Abstract
Facebook and WhatsApp as social network sites are being used by several individuals, including undergraduate students in tertiary institutions. There is no doubt that social media have brought tremendous improvement in the communication system in educational system and the entire global sphere. Therefore, this paper is a conceptual paper which focuses on the awareness of the use and impact of Facebook and WhatsApp among undergraduate students in tertiary institutions. The paper reveals some relevant literatures related to the topic, which includes the concept of Facebook and WhatsApp and briefly explaining the history of both social networking sites. The paper also discusses the conceptual view of undergraduate students as students in the tertiary institutions pursing their first degree programme to various disciplines. Awareness of the use of Facebook and WhatsApp by undergraduate students was also looked into, which is the knowledge or perception about the use of Facebook and WhatsApp. From the relevant literatures reviewed, it is obviously that some researchers have shown mixed feeling on the awareness of the use of Facebook and whatsApp among undergraduate students. Most of the researchers discovered that Facebook and WhatsApp have been useful to undergraduate students in their studies. From the reviewed of related and relevant literatures, it is observed that that the awareness of the use of Facebook and WhatsApp by undergraduate students in higher institutions have become the popular means of communication among undergraduate students, undergraduate students use both Facebook and WhatsApp for social activities and academic purposes as the case may be in terms of creating Facebook and WhatsApp pages to study together and discuss class issues. The paper recommends amongst others undergraduates students should be tutored and advised on how to comport themselves to ensure that these platforms do not become disadvantages as regards to academic activities, undergraduates to make use of these social media more for academic purposes rather than for fun.