Department of Mass Communication, Federal Polytechnic Oko, Anambra State.
Corresponding Author’s email:maryanezeigbo@gmail.com
Abstract
This study investigated the involvement of the Nigeria youths in the just concluded 2023 general elections in Nigeria as inspired through the use of the available social media platforms, which include: Whatsapp, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, among others.Thisstudy adopted an online survey research design, and used simple random sampling technique to gather data from 384 respondents. This study also used the democratic media participant theory. Finally, this study found out that upto37,060,399 representing 39.65 or approximately 40 percent of the entire voters in Nigeriathatfall within the age range of 18 and 34years participated actively from the registration to the final voting, collation and declaration stages of the 2023 general elections in Nigeria. Italso found out that some of the political activities the Nigerian youths used the social media platforms to do during the election included: political advocacy, communication and discussions, campaigning, election and result monitoring,among others. Finally, the study concluded that the social media, indeed, encouraged youths participation in the 2023 general elections in Nigeria, and therefore recommended that the use of social media should be supported by the Nigerian government through the reduction in data charges, etc, since it is now clear that the use of social media has helped in promoting digital skills,interactions, enlightenment, politicalawarenessand participationamong the Nigerian youths