13th March, 2017
By Ayo Afuwape
Every day, more than one billion people connect with each other using social media. People post pictures on Instagram, Like Facebook post, retweet twitter messages and share YouTube videos. In fact, various platforms are used in sending messages to family, friends and loved ones. The past decade has witnessed the birth of many of these platforms and how they have completely changed the way we communicate with people within and outside our localities.
Social Media provides the avenue of reaching anyone around the world, at any time, with just a few keystrokes. The medium is almost free unlike putting calls through several miles. We can also share elements of our life, from what we enjoy to photos of ourselves and of families and friends. In all, the platform makes one feels like being a part of another person’s world, despite distance.
This new media as it is otherwise referred to, has greatly changed our world with the evolution and emergence of new ones on a frequent basis. Often time, each of the platforms seeks to build on the deficiency of one or improve on the limitation of others. Also, while some are meant for particular category of people with similar interests or for professional associates, a host of the social media platforms are nothing but a gross bunk and prototypes of already existing ones.
As it is the case with every innovation, these social media platforms are no doubt a revolutionary invention that could be helpful if put to good use. As useful as the social media platform is, it is sad that users, most especially the youth, are not really optimizing the advantages of the platform. Apart from choosing to use the relevant social media platforms peculiar to one’s profession or discipline, the focus should be on exploring the gains of these platforms for personal development.
The love and preference given to these new media by the present generation is akin to when a lactating mother replaces breast milk meant to naturally nourish a toddler with evaporated milk. In other words, the union and togetherness of human-to-human relationship is gradually being substituted for these social media platforms thereby undermining the place of personal interactions and promoting a ‘smart-phone, dumb people’ relationship at the detriment of the former.
A comic miniature once portrayed the various social media as platforms ‘that brings you closer to those far away from you but distant you from those close to you.’, This is not only true about the social media but also underscored the need for self-caution and understanding of ones limitations so as not to usurp the love and time meant for one’s family for the social media.
Another common feature of this new media aside its addictive tendency is its fictitious misrepresentation. Social media addicts usually take issues on the platform to the extreme to the extent of personalizing discourse. It gets so ridiculous that many often indulge in the use of derogatory words and foul languages as a way of exhibiting their disapproval to a course forgetting that the platform on its own encourages illusionary imagery; that is, an individual can claim to be what he is not or paint a near-perfect picture of himself to deceive other users of the platforms.
It is also a common sight to see people inundate the social platforms with half naked photographs and pictures of every action they do including when using the gents/ladies and showcasing some actions considered to be extremely private affairs. As much as these seem to be fun, it should not be abused or allowed to take away our individual self-esteem and human dignity.
A more critical aspect in the use of the social media which is grossly unknown to many is the aspect of social media profiling used by some companies and corporate organizations in monitoring their brand to keep track of emerging issues, trends as well as threats to their overall corporate reputations. With this development, organisations could interact with those that influence others on the social media with the aim of taking advantage of their influence to further expand the reach of their products and services.
Another critical aspect not known to many is the aspect of individuals’ social media profiling which is simply a description of individuals’ characteristics on social media sites. Employers now adopt this strategy as forms of secret research into the world of a prospective employee to know the areas of interests and things that an individual delights in sharing through his/her social media platforms.
Unknown to many, our social media pages says a whole about us and an opinion could be formed about our personalities from what we post, share, like, as well as our comments on our friends’ posts. In short, our social media platforms are another Curriculum Vitae usually perused by employers.
An employer believes that if a prospective employee had dedication his/her Facebook wall to sharing baseless pornographic links chances are that such an individual would dedicate time to sharing irrelevant Facebook posts if employed and may not be fully committed to his job.
Undoubtedly, many job seekers would have missed the chances of being gainfully employed because they are ignorant of the harm which their careless attitude on social media could cause them.
To be on the secured path, it really cost nothing if one decides to seldom post messages on social media or not even posts anything at all than being known for posting irrelevance or displaying astute ignorance through online posts and comments.
The reality of this is that the more of these platforms we operate, the more time we invest into them and the closer it connects us to people far away from us, the farer we are from people closer to us. So, we are always left with the choice of who to be with, which of course would be informed by who we consider to be of higher preference to us.
In all, an individual should come to term with a suitable platform that fits into his/her area of interest. It profits nothing to be active on social media platforms that have no relevance to one’s productivity; it is nothing but a distraction. As a matter of fact, a person can restrict his/her online presence to Facebook alone if that falls within what he could manage. The more we realize that social media is not a social class conferral, the better for us all.
Afuwape is of the Ministry of Information and Strategy, Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos