining themselves with streaming video (Fox & Edwards, 2022).
3. Business purpose. Some businesses are moving to social media to expand their businesses that is reach out to international market, expand their brand and others. The online market has become easy for millions of people across the globe to interact in business. Social media help businesses to reach out to their customers and engage them to find out what they are interested in their business (Business, 2022). Social media marketing has become a vital part of every firm’s marketing program (Wolters, 2020).
4. Educational purpose. Social media is an avenue that some people go there to educate themselves. Some the educational institutions are now using social media to teach or lecture and it was much evident during the Covid-19 period in 2020-2021 for example, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) were using social media as a means to continue academic activities when Covid-19 break academic activities in 2020. Some teachers or lecturers connect their class via social media live Facebook live, Skype, Zoom and other (Wilbold, 2019). Some universities are able to attract students across through distance learning programs and social media has made is easy for them to connect with these people (Wilbold, 2019). Some of the youth go to social media to learn about or being educated on their reproduction or sexual life but some will end up being influence to try what he or she just read or watched.

2.2 Sexual Behaviour.

Human sexual behaviour is the manner in which humans’ experience and express their sexuality. People engage in variety of sexual acts from time to time, and for a wide reason. Sexual activity normally results in sexual arousal and physiological changes in the aroused person, some of which are pronounced while others are more subtle (Munatswa, 2020). Abstinence and celibacy are terms used for individuals who do not engage in certain or any sexual behaviours.

2.2.1 Definition of Sexual Behaviour.

Sexual behaviour refers to the genital activities in which an individual engages. (Revers, 2015).

Human sexual activity, any activity- solitary, between two persons, or in a group- that induces sexual arousal (Gebhard, 2022).

Sexual behaviour is a largely private activity, subject to varying degrees of social, cultural, religious, moral and legal norms and constraints (Fenton, Johnson, McManus, & Erens, 2001).

Sexual behaviour includes a wide variety of activities individuals engage in to express their sexuality (Crooks, Baur, & Wildman, 2008).

After reviewing sexual behaviour of scholars and researchers, the researchers came out with their own operational definition for sexual behaviour. Sexual Behaviour is any reproductive activities that an individual engages in to express his or her sexuality.

2.2.2 Descriptions and Types of Sexual Behaviour.

There is a diverse array of activities that can be classified as sexual behaviour: masturbation, oral-genital stimulation(oral sex), penile-vaginal intercourse(vaginal sex), and anal stimulation or anal intercourse.

Masturbation : It is a deliberate self-stimulation which affects sexual arousal (Phipps, 1977). It is also the self-stimulation of the genitals to achieve sexual arousal and pleasure, usually to the point of orgasm (sexual climax) (Robinson, 2020)). It is commonly done by touching, stroking, or massaging the penis or clitoris until an orgasm is achieved. Some women and men use stimulation of the vagina or penis or use "sex toys," such as a vibrator and others to masturbate. 63% of younger boys reported masturbating at least once, but that figure increased to 80% among 17-year-olds. For girls, the percentage rose with age from 43% to 58% (Rochman, 2011). Masturbation is an addictive act and it interferes with an individual’s everyday activities (Klepchukova, 2022).

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• Auteur: Richard Chidi (Auteur)
• Pages: 55
• N° de catalogue: V1289916
• ISBN (PDF): 9783346751447
• ISBN (Livre): 9783346751454
• Langue: allemand
• mots-clé: analysis, social, media, influence, sexual, behaviour, youth, agona, bipoa