“A reputable company is seeking to employ Administrative Assistants, kindly email your CVs to socialmedia@gmal.com”. This is how people apply for jobs nowadays, gone are the days when one has to go the post office or do hand delivery to companies to apply for jobs. This is all kind courtesy of “Social Media and Technology”.
What is social media? Social Media refers to websites and applications (apps) that help or enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking. Social Media has brought about so many changes in our world today, now the world has become a Global Village, where everything and anyone is accessible all these kind courtesy, Social Media.
Today, people can access every and any information they so wish, social media has come to us in forms like WhatsApp, Twitter, Viber, Telegram, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook; just to name but a few. Social Media has done us both good and harm, looking at the positive side, social media has offered us the opportunity to broaden our knowledge.
Kind courtesy Social Media, information on everything is now available to all, all you need to do is just google whatever you want. Students are now able to study and do all researches because of the internet and all. It has saved us the ordeal of going through people to look for people, now people can socialize and network because of the existence of Facebook and all.
You lose contact or an old friend and you visit one of these social media handles and you meet the people or someone that could link you to the person. Security Agencies are also able to fish people out early because everyone knows someone on social media. Today, COVID-19 has taken over the world and has shaken the world making it difficult for people to meet and socialize, but thanks to social media, there is a way to socialize.
The gospel is now able to reach people even in these times when the whole world was locked down and Christians couldn’t go to church to worship, all churches were on social media and the gospel was propagated.
Business people now have a wide circle or platforms to sell out their products, now most people are engaged in something called an online business and people sell and buy there, decreasing unemployment in a way and offering support to people who don’t have shops to sell their products.
These are but a few of the goodies social media offered us. Unfortunately, it is also harmed us and this generation in a lot of ways. Now, many of the youth instead of using the internet to learn good or positive things, they tend to use it to access things like pornography and all.
You see a young boy or girl, instead of using resources available to them to broaden their knowledge, they end up downloading things that add no values to them academically or spiritually. Now because of exposure, you see more people publishing nudity and all in the name of freedom to do things, forcing kids to grow or mature overnight because of what they see on social media. Social Media has also created more avenues for marriages and relationships to break. Now you get a lot of people whose partners ditched them because of social media.
An example is someone, whose husband met a lady on Facebook, they got talking and then eventually got married to the Facebook lady behind the wife and after that, sent the wife a divorce letter. Where did they meet? Social Media, too much exposure. I agree it’s a character thing, but some of these things, if not for Facebook and other social media platforms, where would they have met for it to generate into that. It destroyed relationships such that, now when two people are in a relationship, instead of spending time to know each other and possibly talk to get to share fellowship, you see both partners sitting in the same room or lying in the same bed, yet there are all chatting people and doing things on their phones.
What happened to fellowship and bonding? Again, news has it that, a level two student of the University, creates a page where they shared nudity and all, and on the 19th January, the culprit behind was caught, as he posted real bad stuff. It has brought about serious addiction, a lot of people are so addicted to Social Media to the point that, they hardly have time for anything and everything.
When it is time to sleep, they are on social media, causing them to have sleeping disorders [insomnia]! Social Media has again found a way of negatively giving people unnecessary pressure, many people are living a luxurious life on social media, buying pressure for people on social media, some or most people are rich and beautiful on social media. Publishing nice houses and cars, in actual sense, maybe poorer than a “church rat” but others buy into it leading most youth into venturing into dangerous and diabolic ventures just to make money and fit the status or pleasures of life.
People are even depressed by what they have seen being portrayed on social media. Now, people have refused to use their brains to its capacity because just at a click and you have access to all that you want and even more, people are also attacking and hacking other people’s accounts because they want their information for their own agenda. You practically have to put in your information anytime you want to access google, so others tend to have access to your info. Any bad person can just hack into your accounts and operate them. There is also the case of identity theft going on social media, where someone hacks your account and chat with your family and friends, using your name and pictures to either blackmail them into sending them money or staging a kidnapping case and asking for ransom.
People have been accused and arrested for things they know nothing about, and these are a clear case of identity theft. People are wasting money on data and buying certain applications, whereas those monies could have been saved for other vital things. It has also spoilt people’s ability to write, making them lazy. Most people in writing use shorthand now, so writing shorthand is now the order of the day, as most people instead of typing in full, prefer to use abbreviations and shorthand.
You get most students writing exams today and failing because of shorthand writing. In conclusion, Social Media now has become a fire in our hands, it can help to do great things and it can also help us destroy great things. Scammers, fraudsters and the rest are taking advantage of people and destroying their homes and livelihood.
Serious people are also making positive use of social media, some meeting their lives partners, business associates and the rests, thanks to social media; it’s up to you to decide what you want to get from using social media but choose wisely. May the Lord help us all and direct our path in the right way.
Written by © Benjamin Freshhope Mensah
