CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background to the Study
Social Networking Sites (SNS) are parts of new media of communication that came with the application of information and communication technology. As communication media, SNS are social media platforms people use to disseminate and receive information. Simply put, SNS describe media for people to communicate and interact online – as well as the relationships that exist between networks of people (Walther, 2016). SNS is equally made up of activities that involve socializing and networking through media channels. In doing so, users make use of message elements like texts, videos, illustrations, among others (Nwazor & Godwin-Maduike, 2015).
According to Nwazor and Godwin-Maduike (2019), “the availability of high speed Internet broadband connection with massive use of desktop computer, laptops, e-readers, facebook, youtube, and smartphones enables millions of people to actively engage in social media, text messaging, content sharing, online-learning and much more.” Attesting to the different networking sites with their inherent interactive potentials, McQuail (2018) posits that social media constitute ‘a number of Internet websites that have been set up to enable and encourage users to create networks of acquaintances and also to share messages and audio visual materials, often available to a wider public.’
In the same vein, Pempek, Yermalgyever and Calvert, (2009) and Boyd and Ellison (2007) and Eck (2017) describe SNS as web based services that allow individuals to create and sustain relationships with others, create personal, public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, up-load photographs and post personal messages to their friends and other users, including strangers at anytime. These SNS which include, but not limited to the following, are: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, Linkedin Tumblr, Whataspp, Messenger, QQ chat, Meetup, Flickr, Ask Fm, Google +, Pinterest, Classmates, IMO, MySpace, Badoo, Match.com., BlackPlanet, Friendster, Cyworld, Ning, Youtube, (Eck 2017) etc, have however grown in popularity that many researchers and users affirmed the same.
It is cognizance of this that Boyd and Ellison (2017) and Eck, (2017) acknowledged that SNS have created a phenomenon that has gained popularity over the last decade in the Internet with large number of people having greater access to the sites. As the foregoing reveals, the creation of new communication avenues by SNS according to studies and researchers offer excess and diversified interactive access to the users. The extensive access to these online sites has resulted in spouses indulging in cyber relationship across the globe (Young, 2017) Young, (2017) also affirms that the excessive use of time on social media by spouses causes other marital problems among spouses.
That is why Wright (2018), assert that SNS encourage spouses of opposite sex to appreciate profiles of themselves, through texting, uploading and downloading of pictures which are gateways to distrust and infidelity in marriages. Wright (2018) notes that the inordinate access of SNS by couples has doubled the attendant problems of marital relationship and has to a large extent caused divorces among spouses all over the world. In his words: This day and age, society is engaged in SNS which add to the stress and difficulties of relationship which surrounds us today. SNS have contributed to a large amount of
