SOCIAL MEDIA: EXPOSING THE SECRETS
‘Social media outlets are said to be man’s greatest aide in communication yet it is being served than a man’s fellow, its highly paradoxical how social media aides us to destruction, depression and lack of secrecy and privacy, it’s unfair!’
The social media is seen as the tool or the bridge connecting people amongst themselves, it’s a way of interacting, communicating and exploring oneself with others. Its main purpose is communicating but over the years it has been transformed entirely and has included features like;
Commercial trade
Modeling
Advertisements
News Casting
Social Gatherings and Social Life Hub
Music Performances
Job Applications and Interviews and many more.
Social media outlets like Facebook, whatsapp, instagram, twitter, snapchat are now seen as primary avenues for communication and trade. Face to face interactions are being held at minimal times and communication with words of mouth isn’t as rampant as before. Now, there are fewer gatherings, less meetings, more isolative attitudes amongst people and many more obscene changes happening now in our society.
Day in day out, i ponder why I am so addicted to replying every message, posting any picture on these outlets, checking for answers, looking at people’s profile and stories, following them to see and know about their whereabouts, why must I be followed? Why should I follow? What is the gain at the end? How does it help my life? Will my amount of followers on any of these social media outlet change my personality? If they are my followers, does that make me a leader over them? These social media outlets pose a lot of funny features which are usually not even logical. For example, on Instagram, a person uploads a picture, a rather fine and alluring picture of himself which is actually the opposite when you look at him in real life, he is dark skinned, like purely dark skinned and there is a light tone added unto the picture, changing the original features of the picture, well that’s not all, (and besides i am not being a judge, I just want to know the reason why) then he posts it with one of the eye catching captions I have ever seen on a social media outlets, then in the space of some minutes, people like the picture and comment on it and most likely say all manner of heart watering comments, well that is not that bad right until you meet them in person, it is almost as if you don’t even know each other, you greet them in person, they either answer coldly or ignore you, consistently glued to the phone, would prefer to text than talk, would prefer to voice call than see in person, would prefer to show love ‘emojis’ than show it in person. It is almost like we are controlled and programmed that the first thing to do when we wake up in the morning is not see our family members or commune with them, is not to do household chores or see the current situation of the locality one’s stays but it’s to update oneself about the happenings on these social media outlets, it has become a master to our brain as it is bent as most people tend to have their whole attention and life revolving around these social media outlets. A man was beaten almost to death and it was recorded and posted on Twitter, it received a lot of backlash, retweets and judgmental opinions, even from people who don’t know the cradle of the story, instead of the man to be given fair judgment and hearing, he is already seen as condemned and guilty by the people, these outlets promote idleness and poor attitude to work.
It is reluctant to be admitted but it tends to waste more valuable time and available resources than any other social vice around us as human beings.
Over the years, Jack Dorsey, Jan Koum, Kevin Systrom , Mark Zuckerburg and Evan Spiegel have trended the global village with these outlets for easier communication mediums, impeccable referrals, easy trade resulting into fast and vast investment of all sorts, some outlets even help to beautify photos, commentaries of events, personalities around the world is a new trend that has taking over these social media outlets. But deep down, there are hidden agendas put up by these outlets which are, in the long run hazardous to us human beings.
Here are the secrets behind the use of Social media outlets;
Well, I, even the writer am a chronic social media and web user, I frequently browse and try to see what’s new and attuned in our world today, ranging from religious studies, job opportunities, sports, the Bible studies, fashion, sex and sexuality, nature, videos, funny videos, pictures, celebrity talks, motivational talks, movements, societal organizations etc. and a wide range of others.
PRIORITY
Internet personalities create a medium for craving of opportunities for people to get engaged in it, it tries and has successfully staked itself as a priority in our everyday life. As it stands, information chaos is one of our biggest challenges and having a place where you know where the matter would turn out to be juicy will be the social media outlet, it would involve people commenting and adding up opinions about a said event or occurrence. It sets a huge priority of information disseminated faster than the ones we listen to on televisions and newspapers. It seeks to have control all over spheres of life that it enters as a necessity to be followed and an important tool to be used by all and sundry. You can’t get information in school, work, religious societies etc. unless you are on at least a social media account. It’s more like we are slaves of different masters
LESS PRIVACY/SECURITY
This may seem a little bit ridiculous, but with the technological advancement, there is really nothing to hide (even though deleted), it can be destroyed, I know right, funny story. Social media makes us more prone to be found in the real world. Even with the privacy settings on and all, the internet makes it easily accessible to find out personal information about others. Your bio and location is leaked! You are on whatsapp, your first name and last name is documented, that s enough to even trace if you have an International Passport or it could also trace your phone number in which the account is registered, the location of such number and others. All deleted messages can also be seen, for example, I use GB Whatsapp, now a particular lovely feature of GB Whatsapp is that not only can it see deleted messages and statutes, it can also tell if a user is online or not, very creepy indeed!
PROMOTION OF PROCASTINATION
As a law student, my entire life is consumed with homework, studying, projects. However, in the modern technological era, my life is also consumed with Twitter, Instagram and other social media sites. It might seem a bit crazy but it is hard to resist the daily scroll on Instagram. Leaving my phone on does not help when I am trying to get my work done, but it’s quite the addiction towards the social media site, most work therefore is completed online. Being online while doing homework is a challenge and a major vice in the adaptive behaviors of youths nowadays because you are surrounded by tempting sites on the internet. It seems like a simple option to turn off you phone, it’s not that simple!
ELIMINATION OF FACE TO FACE CONVERSATIONS
Something very trivial to think about is the change of method of communication. After phones came, people often stayed back at home behind a big screen communicating with each other. As said earlier, there are fewer meetings, fewer dates (dinner meetings between people of a particular interest) especially people who intend to enter a relationship.
Instead, people resorted into texting conversations, chat groups/group texts and a lot of cyber violence that resulted into cyber bulling, cyber racist movements, cyber trolling etc. since people are not in contact with each other, and they tend to lash out more. People feel empowered while they are online. The confidence to send a post, no matter how shameful it might be increases because they do not get to see the persons reactions. Emojis are now sent to commensurate a reaction sent by or for a post which most times is fake.
FAKE IDENTITIES
This is an off shoot of the earlier secret of social media, which is often portrayed by current users of these social media sites, at most, nobody want to look dejected on social media because of fear of personality shaming, so people’s personal information ends up to be either an exaggeration or a complete lie, nobody really tells the truth this days!
There is a show on MTV called ‘Catfish’, this show deals with people creating fake identities on social media or dating websites. After researching the person to see if they are the real deal, the hosts of the show then will now contact them to meet them online. More often than not, the said person has a completely different appearance than the one seen on the site
ATTENTION
20,000 likes and many more comments to a picture is actually lovely, some people even post it in awe, some people try and thrive to get as many followers they can have and tend to make a big deal out of it. Well, there we have it. It’s a bitter and sour thing to say but it’s the truth, social media makes we human beings competitive to what I term as ‘ one of the most unnecessary things sought for’ to get more followers, of what value and importance? What’s the essence of having followers, what are you leading? You only get to be popular and widely known as you are now open to others, the friend of my friend will now be your friend, everyone will only be inter connected, meaning there will not be any hiding place for anybody, everybody can be known through another.
Most people don’t even know all their followers, if not all. You can’t!
Social media is a reel out and an anti-security of your life and information, everything will be brought about you. It seeks to expose and remove privacy of ones cherished information to one’s self. Be careful!
T. I Akintayo