SOCIAL MEDIA, DIGITAL COMMUNICATION, AND ENGLISH LANGUAGE PRACTICES AMONG NIGERIAN STUDENTS: A COMPUTER-MEDIATED DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Abstract

This study examines the influence of social media on English language practices among Nigerian students, addressing gaps in previous research regarding digital discourse and linguistic behavior. Grounded in Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) and Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis (CMDA), the study adopts a qualitative observational methodology. Data were collected from sixty students across WhatsApp, Facebook, X (Twitter), Instagram, and TikTok over three months. Content analysis was used to examine patterns such as code-mixing, abbreviations, grammatical structures, and vocabulary usage. Findings reveal that social media enhances communicative competence and lexical creativity while also encouraging informal language features that may affect formal writing. The study contributes to sociolinguistic scholarship by demonstrating that digital English usage is adaptive and context-dependent rather than indicative of linguistic decline. It recommends integrating digital literacy into language pedagogy.