Language Choice and the Eroding of Cultural Identity among Nigerian Facebook Users

Abstract

The advent of the social media has made life easier for people. It has made sending and receivingof information more convenient. Consequently, individuals, organizations, institutions and evengovernments find social media an easier way of reaching their target audience. Social media havealso helped in boosting the economy. It helps in promoting brand visibility and awareness which inturn promotes business growth. However, this has come with a price to our cultural identity. Socialmedia is not only a mode of passing information but also a source of penetration of cultures fromdominant cultures to recessive ones. African cultures have been at the receiving end of this culturalimperialism. The Nigerian Facebook community currently faces a significant erosion of culturalidentity. In order to investigate this phenomenon, two Facebook pages – Yabaleftonline.com andRANT HQ – were purposively selected for this study. Six posts (three from each page) wereselected and three comments under each post were also selected to analyse the extent of the erosionof cultural identity in each African value. The study anchors on the theory of linguistic relativitywhich postulates that the way in which we think about the world is directly influenced by thelanguage we use to talk about it. Since English is a liberal language and also the medium ofexpression used in the Facebook pages selected for this study, the outcome of the study shows thatmany Nigerian users of Facebook do not reflect their cultural identity on Facebook.