Influence of Social Media on Dress-patterns of Undergraduates in University of Nigeria, Nsukka

Abstract

In recent times, dress patterns have come under increased attack as most youths now dress against accepted societal standards especially in tertiary institutions. “Dress to kill” is now a popular slogan in lecture halls with the intention of looking sexy but factors responsible for these are yet to be ascertained. Therefore, this study was carried out to find out the influence of social media on dress-patterns of undergraduates in University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The main objectives of the study are how frequent they copy dress patterns on social media platforms, the platform that influences their dress patterns the most and the factors responsible for copying the dress-patterns. The study is a survey with three hundred and seventy-nine (379) students of UNN as samples for the study. The multi stage sampling technique was used to select respondents. The instrument used for data collation was the questionnaire and data was analysed quantitatively. Findings from the study revealed that pictures on social media have an influence on UNN undergraduates’ dress-patterns. The desire to look like celebrities among other factors determines the choice of undergraduates’ dress-patterns on social media. The conclusion of the study is that undergraduates of University of Nigeria, Nsukka copy dress-patterns mostly from Instagram. The researcher recommended among others that since Instagram is influential on the dress-patterns of undergraduates, it shows the platform is very common among them and undergraduates should rather exploit this opportunity to display their skills, services and goods on the platform since it is more of a pictorial platform.