Kano Journal of Educational Psychology (KaJEP)

Volume 3, No. 1, June, 2021

ISSN (Hard copy): 2736 – 1365 eISSN: (Online): 2736 – 1373
Influence of Social Media Networking Sites on Creative … (Ibrahim & Yakasai, 2021)
www.kjnisepjournal.com

Influence of Social Media Networking Sites on Creative and Innovative Behaviours of

Undergraduate Students in a Nigerian University

Dr. Abdul-Wahab Ibrahim1

Email: abdulwahab.ibrahim@slu.edu.ng
Tel: 08033438023
Professor Muhammad Ibrahim Yakasai2 FCAN
Email: yakasaimi@yahoo.com
Tel: 08037039759
1
Department of Education, Faculty of Education, Sule Lamido University, Kafin-Hausa, Jigawa State,
Nigeria.
2
Department of Education, Faculty of Education, Bayero University, Kano, Kano State, Nigeria

Abstract
This study investigated whether undergraduate students’ use of academic social media networking sites
influence their perceived creative and innovative capacity. It also examined if influence of undergraduate
students’ use of academic social media networking sites exists on their perceived cognitive playfulness and
creativity-enhancing practices. Ex-post-facto research design was adopted in the study. The sample
consisted of an intact class of 280 Part 3 undergraduate students selected from a public university in Kano
metropolis during the 2018/2019 academic session. A self-developed instrument tagged: “Social Media
Creativity and Innovation Questionnaire (SMCIQ)”, was used to collect data. Data were analysed using
Pearson product moment correlation and Chi-Square (χ2) statistics. Also, percentile analysis was done
using simple percentage statistical method. The results revealed that there was a significant influence of
undergraduate students’ use of academic social media networking sites on their perceived cognitive
playfulness and creativity-enhancing practices amongst undergraduate students. It was concluded that if
undergraduate students’ use of social media is limited to a specific academically inclined social networking
sites there is tendency that a higher level of creative and innovative capacity could be exhibited by students
in the University. Thus, University Management should provide academic social media networking sites to
stimulate creative and innovative behaviours on campuses in Nigeria.
Keywords: Social Media, Social Networking Sites, Behaviour, Creativity and Innovation.

