THE EXTENT OF USE AND INFUNENCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA DURING COVID 19 ON THE READING HABIT OF ALHIKMAH UNIVERSITY STUDENT. (FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCE).

The research has explored the extent of usage and influence of social media on the reading behavior of the Al-Hikmah University students during covid-19. (faculty of humanities and social science). This study has taken the Descriptive Survey as design. Five research questions and five research objectives were formulated. Literature reviews on related literature were used. The study tool was a questionnaire. Tables and percentage were used to analyze and discuss the questionnaire. The observation found that most of the student in Al-Hikmah university Kwara State Ilorin, make used of social media more during covid-19 lockdown. The research established that students actively utilized social media to academics. It was discussed that there were several positive and negative impacts brought about by social media. The analysis found out that the most commonly used platform was WhatsApp, YouTube, Facebook, and Telegram, particularly in academic use. It was also established that the key obstacles identified were the lack of internet connectivity, the cost of data, distracting non-academic material, the inability to assess the credibility of the information, and the overload of information, as well as, the issue of digital literacy was not found to be serious as the majority of the students proved to be quite competent in using such platforms to study academic content. One can conclude that social media was an important resource in maintaining academic interaction during the COVID-19 lockdown both as a learning tool and distraction.