Demographic factors of digital well-being among Nigerian students of library and information science

Abstract

Digital technologies now mediate most of what students in higher education do, from locating sources to submitting assessed work, and the consequences of that mediation for student well-being have become a legitimate object of study in their own right. This review examines the demographic factors associated with digital well-being among Library and Information Science students in Nigeria, a population for whom digital information competence is not incidental but constitutive of professional preparation. A structured narrative literature review was conducted. Peer reviewed journal articles, scholarly publisher platforms, indexed research records and Nigerian Library and Information Science journals published between 2020 and 2026 were identified through PubMed, SpringerLink, Wiley Online Library, Oxford Academic and African Journals Online, screened against stated inclusion and exclusion criteria, and synthesised thematically rather than statistically because the retained sources varied too widely in population, design and measurement to support pooling. Evidence was organised across five demographic dimensions: age, gender, socioeconomic position, level of study and geographical location. The synthesis found that the Nigerian evidence base speaks to these dimensions unevenly. Socioeconomic position and geographical location are supported most directly, principally through documented differences in device ownership, connectivity cost, electricity reliability and institutional infrastructure. Level of study is supported indirectly through differences in the intensity and purpose of digital engagement. Age and gender remain the least substantiated: the available Nigerian studies rarely disaggregate digital well-being outcomes by either, so claims about them rest largely on wider higher education evidence of uncertain transferability. Three challenges recurred across the literature: a persistent gap between technical access and the competencies required to use technology well, the cost and unreliability of connectivity and power, and limited institutional provision for mental health alongside continuing stigma. The review concludes that digital well-being in this setting is produced by the interaction between demographic position and institutional conditions rather than by demographic attributes alone, and that the principal need is for Nigerian studies that measure digital well-being directly and report it disaggregated by demographic group.