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Introduction
Research on creativity has challenged the
notion that creativity is a skill possessed solely by
those associated with the more artistic fields or
disciplines. This is because creativity and innovation
are fundamental to all academic disciplines and
educational activities, not just the arts. The creative
process, as with reflection, is a critical component of
making sense of learning experiences. However,
definitions of creativity and its application within
the broader economic and social context have
evolved from these perceptions of the ‘arty
individual’ to encompass a larger set of social,
aesthetic and functional attributes (McWilliam &
Dawson, 2008).
Craft (2005) pointed out that our
understanding of creativity and innovation have
progressed and broadened over time. In the early
20th century, creativity was an innate, elusive
quality that individuals were born with. Initially,
creativity was most closely associated with the arts
but grew to include science, technology and other
disciplines. In the 21st century, creativity is
increasingly viewed as a distributed and
collaborative process of communal sense making
and problem solving.
In the same vein, Csikszentmihalyi (2011)
and Moran & John-Steiner (2013) referred to it as a
systemic, distributed phenomenon taking place at
the intersection between creators, their audiences,
and cultural artifacts. This perspective understands
creative thinking in terms of interaction and
promotes a distributed view of creativity as a process
taking place between people, or between people and
objects, and across time (Glaveanu, 2014).
According to this perspective, all creativity is
essentially distributed or collaborative, even when
enacted by individuals working alone. This is
because people create based on the ideas of others,
working with tools made by others, and, most of all,
addressing a variety of audiences as part of their
creative work. While people and existing tools or
technologies are considered to play a part in shaping
an individual’s creative expression, they are usually
seen as “intervening” from the outside rather than
being integral to the creative process (Glaveanu,
2014).
Contextually, creativity refers to as an
individual psychological function that has to do with
social relations or material, technological
engagement. That is, creativity is defined as the
process leading to the emergence of new, original,
and meaningful artifacts (Runco & Jaeger, 2012).
Having a creative habit, the disposition to behave
creatively is critical. Csikszentmihalyi (2011)
emphasised the importance of having a playful
attitude while remaining disciplined. Whenever
possible, play should be used to extend the range of
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opportunities to think. On the other hand, innovation
can be broadly thought of as new ideas, new ways of
looking at things, new methods or products that have
value.
According to Glaveanu (2014), innovation
contains the idea of output, of producing or doing
something differently, making something happen or
implementing something new. Innovation almost
always involves hard work persistence and
perseverance are necessary as many good ideas
never get followed through and developed. Further,
innovation can be defined as new ideas, products or
practices by an individual or group within a specific
social system (Boissonnade & Giglio, 2015). Being
innovative and creative is dependent on the other
attributes. Being creative requires reflection,
encourages engagement and develops confidence
and responsibility. The ability and inclination to be
creative is essential to living a fulfilled and
successful life, and it is valued in higher education
especially the university. There are many other
benefits of maximising one’s own creative potential
such as physical and psychological health
improvements, improved resilience in the face of
difficulties and even lower levels of aggression.
Creativity produces actionable ideas, new concepts,
new designs and new opportunities while innovation
adds values to the new products. Creative activities
lead to innovation. While creativity is the art of
producing new ideas, approach or action, innovation
is the process of both generating and applying such
creative ideas and converting them into novel, useful
and viable products (Boissonnade & Giglio, 2015).
On influence of Social Media Networking
Sites (SMNSs) on undergraduate students’ creative
and innovative behaviour, researches (Dabner,
2012; Mbodila et al., 2014) have indicated that SNSs
have the potential to increase student engagement,
including undergraduate students’ creative and
innovative activities. For instance, Mbodila et al.,
(2014) explained that SNS significantly increases
students’ collaboration, knowledge sharing and
creative indulgencies. Similar investigations have
also recognised four major advantages of social
media employment in higher education to include,
enhancing the relationship, improving learning
motivation, offering personalised course material
and developing collaborative abilities (Chugh &
Ruhi 2017). SMNSs activities have the possibility of
enhancing student contact as well as improve their
participation in creative and innovative activities.
Introverted students who are not able to raise
questions before peers at school could engage
themselves in online group learning with less or no
anxiety attached. Indeed, integrating social media
into the students’ learning process provides them
with an opportunity to take control of their learning
activities, which in turn boost their confidence
(Yunus et al., 2012). Thus, SNSs such as Facebook,

