IT NEWS NIGERIA:
Social Media and social networking platforms are insidiously weaving themselves into the fabric of our existence as Nigerians.
The networking platforms now determine for our critical populations issues of personal happiness and unhappiness, social harmony and disharmony, good and bad governance, and even, peace and war.
These are the views of Olalekan Ajia, a public commentator and social expert. According to him, it is now significant as millions of Nigerians especially the youth are neck deep in the use of social media. Nigeria with estimated population of 191.8 million boasts of 93.5 million Internet users and 16 million Facebook users. This figure represents about 16% of the nation’s population. Twitter, Linkedin, Google and lots more boast close figures.
In a passionate presentation recently in Ogun State titled: ‘The Influence Of Social Media On Youth Education: Issues And Challenges’, Ajia said like most other tools available to Man, Social Media can be used for the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Below is part of the details. Excerpts;
The Ugly
Media and Social Networking platforms can take away your right to life, if you let them, and I mean both literally and figuratively. Let me recast that, depending on who you are, what stuff you are made of, whether you are made of the sterner stuff, whether you come from a supportive family where there is both tough love and compassion, and more importantly whether you yourself have great dreams for your future or not; the people you meet on Facebook, especially when you are young and vulnerable, can cost you your life, or your happiness both present and future. You have heard of killers, rapists and kidnappers, they operate both in the light of day as well as in the shadows, they also operate in social media and on social networks, not only in Nigeria, but in other parts of the world. Nick McGillivary puts it in stark simple terms, “Criminals use social media to commit crimes. Robbers know when you’re away from your home on vacation and stalkers get information about your whereabouts via social media. Sexual predators find, stalk, and assault victims through social media.
In 2012, stalkers found and seduced Cynthia Ososkogu on Facebook, lured her to Lagos from Jos, drugged, robbed, raped and killed her in a most brutal manner. It is just a small consolation that in May this year, Okwumo Nwabuzor and his nephew, Olisaeloka Ezike, were sentenced to death for her murder.
Through social media, people you know or don’t even know can steal your identity, clear your bank accounts, post horrid tales and pictures in your name, beg for money from your friends and acquaintances selling them urgent tear-jerking fake stories of your accident or misfortune in foreign lands.
If you send inappropriate photos and videos of yourself to your social media “friends”, you may find yourself naked on the World Wide Web, shred of all your dignity, your family name soiled forever.
Photos or no photos, social networking makes it possible for vicious minded persons to bully others either anonymously or openly. Several young persons across the world have committed suicide as a result of cyberbullying. A variant of cyberbullying is sexting in which some members of your circle or predators who somehow get hold of your personal information, send sexually revealing pictures of themselves to you, or invite or coerce you to do the same. For those of you who may think this is a cool thing to do, or girls, you want to retain you boyfriend at all costs, just remember, THE INTERNET NEVER FORGETS, no matter how many times you delete. The internet is a permanent record of your deeds and misdeeds. A few years down the line, when you are looking for admission or that great job, the harm you do to yourself now may be waiting at the door, determined to take its pound of flesh.
Over and beyond individual anguish, social media can be and is recklessly being used in Nigeria to ignite hatred and civil war among its nationalities and religious faiths. And you guessed right, it is basically young people who are recruited and being used for these online wars. Beyond our shores, hate-filled twitters and gender bashing propelled now President Trump into the White House where he is finding out that while it is easy to erect a throne of bayonets, you will not find it easy to sit on it. Permit me to quote at length from Acting President Yemi Osinbajo’s speech at the Senior Course 39, at the Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Jaji, on Friday, 23 June, 2017.
In the past few weeks we have as a nation witnessed the escalation of such agitations usually couched in deliberately intemperate and provocative language. The reckless deployment of hate speech and the loud expressions of prejudice and hate, name calling of those of other ethnicities and faiths is a new and destructive evil in our public discourse. But even more divisive words, expressions, and actions calculated to create fear and uncertainty have also been freely used. Young people in the South-Eastern states under the aegis of IPOB, issued a stay at home order as part of actions to prove support for their agitations for secession. In the Northern states young people under the aegis of the Arewa youth, issued an ultimatum to Igbos living in the Northern states to vacate before the 1st of October. The problem with hate-filled and divisive speech is that they tap into some of the basest human instincts, bringing up irrational suspicions, fear, anger, and hatred and ultimately mindless violence. People who have lived together as neighbours and friends suddenly begin to see each other as mortal enemies.
Most appropriately, he cited the genocide in Rwanda, where between 7 April and July 1994, hate media, especially the notorious Radio-Television Libre des Mille Collines incited the killing of over 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus considered Tutsi sympathizers in the Rwandan genocide, were roused by hate media. If a small radio station can cause such havoc, imagine what a thousand online blogs can do in the hands of hot-headed youths operating under pseudonyms on social media.
But it is not only in civil strife that the cauldrons of war are stoked online. Today, the greatest threats to world peace are the face-offs between Russia and the USA on one hand over whether Russia hacked into American election processes, and between the USA and North Korea not just over the latter’s testing of intercontinental ballistic missiles but also hacking into the websites of world financial institutions.
Professor Yemi Osinbajo warned the graduands of Jaji Course 39 that in the 21st century the theatre of war is increasingly shifting to cyberspace.
Terrorist organizations, purveyors of hate speech, all of these and many more who seek to destabilize the world are busy staking out territory on the Internet, and scoring significant victories and conquests for themselves. … The Internet has altered or disrupted every industry we know of: Politics and Elections, Business and Commerce, Governance; and is changing the very nature of warfare. Websites teaching on how to make and use IEDs and other explosives are numerous. Today a great deal of the threats facing Nigeria are being nurtured and cultivated in the vast spaces of the Internet. The rumblings of secession, the dangerous quit ultimatums to ethnic groups, the radio stations and blogs that spew divisive speech and exploit our fault lines; all of these are now to be found online.
