Abstract

B.N. Abubaka

Internet use is becoming increasingly popular in Nigerian cities, thus necessitating the spread of commercial cybercafés nationwide. Unfortunately, use of cybercafé has been associated with a number of anti-social behaviours. This study is an exploratory investigation of the characteristics and information seeking behaviour of users of commercial cybercafés in selected Nigerian cities. A total of 180 respondents were selected via a multi-stage random sampling technique. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire. Data analysis revealed that about 60% of respondents were male, and nearly 80% were less than 36 years old. Furthermore, 91% of respondents had above 12 years of formal education, while 30% had no formal training in use of computer. Majority (40%) had 1 - 4 years of Internet use experience, while students constituted about 40% of respondents. About 40% had no formal source of income. It was further revealed that 59.4, 13.4, and 27.2% of respondents used the Internet for academic, business, and ‘social’ purposes respectively. Pearson correlation analysis revealed significant relationship between weekly use of cybercafé and Internet use experience (r = 0.61, p = 0.016), years of formal education (r = 0.69, p = 0.008), and monthly income (r = 0.78, p = 0.002) among respondents. The paper concludes that cybercafé users in Nigerian cities are mostly students and academics, and proffered some useful recommendations for improvement.