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Twitter, WhatsApp, YouTube, and Skype has
improved creativity and innovation because a large
number of social technologies provided on the
internet are free or require a little accessing fee
which has encouraged wider utilisation and adoption
(Apuke, 2016). As such, through the SMNSs,
students can creatively form their own page, access
news as well as lecture notes from an email sent by
lecturers. Nwangwa, et al., (2014) reported that
Wikipedia was the major source of information for
undergraduate students.
Further, Facebook was used to generate
ideas from colleagues about their research focus,
while WordPress or Blogger was used to develop
their creative writing skills. Fasae and Adegbilero-
Iwari (2016) ascertained that Facebook, Google, and
Twitter were the most used and recognised among
students of public universities in Southwest Nigeria.
However, poor internet connectivity, receiving of
unwanted messages/pictures and electricity failure
was considered as the leading problems encountered
while using social media. Similar studies have
identified privacy and security as some of the
challenges encountered in the use of social media.
Supporting this notion, Ngonidzashe (2013) results
showed that the major challenges faced in the
utilisation of social media by students in higher
education were security and promotion of antisocial
behaviour, exposure to inappropriate material,
unwanted adult interactions as well as bullying from
peers.
According to Eke and Odoh (2014), most
of the undergraduate students of the University of
Nigeria use the social networking sites in interaction
with friends, connecting with their classmates for
online study, discussing serious academic and
national issues as well as watching movies.
Similarly, Musa (2015) discovered that many
undergraduate students in Nigeria use SNSs for
communication, collaboration, news sharing,
knowledge sharing, research, expression of opinion,
maintaining a connection, and making friends from
other countries. Additionally, Facebook and
WhatsApp were found to be the most preferred
social networks among them. Furthermore, Ndaku
(2013) reported that many students in the University
of Abuja had access to the internet. However, the
study suggested that sites should be created for
educational purposes in order create a balance
between social networking and academic activities
of students that will encourage creativity and
innovation among students.
Against this backdrop, suffice to say that
SMNSs are online platforms that provide
affordances for users to create personal profiles,
create content, and share them by connecting with
others on the platform. Due to the pervasive and
viral properties of SMNSs, it has been largely
successful for information sharing and
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dissemination. It is considered as the way of life for
almost all undergraduate students (Karpinski et al.,
2013) and has gained popularity in higher
educational institutions. Although one can argue that
the ubiquitous nature of SMNSs at universities has
impacted on how students collaborate and
communicate (Dabner, 2012), its impact on student
creative and innovative engagement has not been
adequately explored. Currently, undergraduate
students are exposed to various technologies than
ever before. Often, they use interactive and
computing devices to engage in more social
activities such as social networking, text messaging,
blogging, online learning, content sharing, and many
others. Studies (Paliktzoglou & Suhonen, 2014;
Scott et al., 2016) have also shown that majority of
students are familiar with and are also actively
engaged in the use of social networking platforms.
Specifically, SMNSs promote active
learning, effective communication, information
sharing, creative and innovative activities ((Osatuyi,
2013). It has the potential to increase student
creative and innovative engagement because there is
some level of relationship between SNS use and
student creative and innovative engagement. It has
been confirmed that majority of students who spend
more time on SMNS platforms believe that they are
more connected to their friends and colleagues than
those who do not. This is made possible by the
network between students and their colleagues on
these platforms; they support collaborative learning
and increases their involvement in creative and
innovative activities (Azeta et al., 2014).
Nonetheless, the use of SMNSs tools for
promoting students’ collaboration that may facilitate
creative and innovative behaviour is faced with
privacy and security concern. Due to the lack of
face-to-face interaction and the ability to collaborate
with other students who one may not have met
physically, they can put students in danger as they
may deal with individuals they do not know. In
addition, SNNSs expose them to an enormous
amount of data and information, which may be
difficult to process and identify the quality levels of
the information received. Exposure to inappropriate
online content, cyberbullying as well as online
harassment also adds to the major challenges of
using them. In some cases, it has been considered to
distract students and reduce the amount of time they
commit to academic work (Alt, 2015). Some
researchers (Osatuyi, 2013; Lederer, 2012) have
argued that faculty in higher education should be
discouraged from using SMNSs. This is because,
although it increases collaboration and potentially
promotes creative and innovative activities, it
