The Misuse of Social Media in Today's Generation.

The Misuse of Social Media in Today's Generation.

Social media is developed for creating and sharing information, interests and ideas. All these cuts across various sectors such as career, education, fashion, entertainment, news and etc. They can either be in form of a website, platform or an application and they are mostly designed to be interactive. Some can be a standalone for that specific reason of interacting with other people or they can be built-in with some other established and existing applications. Majority of these applications are web-based.

Mode of communication and information technology has changed rapidly in the last 20yrs and still developing further, the emergence of social media is the apex.

For easy access - most of these applications if not all, not only do they have the web version, they also have a mobile version. So, if you are unable to access via your desktop or laptop, you can be assured of not missing a thing while on the road.

As usual, I always try to relate my articles to my immediate environment as I tend to understand what I am writing while relating to the people around me and the regular occurrence in my community.

People that are in their 30’s, 40’s and 50’s today didn’t have it so easy and good growing up, in terms of access to information, communication and general exposure as the current young generation does. Years back student relied on the post office service to post letters to their pen-pal across the globe, send one letter and wait months later for a reply and it’s usually a birthday feeling when the postman knocked your door with a letter addressed to you.

Back then, every homework or assignment must be done reading pile of books or trekking a distance to a classmate’s house to study together, then any play-time you have are spent outdoor playing with classmates and street friends, riding bicycle with friends and listening to stories and history from your parents and guardians in the evening after dinner.

Back to the present – Life is a lot easier now when it comes to knowledge acquisition, communication with known and virtual friends. 

There are more Ebooks these days than physical books and virtually all dissertations and assignments have one article or the other readily available on the web to support anyone’s curiosity – The web is so deep that it has nearly all the answers to whatever you need, you just have to know how to dig for it!.

But, rather than this generation to use the power of the internet and social media to their advantage, everyone is busy showcasing what they have and what they are not in reality, it’s a world of fantasy – many young people think in their heads that they are Beyoncé or Kanye. You all have the world right before you and it’s entirely up to you what you can do with it.

It’s a known fact that there are more young people committing suicide now than before, more young people on drugs and into prostitution, more young people in jail, more young people living for the glam rather than face reality and develop themselves. 

Most of the people you follow on social media and you are willing and wishing to have the life they have are only living the life you want them to live and keep you entertained, most have a completely different life in reality – some probably want the life you have. 

You will be in shock to know that most celebrities don’t look the way they look on Instagram if you ever see them in person. And those cars, those private jets – if only you know! When you get into the glam world, you will get so deep into it that you can make anyone believe just about anything to borrow for 10minutes fame!

Don’t fall for that crap, he owns a Ferrari, she owns a jet – that’s distracting you from pursuing your career and making good of your time. There is no harm in having a random laugh on the web now and then but when you have to follow someone because they bought an expensive bag or car and all sorts– before you know it, they will start affecting the way you reason, that’s when you notice how poor your parents are or how ugly your partner is – fam, you are using someone else’s lies to measure the success of your own reality!

That person that uses Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram 24/7 to follow the daily activities of people like Bobrisky and the other person that uses Google, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Twitter to study and follow inspiring people like Chimamanda Adichie, Tony Elumelu. It’s not a rocket science when one eventually turn out better in life than the other, we are all responsible for the choices we make in life but it hurts like hell to be the architect of your own misfortune.

Having said that, aside from using the Internet for something beneficial like self-development or research. You also have extremely large audience/customers to whatever talent, service or product that you can market to the world.

Let’s try this scenario. Nkiru from Okigwe in Imo state is a very talented singer but she lives in a rural town far away from the cosmopolitan city where there are more chances and possibilities for her to have a shot at a music career, but she has one power – which is access to a mobile device and the world of WWW. Unfortunately, Nkiru refused to package and sell herself, she sings to the mirror daily rather than to the world with her sonorous and angelic voice. Instead, she uses her mobile phone to post random and unnecessary comments on people’s pages all over Instagram and Facebook! Nkiru is about to lose an opportunity of a lifetime! Please don’t be like Nkiru!

The rich - the poor, the talented - the talented hunters, the investors – the inventors, the singles – the seekers, everyone is connected by one rope – the internet. You never know who you can run into; you never know who can run into your project or your product – everybody is on the web!

Whatever you are looking for? Whoever you are looking for? The internet has the answers but you have to know how to find it!

I know a number of people that are operation huge branded companies on the internet with a massive web presence but all their company is their study room, mobile phone and their laptop. Yet, they are very successful – You don’t have to wait to afford a shop, warehouse or store these days before you can start a business. You are as successful as you think you are capable!

There is absolutely nothing wrong with social media, in fact, it has present to us an easy opportunity to develop ourselves further and connect with people around the globe easily. The only thing wrong with it is the mode of usage!

I frown upon a young man with no means of living, still living off the hands-down from the parents or friends and yet any little change that comes to him is spent on airtime/vouchers for his mobile phone in other to access the internet – only to view people’s photographs, comments, or insult others for no reason!

The technology driving social media is accelerating and so is the business in it and behind it, while you are busy browsing, spending your hard earned money to access the web, spending day and night on the internet to comment, insult, abuse and fight others – just in case you don’t know, you are making some people richer every minute you click on any page.

The main business of some company is to make sure that every individual on this planet own one device or the other to access internet, then there are millions of other businesses that are desperate to make sure that their services and products are visible and available on those devices, there are over 7billion people on this planet! You can either be part of those people aiming for those devices or be part of those people using the devices – you always have a choice!

No doubt that social media has made it easy to share a common idea, support a cause or share with people that have the same passion about something with you. It has also helped in the area of combatting crimes – it’s easier these days for anyone to record any situation on their mobile phone and post it on the internet, this has really helped the crime stoppers and police in combatting crime.

These days, the government is usually scared of what may come up every day on the social media, people find it easy to reach out to the government on the internet than booking an appointment that will never come, rather than attempting to report your local government chairman to the Governor in person – which is practically impossible, now you can simply tweet his handle and voila it goes straight to his mobile device.

If you have a talent or building a business, look beyond your community and seek for a wider audience. Almost a quarter of the world population is active on Facebook, if you add snapchat, WhatsApp, Instagram etc. to this – we are looking at almost half of the world population as a potential listener and customer to whatever you have to offer.

To sum it all – Use the social media to your advantage and don’t allow being used by the social media to build someone else’s dream!

I refused to be just another follower but an individual – I do have a purpose!