As if you don’t know, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab — the young Nigerian who tried to set off a bomb hidden under his pants aboard a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009, was recruited online by U.S.-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, also known as the “bin Laden of the internet”. Umar is currently serving a life sentence in the US while Anwar al-Awlaki was killed in a US drone strike in western Yemen on 30 September 2011.
The Bad
Now for the Bad, starting from poor grades, even outright failure, arising from obsessive use of social media and social networking. Studies after studies have found a clear relationship between heavy use of social media and poor grades. Between March 2016 and March 2017, Chukwuemeka Monyei and Osasiuwa Edomwande conducted a Project Open Eyes survey of 2041 schoolchildren in Lagos and discovered that nine out of every ten of these boys and girls, aged between the ages of 12 and 18 own a mobile phone and over 80% of the phones were bought by their parents. While it was found that they employ the internet largely for academic and entertainment purposes, the researchers also found the children spent as much as a whole day online, especially during the holidays. They use the mobile devices immediately they wake up, on their way to school, while in school, and after school hours. They also disclose too much personal information online, especially on Facebook and Instagram, thereby compromising their safety and privacy. Nearly five out of every ten boys and one in every four girls had intentionally visited pornographic sites. At least 7% of the girls had sent nude or semi-nude photos of themselves to someone online.
US-based ProCon.Org In its excellent article, “Are Social Media Good for Our Society?” reported that students who are heavy social media users tend to have lower grades. 31% of teens say that using social media during homework reduces the quality of their work. Students who used social media had an average GPA of 3.06 while non-users had an average GPA of 3.82. Students who used social media while studying scored 20% lower on tests.
As we have seen since Professor Ishaq Oloyede took over at JAMB, social media tools such as texting on mobile phones and parallel communication cables to secret rooms where mercenaries send answers online in the place of candidates with the connivance of some owners of Computer Based Test centres…JAMB has blacklisted 48 of such Computer Based Test (CBT) centres used for the 2017 UTME for various offences.
Suren Ramasubbu while discussing all the other risks such as sexting and cyberbullying, paid particular attention to “Facebook depression” which is defined as emotional disturbance when preteens and teens spend a great deal of time on social media sites. The overuse of these sites also lead to “disconnect from reality” wherein social media actually turns the individual into an anti-social recluse.
Apart from damage done to individual youths, social media enables the spread of unreliable and false information, especially fake news, a weapon the Trump campaign used effectively against Hilary Clinton during the last US Presidential elections, and which, now, irony of ironies, President Trump is alleging American mass media are deploying against him.
ProCon.Org lists other negative effects of social media to include stress and damage to offline relationship problems as well as waste of personal time and official working hours.
The Good
And then the Good, all said and done, social media and social networking sites provide support for individuals to communicate and engage with people of like minds and interests. They empower young people and even adults to access informational and educational resources far beyond the school walls, breaking barriers of distance and time. Social media sites can help disciplined students do better at school.
The ProCon.Org asserts that Social media allows people to improve their relationships and make new friends. “93% of adults on Facebook use it to connect with family members, 91% use it to connect with current friends, and 87% use it to connect with friends from the past. 72% of all teens connect with friends via social media. 83% of these teens report that social media helps them feel more connected to information about their friends’ lives, 70% report feeling more connected to their friends’ feelings, and 57% make new friends. Being a part of a social media site can increase a person’s quality of life and reduce the risk of health problems. Social media can help improve life satisfaction, stroke recovery, memory retention, and overall well-being by providing users with a large social group.
Social media spreads information faster than any other media. Social media increases voter participation and facilitates political change. ProCon.Org also proffer that social media facilitate job-seeking, employment and economic growth. Social media sites empower individuals to make social change and do social good on a community level and provide the platform for quick, easy dissemination of public health and safety information from reputable sources.
A Note To Parents:
Social media and social networking are inescapable in today’s world, they do offer opportunities as well as present risks to the youth and the education of youths. Parents, guardians and teachers have a responsibility to guide young people with love, compassion and knowledge through the minefields as well as the joys of social media and social networking. But the youth must assume ultimate responsibility for the choices they make in using these tools.
After all, in all our kitchens, there are knives, matches and combustible materials, but we neither use the knives to kill members of our family, nor burn down the house except in those rare cases of temporary insanity or criminal negligence. I am confident Nigerian youths are far from the madding crowd.
Parents do need to sit up and do more than complain about “today’s youth”. According to Luke Gilkerson of Covenant Eyes, in their well-written book Parenting the Internet Generation, two approaches are doomed to fail. These are “helicopter parenting” which I interpret as parents hovering closely and menacingly over their children, condemnation, rage and punishment within reach, thus stoking rebellion and the joys of the forbidden fruit, and then the “lawn-mower parenting” in which doting parents clear the ground of all obstacles for their seemingly helpless children and thereby actually render them clueless.
To come down to our African kitchen level, before a child is allowed into the kitchen and taught to use knives or light fire in the kitchen, he or she is first taught to approach with caution, then taught how to remain safe and to protect the family, and they are their accompanied in their first culinary experiments.
Rather than parents stopping their children from using these tools, or throwing them at the tools just to keep them happy, they should first educate themselves on how to use the internet, social media and social networking and then accompany them as participants in their pre-teen years. They should gently explain why they must give approval and retain or share passwords to internet sites, vet apps before they are downloaded they themselves should be the ones installing apps with their children and teach them how to control their privacy settings. They should also “be friend” with their children first offline and then online.
