Communication sustains the modern society. Mass media are public carriers of messages to heterogeneous audiences, including university students and they allow students to express themselves as well as acquire knowledge. This paper examines the contemporary patterns of media use among students in five private universities in Nigeria. Media use indicates the various ways students employ the media to meet their different needs for information, entertainment and education. The survey research design was adopted with the questionnaire as the major instrument administered among respondents drawn from privately-owned universities in South- West Nigeria. It was found that students are media literate with the skills to navigate through different media platforms. However, most of the respondents preferred new media to the traditional media of newspapers, magazines, radio, television and films. Respondents access the Internet mostly through their mobile phones, and mainly for entertainment purpose. It is therefore suggested that more creators of media messages targeting this group should put them online, especially on the social media.