Social Media and Social Networking Applications for Knowledge Sharing among Academics in Nigeria

The usage of social media and social networking applications to communicate or share ideas among people is one of the trending areas in communication and new media research. This research sought to investigate the usage of Social Media and Social Networking applications as knowledge sharing technologies among lecturers, or with students. The study used convenient sample method to select respondents through a multi-stage sampling procedure to gather data from 1047 respondents across 13 academic faculties at Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) in Zaria, Nigeria, who responded to a survey questionnaire instrument. SPSS and NVivo data analysis programs were used for the analysis of both qualitative and quantitative data. Crosssectional design within the action research framework was conducted using mixedmethod; with structured questionnaires and in-depth interviews. Diffusion of innovation, unified theory of acceptance and use of technology theories formed the conceptual framework of the study. Key Findings reveal that, the greatest challenges faced by Nigerian academics in using social media and social networking applications include low interconnectivity and insufficient electricity supply. In addition, the academic staff of the Ahmadu Bello University Zaria were influenced to use the Social Media and Social Networking applications by the technological factor followed by the individual factor, and that there is no significant relationship between the participants' gender and the use of the technologies. The COVID 19 pandemic period according to the findings has increased the use of the social media and social Networking applications among the academics of Ahmadu Bello university Zaria. Three out of the four hypothesis were supported by the qualitative data of the findings while hypothesis 1 (H1) stands unsupported.