The study investigated the influence of demographics, a wide range of motivations of new media use and constraints of its use, on the pattern of new media use for educational purposes by Nigerian university students. The rationale was to proffer appropriate strategies towards sustainable and effective deployment, integration, and utilisation of new media for a better educational experience of students in Nigerian universities. The philosophical perspective was based on positivism. The quantitative approach with survey research design was adopted, covering a cross-section of Nigerian university students using questionnaires as the data collection instrument, complemented with structured interviews. Three large and geographically central universities were purposively selected for the study: University of Ibadan, University of Nigeria, and University of Ilorin. Stratified random sampling was used to select students from the selected faculties in the surveyed universities as respondents. A sample size of 647 students was used for the study. The findings of the study reveal that information seeking and surveillance, convenience and low cost, social interaction, broadcast media involvement, personal utility and self-promotion, affection, maintaining connections, and escape and new trends were significant motivations for using new media for educational reasons. Nevertheless, infrastructure required to use these technologies, privacy and security concerns, confusing acronyms, economic issues, inadequate knowledge and skills, and timing-related issues constitute obstacles to the use of new media for educational reasons. The paper recommends appropriate strategies towards effective and sustainable deployment, integration, ease of access, and utilisation of new media technologies by Nigerian university students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]