New research by Mastercard Foundation, named Digital Lives in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda, shows that the youth in Africa are using the internet for functional purposes, including job searches and education.

An excerpt from the research says that: "Consumption of content online is dominated by news, games, music, and social networking. However, many of these habits overlap regularly with functional tasks, such as finding jobs, advancing their education, and increasing their income."

Even though social media dominates internet use, respondents used various social media platforms to search for job opportunities.

"Social networking also has a real functional purpose for young people, in terms of helping young people find jobs, research new career directions, and market themselves," the report said.

"Participants use their online access for self study purposes, but few report using the myriad of donor supported learning platforms or tools for this purpose. Wikipedia, YouTube and Google searches account for the bulk of this type of activity," the report added.

Many respondents claimed their interaction with entertainment helps them develop skills and become more comfortable with the use of technology in other areas such as learning.

The findings go hand-in-hand with the surge in the number of job platforms across Africa, which rely heavily on social media to advertise vacancies.

The report denotes: "While OperaMini, CareerPoint, Jobberman in Ghana, Brighter Monday in Uganda, and LinkedIn are mentioned as sites where jobs can be found, 'liking' company pages in Facebook, posting a Facebook status that you are looking for a job or posting on WhatsApp groups are the particularly common methods of actual job searching."

The research was conducted by UK-based research consultancy Caribou Digital who engaged with youngsters between the ages of 18 and 24 in Kenya, Uganda and Ghana.