ABSTRACT
This study was carried out to investigate cybercrime and the misuse of modern technologies by youths in the University of Benin. Cybercrime is vastly growing in the world of technology today. Cybercriminals exploit internet users’ personal information for their own gain. They dive deep into the dark web to buy and sell illegal products and services and even gain access to classified government information. Many nations of the world have blacklisted Nigerian youths in connection with fraudulent and illegal internet activities and as such would not want to do any form of legitimate business transaction(s) with them especially on the internet with the fear of being scammed or duped. Cybercrime in Nigeria seems to be perpetuated by youths especially those in Universities and to a very large extent cybercrime seems to affect their educational pursuit and academic performance. The youths are of a great concern and importance to every society, so, whatever it takes, their development should be looked into so as to promote the goals of education. Nine research questions were raised and six hypotheses were formulated to guide the study.
The descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised 43,772 students made up of 39,243 undergraduates and 4,529 postgraduates. The data was collected using simple random sampling technique and a sample size of 408 students was selected from the University of Benin. The research instrument used for the study was a self-structured questionnaire. The instrument was subjected to scrutiny and test-retest reliability of 0.96 was derived, indicating that the instrument was reliable. The data were analyzed using frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, chi-square and t-test of independent samples statistics. The results revealed that unemployment, greed for money, poverty and parental conflict are among the leading causes of misuse of modern technology for cybercrime. Cybercrime activities can impact negatively on youths in the areas of academics, interpersonal relationships, social behaviour, and so on. Non-prosecution of cybercriminals by government and law enforcement agents encourages youths’ participation in cybercrime activities. Peer influence encourage youths’ involvement in cybercrime activities. There is a direct link between knowledge of internet and cybercrime activities. There exists a relationship between socio-economic status of youths and their involvement in cybercrime. Males are more inclined to cybercrime and deviant behaviours than their female counterparts. family and parents’ socio-economic background is linked to youth involvement in cybercrimes and there is a relationship between education and cybercrime activities among youths.
It was concluded that the causative factors of youths’ involvement in cybercrime can be curbed or reduced to its barest minimum and youths can be encouraged to uphold societal values and shun criminal tendencies. It was recommended that the government should formulate workable policies against cybercrimes.
