The Roles of Public Libraries as Panacea to the Menace of Social Media Addiction of Adolescents in Nigeria

Abstract

The paper examined roles of public libraries as panacea to the menace of social media addiction of adolescents in Nigeria, it discussed social media as a platform where communication takes place and relationship with friends established, also social media is a platform that create profile, which make explicit and transverse relationship, the paper preempt the concepts of social media, social networking, adolescent, social media addiction, public libraries and public libraries roles and considered some of social network site (SNS) commonly used in Nigeria such as Facebook, Twitter, Google plus,2go, Whatsapp and Niraland among others were explicit, uncontrolled used of social media was illustrated by diagram to depicts the level of addictions by adolescents, the remedies to alleviate/reduce social media addiction by public libraries was lauded, the paper suggested remedies that public libraries can provide through performing the statutory responsibilities are: reading culture, Centre for culture, center for information, Centre for education and research roles of public library. The paper concluded that social media has helped interpersonal communication beyond measure, above all the adolescents, should not have unlimited access to their phones to the extent that it will lead to addiction.