discourages face-to-face interaction which is
essential for student engagement.
Considering this, the debate about the
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students’ creative and innovative activities appears
to be overshadowed by its challenges and concerns.
Amidst these concerns raised, some Universities are
faced with major barriers and challenges which
hinder the successful implementation and adoption
of technology for education. Although these
Universities are catching up, the digital divide is
considerably wide. Challenges that discourage the
use of Internet facilities in them penetrate all
Faculties including Departments. There have been
reports that students in Nigerian Universities mostly
use commercial cybercafes or their mobile phones
due to low bandwidth, connectivity, and poor
Internet infrastructure on campuses. Consequently,
some undergraduate students reluctantly use the
Internet for such creative and innovative activities
because it is expensive. The biggest challenge is
whether undergraduate students from Nigerian
Universities perceive SMNSs as an effective
creative and innovative tool. Considering all this, the
use of SMNSs for creative and innovative purposes
is still limited and therefore calls for investigations
in different Universities in the country, hence this
study.
Objectives of the Study
1. To examine if influence exists of undergraduate
students’ use of academic social media
networking sites on their perceived cognitive
playfulness.
2. To investigate whether influence exists of
undergraduate students’ use of academic social
media networking sites’ methodologies on
creativity-enhancing practices amongst
undergraduate students.
Hypotheses
1. There is no significant influence of
undergraduate students’ use of academic social
media networking sites on their perceived
cognitive playfulness.
2. There is no significant influence of
undergraduate students’ use of academic social
media networking sites’ methodologies on
creativity-enhancing practices amongst
undergraduate students.
Methodology
The study is exploratory in nature adopting
an ex-post-facto research design. It is ex-post-facto
in that the independent variable (Social Media
Networking Sites) have already occurred as
observed by the researcher over time in relation to
its effects on undergraduate students’ creative and
innovative behaviour in the University. There was
no conscious manipulation of the variables since the
interaction among variables have been completed.
According to Singh and Upadhya (2008), the ex-
post-facto research design is a method of teasing out
possible antecedents of events that have happened
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and cannot, therefore, be controlled, engineered or
be manipulated by the investigator.
The population of the study comprised all
male and female Part 3 undergraduate students who
registered for their various degree courses during the
2018/2019 academic session in a government-
owned university in Kano metropolis, Kano state,
Nigeria. There were 1,100 students who registered
for their various degree courses during the
2018/2019 academic session in the university.
Further, to determine the sample size, Krejcie and
Morgan (1970) sampling Table was used. Armed
with the sampling frame collected from the selected
Departments, there are a total of 1, 100 Part 3
undergraduate students as at the time of the study.
Thus, Krejcie and Morgan’s Table indicates that for
a population of 1, 100, the sample size would be 280.
Thus, the sample comprised 280 Part 3
undergraduate students in the study. The
undergraduate students were selected from five
Faculties in the university using simple random
sampling procedure. From each of the Faculties, two
Departments were selected using simple random
technique. From each of the selected Departments,
stratified random sampling method was employed to
select a total of 28 Part 3 undergraduate students
totalling 280 across the five Faculties, using sex and
level of educational attainment as strata. The
undergraduate students were selected from 2
Departments in each of the five Faculties making a
total of 10 Departments. 14 male and 14 female
undergraduate students were selected from each of
the randomly selected Departments making a total of
28 Part 3 undergraduate students per Faculty. This
was done to balance gender difference and to ensure
gender equity. Thus, a total of 280 consisting of 140
male and 140 female Part 3 undergraduate students
were included in the study. Their average age was
26.75 years. Only 260 consisting of 130 male and
130 female Part 3 undergraduate students returned
the instrument administered on them. Thus, the
return rate was 93%.
Noteworthy, Part 3 undergraduate students
were selected because they were considered as
middle-levelled students as they have completed a
minimum of two years on campus out of 4 or 5 years
programme in the university, considered more
matured and capable of making decisive judgement
on what affect them in the course of their studies
than their counterparts at both Parts 1 and 2 levels in
the university. Also, Parts 4 and 5 undergraduate
students were not considered because they are in
final year of their studies in the university
respectively, they may not take the study with all
seriousness and attention it deserves.
A highly structured self-developed
instrument tagged: “Social Media Creativity and
Innovation Questionnaire (SMCIQ)”, was used to
elicit information about the influence of the use of

