Social Media Affordances and Social Validation Among Nigerian Youths: An Examination of Self-Presentation and Online Engagement

Abstract

This study examined how perceived social media affordances, self-presentation, and online engagement collectively shape experiences of social validation among Nigerian youths within an integrated framework that combines Affordance theory, Goffman’s Dramaturgical perspectives, and Uses and Gratifications. Using a quantitative survey of 480 active social media users across platforms (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and X), data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlations, regression, and regression-based sequential mediation modelling. Our findings indicate that perceived social media affordances significantly predict self-presentation behaviours (β = 0.79, p < 0.001), self-presentation significantly predicts online engagement (β = 0.43, p < 0.001); and online engagement predicts perceived social validation (β = 051, p < 0.001). Our findings also reveal that self-presentation and online engagement jointly and sequentially mediate the relationship between perceived affordances and perceived social media validation, with a significant indirect effect (β = 0.13, 95% CI [0.09, 0.19]) and a non-significant direct path from affordances to validation. Within a connectivity-constrained environment of Nigerian youths, our findings support a process-based understanding of digital interaction, showing how technological affordances are translated into social outcomes via structured, theoretically grounded user practices. Apart from validation emerging as a salient gratification, the study noted other motivational cues (sociability, identity expression, and information seeking) behind youth engagement with social media, suggesting that validation is just one of many reasons underlying youth social media use. The study contributes to Global Majority Media scholarship by providing a theoretically integrated process-based framework and a mechanism-oriented narrative of social media use in a non-Western setting.