INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON THE SPREAD OF SUICIDE THOUGHTS AMONG KWARA STATE YOUTHS

The research work is carried out to examine the influence of social media on the spread of suicide among youths of Ilorin East local government area of Kwara State. The study was carried out in order to effect of social media on the mental health of youth in Ilorin East area of Kwara State. The study considered 100 respondents as the sample size for the study and used purposive sampling technique to get the sampling size for the study at which questionnaire was designed using the google form and directed to the students. The study used simple statistics with the use of frequency and percentage to analysis data collected from the respondents. However, the study found out that several occurrences seen through the use of social media are in most case of an effect to the mental health of the people who uses social media although many believes relate to it but the larger percentage of the respondent believe that it does not affects their mental health. Also, it pointed out that there are many ways that social media affects people such as cyberstalking, cyberbullying, to some it may be depression because some of the upload on social media lead youth to depression and to some it might be cyberstalking. Therefore, it recommended that authorities should encourage the creation and promotion of positive and supportive content on social media platforms. It also recommended that there should be encouragement of open communication and destigmatize discussions about mental health in offline settings.