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SMNSs on creativity behaviour of undergraduate
students. The instrument contained 30 items divided
into two Parts - One and Two and rated on a four-
point Likert-scale graduated from “Strongly Agree’’
to “Strongly Disagree’’ agreement about the
statement.
The first part of the instrument (SMCIQ)
was divided into two sections A and B. Section A
elicited students’ biodata such as name of the
institution, sex, course of study, faculty, level, e-
mail address, mobile phone number, type of social
networking sites use most often, to mention only a
few. Section B comprised of 10 items with each item
designed to collectively measure each of the
dimensions of cognitive playfulness amongst
undergraduate students. The second part of the
instrument (SMCIQ) was divided into three sections
A, B and C. Part Two, Section A consists of 6 items,
and measures use of academic social media
networking sites. Part Two, Section B consists of 9
items and measures perceived creative and
innovative capacity amongst undergraduate
students. Also, Part Two, Section C consists of 5
items, and measures creativity-enhancing practices
amongst undergraduate students.
The face and construct validity of the
instrument were established through subjecting
items to expert judgments of five experts. Two of
these experts were Tests and Measurement, while
the remaining three were Educational Psychology,
Sociology of Education and Guidance and
Counselling experts respectively. Afolabi (2012)
maintained that face validity of instrument is based
upon a superficial examination of the nature of the
instrument. Hence, the experts appraised the items
based on ambiguity, relevance and sentence
structure respectively. The experts’ judgments
revealed that the instrument had adequate face and
construct validity. To establish the Content Validity
Ratio (CVR), the aggregate of experts’ ratings of the
30 items in the instrument (SMCIQ) as “essential”
in measuring what it purports to measure was put
into consideration, and the mean (𝑥̅) of the CVR for
the 30 items was 0.89. This indicates that experts’
judgments of the instrument is high and that the
instrument enjoys high validity.
Consequently, a pilot study was conducted
to establish the reliability of the instrument using
test-retest reliability method. This involves the
double administration of the instruments on 30
undergraduate students from a State-owned
university with a two-week interval. The 30
Result
Hypothesis 1
This states that there is no significant influence of undergraduate students’ use of academic social media
networking sites on their perceived cognitive playfulness.
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undergraduate students randomly selected were not
the same with the 280 students used for the study as
sample. A Pearson product moment correlation co-
efficient formula was used for data analysis. The
result shows a test-retest reliability co-efficient of
0.75 (n = 30; p<0.05) and internal consistency
reliability estimate of 0.86 (n = 30; p<0.05). The
test-retest reliability was preferred because of the
desire to determine the internal consistency of the
instrument for data collection. Thus, the instrument
was accepted as highly reliable, consistent and valid
over time.
The research instrument was personally
administered to the respondents by the researcher
with the aid of the Research Assistants recruited for
the purpose of this study. The Research Assistants
are full-time lecturers in their respective
Departments in the public university used for the
study. A total of 280 questionnaires were
administered on the selected sample. Out of these,
only 260 questionnaires were returned correctly
filled consisting of 130 male and 130 female Part 3
undergraduate students. Thus, a return rate of 93%
was achieved.
Thereafter, a key was developed to code
every information received from the questionnaire.
Hence, the instrument was scored variable-by-
variable as guided by the research hypotheses. For
part one of the questionnaire, items 1-13 enabled the
classification of the respondents into male and
female undergraduates; Faculties and Departments;
and type of social networking sites use most often.
Part two, section A, B, and C of the questionnaire
consisted of twenty items which were broken down
to variables in the study. Each of the items was
scored in an increasing (ascending) order of
magnitude for those items that were positively
worded; while those items that were negatively
worded were scored in a decreasing (descending)
order of magnitude. The combination of these scores
formed the basis on which the data were analysed.
Using updated SPSS version 21.0., the data
collected were subjected to analysis computing first,
the mean (𝑥̅) scores and standard deviations (SD).
Afterwards, Pearson product moment correlation
statistical method was used to test hypotheses one
and Chi-Square (χ2) statistical procedure was used to
test hypothesis two respectively. Also, percentile
analysis was done using simple percentage statistical
method. Hence, all hypotheses postulated were
tested at 0.05 level of significance.
 Kano Journal of Educational Psychology (KaJEP)
Volume 3, No. 1, June, 2021
ISSN (Hard copy): 2736 – 1365 eISSN: (Online): 2736 – 1373
Influence of Social Media Networking Sites on Creative … (Ibrahim & Yakasai, 2021)
www.kjnisepjournal.com

