AN INVESTIGATION OF SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE AND ITS IMPACT ON STUDENTS EXPOSURE TO CYBERCRIMES

Background of the study: Technology has been the success story of our century and has opened doors for beneficial inventions.  Technology has countries interconnected and the world has now become a global village (Ojo 2019). he information of most people and the economy of most countries in the world have become easily accessible with the help of electronic devices through the Internet and social media engagements and it is available to anyone who inquires, including criminals and eavesdroppers (Vladimir 2015). Social media is a computer technology that facilitates the sharing of ideas thoughts, information idea interests and other forms of expressions via virtual communities, networks and platforms. Social media connotes a web-based consumer friendly software platform interactively and responsively even to build or distribute content on some of the social media platforms that include: blogs like type pad, WordPress, image and video sharing applications such as Instagram, YouTube, Flickr, microblogs such as twitter and Tumblr, social sites such as Facebook, Myspace, WhatsApp, LinkedIn etc. Social media's strength lies in its ability to create highly productive channels to connect and interact with people freely anywhere, wherever, in real-time and worldwide (Rana, 2017).

According to (Simona, 2020) As of January 2020, Nigeria registered approximately 27 million active social media users, WhatsApp was the most popular platform used in the country. Nonetheless, the number of registered internet users in Nigeria decreased in more than 10 million from 2019 to 2020, the platform was mentioned by 94% of Internet users aged 16-64 years. Facebook and YouTube followed, being used respectively by 87% & 76% of the individuals with access to the Internet (Statista 2020). Just as social media has brought for several benefits in aspects of business, interaction, entertainment etc., it has equally posed social and security risks the impact the society, national and international security negatively. Frequently, personal information is shared when creating profiles on social media platforms thereby making it easy for online crimes to take place. Threat attacks including hacking, stealing of names, phishing Scams, viruses are now common online because users share names, date of birth, school names, Family information and other information on websites of social media (Ayodele 2019). As the activities online rise, there are worries about the ways the personal information shared by the users may be collected and analyzed (Hinduja and Patchin 2019).

All of these threats see to the introduction of the general action which is Cybercrime, and Cybercrime is generally known as the extortion or blackmail of organizations and individuals on social media or Internet websites or the forceful hacking of their personal emails to obtain personal information for fraudulent acts. Cybercrime, also called computer crime is the use of a computer as an instrument to further illegal ends, such as committing fraud, trafficking in child pornography and intellectual property, stealing identities, or violating privacy. Cybercrime, especially through the Internet, has grown in importance as the computer has become central to commerce, entertainment, and government (Dennis, 2017). Cybercrime includes a wide series of criminal activities including: Phishing email messages, Unconstitutional access or unauthorized access to a person’s personal information, theft of financial or card payment data, theft and sale of corporate data, Cyber extortion (demanding money to prevent a threatened attack), ransomware attacks (a type of cyber extortion), identity fraud (where personal information is stolen and use). Cybercriminals aim to use a computing device to access personal data of a user, confidential business information or government information for illegal means (Tariq 2019).

Cybercrimes in Nigeria are of different categories ranging from; hacking, cyber-stalking, Internet frauds, online scams, ATM or credit card fraud, software piracy, phishing, virus dissemination, cyber-defamation.  In Nigeria, cybercriminals are referred as "yahoo boys". They usually take advantage of the open e-commerce and social media scheme to defraud unsuspecting people on sites (who are mainly foreigners or immigrants) of thousands and sometimes millions of dollars.