SOCIAL MEDIA.............for ADULTS!

Who remembers the Kargasok tea era in Nigeria? I do! I was raised on yeast because of my bad eyesight and poor health as a child and so I knew about yeast early. So when that tea became popular, I ran 1000km in the opposite direction as I wanted nothing to do with yeasts. I could not run very far though as my father declared he had found the true youth elixir and now he felt he would live forever. As with all things (Nigerian) that interest faded away. 

Nigerians like fads, they break the monotony of our (evil) existence and give us a (project to) focus for a short while in-between dealing with the ills of our society.

Enter social media......it took many unawares and gave a life to some as well. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and a host of others with the first 2, the big 2 being Facebook and Twitter. This new distractions give a semblance of interaction, e-interaction but interaction none the less. The biggest blow-up has however been the Blackberry movement. The Blackberry Live chat. I will not attempt to explain this to you as I am not sure what it is but when people begin to do questionable things to acquire a Blackberry to get in on the action, you get a sense of how very BIG this latest distr(a)/(u)ction truly is. 

We all however, seem to be unaware of some of the inherent dangers of many of these interaction platforms. For children, we all try to sound the alarm and make their expectations (for those not barred totally) on these platforms a bit grounded. 'Don't accept friend requests from strangers', 'don't chat with people you met online', 'don't give out too much of your personal info on social media'. All valid and logical protection for children who are allowed on social media. 

My worry though is young adults. I don't think we are doing enough to protect young adults and vulnerable people who use social media. Two things force me to this conclusion. I heard of a 'Missing person' about 2weeks ago a Cynthia Osokogu and a chill ran down my spine. Not because I knew she would turn up dead but because it is not in our character as a people to be aware of people who go missing (we are not careful enough as a people for this). It struck a chill in me that this was another consequence of our modernity, something else we had imported that we should not have (say what you will, na oyinbo dey craze dat kain craze wey go carry pikin run go dey kill am small small for im basement!). I learnt about 24hours ago that her body turned up in a mortuary and that the last known detail about her was that she had gone to meet with a BB contact. 

Another reason is the story of one Kayode Ayanniyi who is being run aground as we speak on Twitter for putting out a parallel ad on #SaveFunmi, a drive to raise funds for a young lawyer in urgent need of surgery for a chondroma of her shoulder. This young man had piggybacked on this ad and sent to some people with his account number rather than that of the lady who actually needed the funds and when it became apparent that the game was up, had changed his name to #JohnGBAM. Talk about lowlifes, but I digress!

Social media is great for connecting! It helps various people in various ways. For someone like myself, its been a huge boost for my attention deficient persona in the sense that rather than quit working when bored, its helped me to be able to take short breaks from my work and return thereto with minimal distraction, sorta like the reason screen savers were first developed, only far more effective, for me. Like with ALL great things though is attached a grave and in Nigeria, a perverse tool for limitless evil if ever it falls into the wrong hands. 

Young adults and I daresay everyone, needs to realise there are huge differences between real life and social media and the opportunities for misuse of social media are hugely magnified when the user is ill-equipped. It is vitally important to keep in mind that very many different people make up the world, the great, good, not-so-good,not-so-great and the bad. We can't have people going through social media thinking everyone is a witness of truth cos much as we would want it to be so, it just ain't! There are evil people everywhere (just as there are good!) but the added spin of interactions on social media being that one is unable to verify what you are being told! Do not be fooled, sick minds can use the opportunity for great evil so its best to err on the side of caution. Better to be wrong about being careful, than to find out you were slack about it.

Please understand I am not a partypooper, I use social media far more than a lot of people in my age bracket, profession and country but this alarm needs to be sounded only because I understand a little of the Nigerian psyche and its addictions. When the Nigerian is in the throes of passion with an addiction, they lose their minimal ability to reason and throw themselves in with all the strength they can muster which is not a bad thing but I find that at such times, every logical and reasonable explanation does not hold water and with social media use, the damage would have been done if we allow that to happen.

I am the first to tell of some of the nicest and greatest and dearest of friends that I discovered in the vast space that social media is but, carefulity is my middle name and I look at life through lenses beclouded by a huge helping of cynicism but I never begrudge anyone their optimism and in actual fact, I have friends for that singular reason, people I have in my life for the sole reason of their level of optimism about EVERYTHING (cc BFF)! Its just saddening that evil people are a real and present danger is all!

I saw a T-shirt on Facebook (thanks to Adunni!) that read 'May your life SOMEDAY be as awesome as you pretend it is on facebook'. The truth is......for some, it NEVER will be and social media thus serves as their escape of their real life horrors and so we need to be wary that someone with a nightmare does not steal our dreams..... or those of our children!