Table 1: Influence of Undergraduate Students’ Use of Academic Social Media Networking Sites and Their
Perceived Cognitive Playfulness
Variables N Mean (𝑥̅) SD r-cal p-value
Scores
Students’ use of academic social media 260 58.13 12.51
networking sites
0.72 p<0.05
Students’ perceived cognitive 260 57.63 13.17
playfulness
*Significant; df = 258, critical r = .138
disconfirmed. This means that there existed a
Table 1 reveals that the calculated r-value of 0.72 significant influence of undergraduate students’ use
was significant since it is greater than the p-value of academic social media networking sites and their
given 258 degree of freedom at 0.05 level of perceived cognitive playfulness.
significance. Consequently, the null hypothesis was

Hypothesis 2
This states that there is no significant influence of undergraduate students’ use of academic social media
networking sites’ methodologies on creativity-enhancing practices amongst undergraduate students.

Table 2: Influence of Undergraduate Students’ Use of Academic Social Media Networking Sites Methodologies and
Creativity-Enhancing Practices amongst Undergraduate Students
Social Media Creativity-Enhancing Practices Amongst Total χ2-cal p-value
Networking Sites’ Undergraduate Students
Strongly Agree

Methodology
Disagree

Disagree
Strongly
Agree

WhatsApp a22(8.5%) a17(6.5%) 6(2.3%) 8(3.1%) 53

19.98 16.72 8.15 8.15 29.36* p<0.05
Academia.edu 15 (5.8%) 18 (6.9%) 7(2.7%) 5(1.9%) 45
16.96 14.19 6.92 6.92
Research Gate 13(5.0%) 16(6.2%) 5(1.9%) a9(3.5%) 43
16.21 13.56 6.62 6.62
Twitter 19(7.3%) 10(3.8%) 11(4.2%) 5(1.9%) 45
16.96 14.19 6.92 6.92
LinkedIn a20(7.7%) 9 (3.5%) 5(1.9%) a5(1.9%) 39
14.70 12.30 6.0 6.0
Mendeley 9(3.5%) 12(4.6%) 6 (2.3%) a8(3.1%) 35
13.19 11.04 5.39 5.39
Total 98 82 40 40 260
*Significant; df = 15; p<0.05
a = Observed Frequencies (ƒo) are placed above the Expected Frequencies (ƒe), while percentile values are in parentheses.

Table 2 indicates that 39 respondents
constituting 15% of the total sample affirmatively
agreed that using WhatsApp as one of social media
networking sites’ methodologies enhances creative
and innovative behaviour amongst undergraduate
students, but 14 respondents constituting 5.4% of the
total sample disagreed. This is followed by 33
respondents constituting 12.7% of the total sample
confirmed that using Academia.edu as a social
media networking sites’ methodology enhances
creative and innovative behaviour amongst
undergraduate students, while a handful of the
respondents (12) constituting 4.6% of the total
sample thought otherwise. Noteworthy, 29
respondents constituting 11.2% of the total sample
strongly agreed that using ResearchGate, Twitter,
and LinkedIn, as social media networking sites’
methodologies influence creative and innovative
behaviour amongst undergraduate students,
however, 14, 16, and 10 respondents constituting
5.4% 6.1%, and 3.8% of the total sample did not
agree respectively. Also, 21 respondents
constituting 8.1% of the total sample affirmed that
using Mendeley as one of social media networking
sites’ methodologies enhances creative and
innovative behaviour amongst undergraduate
students, but, a handful of the respondents (14)
constituting 5.4% of the total sample disagreed.

