These days, it is natural to see people walk on major roads and glued to their devices: phones and i-pads.

Social Media: an Addiction

People drive while on social media. In church, people are busy twitting or snap-chatting, paying the preacher, little or no attention. At work, some members of staff won’t attend to you, until they read the latest on Instagram. The use of social media has turned into social madness without a cure.

The space is over-flooded with so many things, that one is confused about where to go and what to do. It seems that it has become a threat to our family life, religion, social life, and personal life. There is a need for people to caution themselves against the addiction to social media.

The Social in Media

As a result of the inability of one to communicate well with friends or family members who live in distant places, information gets to their destination at a slow pace. Businesses weren’t on horsepower, and the world seemed to look like one boring space to exist.

At a point, some group of people came together to create channels or medium in form of applications, through which people could communicate effectively from different locations, as though they lived in the same house.

Information moved within a twinkle of an eye, people got to know about new things and new stuffs, employment was created, businesses were quickly executed, people became more social and creatively thought out of the box. Things got done at the snap of the fingers. The world became or collapsed into a small global village that revolved around social media and what it could offer.

Social Media and Society

Everyone had access to social media, to the extent that most schools made it mandatory for students to have access to social media. Social media was the new chick in town and all the boys wanted to have her. But at some point, things seemed to change for worse: people became more social media conscious than any other thing which ought to have mattered most to them.

People became lovers of their phones: they literally worshiped their handles and failed to set their priorities right. This tried to create a form of controversy in homes, churches, groups, and so many other places because the addiction to social media was driving people crazy.

Influence of Social Media

Whatsoever is in existence must have something that either checkmates it or controls it. There is absolutely little or no control to the use of social media in society because everyone has access to it. The old and young, underage and over-aged, make use of social media, as and when due. The worse part of it is that underage children make use of social media, more than adults.

They spend hours on their handles, neglecting their books and school work. A child must not be allowed to use social media until they are eighteen. At that age, they are well developed and could take responsibility for their actions and inactions. This boils down to parents who would leave their kids with phones, but unattended.

On the other hand, people forget that social media is a public space or place. Some forget that whatever goes on social media goes on the wings of ‘viral,’ which could either make or destroy a person’s reputation. Unfortunately, people have posted all manner of atrocities, fake news, and much more on social media.

It is as though another name for social media is ‘he tells it all space,’ where people come to bear their secrets and life in the open. They never thought of the security reasons behind using certain buttons or keeping their lives open to public scrutiny. People purposely start up argument, post their intimate lives or activities or just show off what they have on social media. Social media has been so abused, that it has been turned into a space for tribal and religious war.

People rarely discuss intellectual stuff, but try as much as possible to blackmail, paint people black or just use it as an opportunity for ‘viral nudity advert space.’ The most trending spaces or channels on social media are where nudity or pornographic contents are available. Unfortunately, these channels are so big, that people make tons of million from them.  Nudity and pornography sell like wildfire on social media that, these are what attract the highest number of traffic on blogs or channels.

Social media, on the other hand, has been turned into a den of robbers, ritual killers, thieves, scammers, and kidnappers. Stories are heard of how people go out for a date with lovers who they met on social media, but end up killed, missing, scammed, or kidnapped. It is a pity that nobody asks questions, the more reason a proper check should be put in place.

Social media is the right space to communicate freely or positively on things that concern religion or religious groups with no atom of prejudice. It is an avenue to network for business or the same purpose or ideology. It is the right place for one to get inspired to do things that would help self and the community at large. On social media, people come to market their business. It is like a public place where people meet other people for good or common interest.

One must know that there is time for everything. It is a pity that in the family today, parents care more about their phones than their kids. Parents wake up in the morning or come home at night, but go straight to their phones. There is no such thing as family time, again. On the other hand, people use their phones in church without minding what they do. This starts from parents who must teach their children right and wrongs when it comes to the use of social media.

Although it seems to destroy society, but parents who make it a point of duty to teach their kids wouldn’t have regrets. To prevent a child’s access to social media is never the right move if that child is of age, but it is right if it is a move towards discipline for a wrong done. Everything that happens on the face of the earth revolves around social media, and a child who is of age and denied it is literally kept in darkness. Such a child could grow into being rebellious when the time comes.

Now is the right time to do something about the use of social media. The right move could save society, prevent more tragedies, and make people more productive and responsible.