Abstract:
his paper: "An assessment of social media utilization
for promotion of healthy living among Residents of Makurdi,
Benue State” assesses the utilization of social media for the
promotion of healthy living among residents of Makurdi, the
Benue state capital. The study is anchored on the Uses and
Gratification theory while the research adopts the survey method
Findings indicate that the most popular social media sites like
FaceBook, MySpace, and Twitter etc are used by residents of
Makurdi for chatting, downloading of video and musical clips and
social interaction generally; and that conscious efforts are not
made in utilizing the social media sites for the promotion of
healthy living among the residents. The paper concludes that
social media sites have the potentials of being effectively utilized
for the promotion of healthy living among users and recommends
among others that since "health is wealth", users of the sites
should place as priority the promotion of healthy living among
themselves with messages of encouragement to eat balanced diet,
cultivate healthy lifestyle, observe issues of total abstinence,
mutual fidelity and where necessary, encourage the use of
condom; before otherthings can follow.