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Further, the Chi-square (χ2) analysis of the results
yielded 29.36. The calculated χ2-value of 29.36 is
greater than the p-value given 15 degree of freedom
at 0.05 level of significance. Consequently, the null
hypothesis was disconfirmed. That is, there is a
significant influence of undergraduate students’ use
of academic social media networking sites’
methodologies and creativity-enhancing practices
amongst undergraduate students.
Discussion of Findings
The purpose of this study was to investigate
whether undergraduate students’ use of academic
social media networking sites influence their
perceived creative and innovative capacity. The
findings obtained showed that there was a
significant influence of undergraduate students’ use
of academic social media networking sites on their
perceived cognitive playfulness. Further, there was
a significant influence of undergraduate students’
use of academic social media networking sites’
methodologies on creativity-enhancing practices
amongst undergraduate students. The findings are in
consonance with the earlier ones, which had alluded
to the existence of some form of relationship
between Social Media Networking Sites (SMNSs)
and undergraduate students’ creative and innovative
behaviour. In fact, Dabner (2012) and Mbodila,
Isong & Muhandji (2014) have indicated that SNSs
have the potential to increase student engagement,
which includes undergraduate students’ creative and
innovative activities. For instance, Mbodila et al.,
(2014) explained that SNS significantly increases
students’ collaboration, knowledge sharing and
creative indulgencies. Similarly, Osatuyi (2013) and
Lederer (2012) concluded that social media
employment in higher education improves learning
motivation, enhances knowledge sharing and
collaborative abilities. Thus, SMNSs activities have
the possibility of enhancing student contact as well
as improve their participation in creative and
innovative activities. Indeed, integrating social
media into the students’ learning process provides
them with an opportunity to take control of their
learning activities, which in turn boost their
confidence (Yunus et al., 2012).
Also, the findings seem to agree with the
findings of Eke & Odoh (2014) and Musa (2015)
who respectively discovered that students interact
with others, exchange information about their
interests, raise discussions about few topics, and
follow news about specific topics on different social
media. Students now use the social media for most
of their daily activities and information gathering as
opposed to older generations who used resources
like textbooks, TV or newspaper. They concluded
that many undergraduate students use the social
networking sites in interaction with friends,
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Kano Journal of Educational Psychology (KaJEP)
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connecting with their classmates for online study,
discussing serious academic and national issues as
well as watching movies. Similarly, Musa (2015)
discovered that many undergraduate students in
Nigeria use SNSs for communication, collaboration,
news sharing, knowledge sharing, research,
expression of opinion, maintaining a connection,
and making friends from other countries. They
suggested that SNSs should be created for
educational purposes in order create a balance
between social networking and academic activities
of students that will encourage creativity and
innovation among students.
However, these findings contradict
Paliktzoglou and Suhonen (2014) and Scott et al.,
(2016) who maintained that there will be detrimental
effect, as SNSs will interference with most
undergraduate students’ academic activities. This
means that social media have both positive and
negative impacts on the students’ academic
performance. With so many social networking sites
displayed on the internet, students are tempted to
abandon their assignment and reading schedule in
preference to chatting online with friends as well as
some who are now addicted to the online rave of the
moment with Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and so
on.
A likely reason for the findings of this
study obviously is that current university students
grew up in the technology era and social media is
now just part of students’ daily routine. Despite
spending time on social media, students are still
efficient enough in their studies. The favourite realm
of these media sites are Facebook, WhatsApp and
Twitter. These social forums are playing a large and
influential role in decision making in global
economy, social and educational venture. Modern
technology is helping undergraduate students to be
better informed by accessing information about
anything at anytime and anywhere. Social media
exist to provide communication among
undergraduate students regardless of the distance,
making it easy for people to share information, files,
pictures, videos, create blogs, send messages and
conduct real time conversations that could spur
creativity and innovation.
Conclusion
Based on the findings of this study, it can
be concluded that a significant influence of
undergraduate students’ use of academic social
media networking sites exists on their perceived
cognitive playfulness. Also, there existed a
significant influence of undergraduate students’ use
of academic social media networking sites’
methodologies on creativity-enhancing practices
amongst undergraduate students. Therefore, the use
of SMNSs tools potentially promotes creative and

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Influence of Social Media Networking Sites on Creative … (Ibrahim & Yakasai, 2021)
innovative activities as it increases learning
collaboration among undergraduate students in
Nigerian Universities.
Recommendations
1. Undergraduate students should create a balance
between academic and creative activities on
social media by focusing mainly on the creative
and innovative relevance of most sites instead
of engaging in unprofitable surfing.
2. Undergraduate students should be enlightened
on how to maximize the potential of the
different social network sites for both their
creativity and academic benefits.
3. Students should use social media for improving
learning and promoting creative and innovative
behaviour among themselves.
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