Making the world and dismantling it using a toothless weapon is now inevitable as the globe is within everyone’s reach, even in their pockets. What matters is the choice of users so the saying goes, “You are provided with a fire and water, and send hands to the either you would love most.” Despite its religious spirit, this memo works for all myriads of trajectories of the universe. In an electronically connected globalized world where everything is accessible using state of the art methods especially these days, no information does escape from the works of social media. Besides, communication in the contemporary world has been as easy as taking meal during hunger despite its negative repercussions in human life. Invading all acts of all walks of life regardless of race, color, place of origin, social status and the likes, social media has been the prime driver of this communication.
Social media is instrumental in doing business, making money and bringing advantages at ease. However, it can also be quite disadvantageous when it is used to reflect destructive motives and attract negative feedback. Considering these pros and cons, people are expected to decide what to use and where to apply the means.
This writer talked to Terefe Daniel, an Information Communication expert to garner a piece of information regarding social media utilization in Ethiopia. He said, “Information and communication technology has swiftly changed over the past 20 years following the emergence and development of social media.”
The development of mobile technology has also been playing an essential role in shaping and intensifying the impact of social media.
He said, “As far as the impact of social media on politics is concerned, for example, a number of adults in Ethiopia in particular and even across the globe at a larger scale in general get their political news primarily through social media. In comparison to other media, the influence of social media in political campaigns has enormously been increasing.” He further said that without social media, economic, social, ethical, environmental, and political ills would have minimal visibility. Increased prominence of issues has shifted the balance of power from the hands of a few to the multitudes.
Some argue that social sharing has encouraged people to use computers and mobile phones to express their concerns on social issues without actually having to engage actively with campaigns in real life, he said.
Yes, he added businesses have realized they can use social media to engender insights, excite demand and create targeted product offerings. These functions are important in doing businesses as promptly as possible and perceptibly when activities are taken into account in the world of e-commerce.
As far as world of work is concerned, social media has also had a profound effect on recruitment and hiring, he added.
As to Terefe, the case of social changes in social media especially concerning the youth can be predominantly mentioned. The youth or teenagers need to be popular, and to surpass others. This process was challenging long before the introduction of social media. Through adding Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsApp and others into the mix, the youth suddenly have subjected to feeling pressure to grow up too fast in an online world setting their academic engagement aside.
As far as the impact of social media on relationships is concerned, he elucidated the benefits of communication technologies in education, informatics, politics, economics, and entertainment and on other sectors is vast and enormous. However, when communication systems are misused the rapid flow of false information through the social media or another communication system could cause destruction to individuals, society, institutions, businesses and the nation at large nationally, regionally and globally. Some societies have better awareness about the advantages and disadvantages of the social media. The social networking or media awareness of societies in the developed world is much higher than that of the developing world including ours.
He further said that the current expressly motivated ethnic hatred propaganda over social media is well coordinated and intended for the destruction of essential social cohesion among the people. Some individuals spread hate simply from what they see and hear others from misunderstanding and not evaluating the truth properly. Undeniably, hatred grows from poor knowledge, misinformation and biased judgment.
He said, “The penalties of misusing social media to preach hate among people will destruct nations soon or later as they create high tension among ethnicities which may lead to something bad to happen. It has to be kept in mind that some ethnic tensions in many countries which were not ceased on time had grown to cause great disaster in human history.”
Cognizant of the fact that social media platforms are cheaper, user-friendly and more interactive than other modes of communication channels, and openness to everyone, those who are interested in using and/or abusing them are interactively operational. In Ethiopia, although no study has been conducted on the trends of social media use, it is believed that a large number of students are active users, he said.
Samrawit Bazezew, a software expert and computer science graduate from Bahir Dar University on the part said, “Worldwide, scientific evidences show that social media are primarily used for recreational and relational purposes. The use of these media is believed to have both benefits and risks on students’ well-being, including their safety and academic callings. Any social medium also has a potential to facilitate collaborative learning among students and motivate them to learn at their own pace and place.”
According to Samrawit, the personal risks that recurrently happen to adolescent students on social media involve uploading unintended information in certain contexts, negative information about oneself and the others, hacking others’ accounts and being hacked as well as using information for retaliation purposes etc.
“As studied, excessive use of social media has counter effect on students’ academic pursuits by diverting their attention from education-oriented activities to recreational-oriented activities, when seen academically. Emotionally, the extensive use of social media can reduce peer interactions and may lead users to feel loneliness and lead especially students develop distorted image of self,” she opined.
She further explained that although there are several problems associated with social media use, its benefits are well considered for didactic purposes. For example, it was reported that social media is one of the most effective ways to teach students and influence their achievement. Accordingly, students and other users may be benefited from social media for better outcomes.
The risks, on the contrary she said, may range from developing many culturally inappropriate behaviors to health problems and from emotional detachment from family to assigning less time for academic activities.
The fact that social media is part of them especially having been born in this era of emerging technology, the vast majority of the youth peculiarly in urban areas of the developing countries have felt that they could not do without it. Though they have depended on it for various positive things such as research and contacts with friends and getting on the loop of what was happening either in their circles, nationally or internationally, their intention to give particular emphasis to browsing social media now and then leads to irreversible evils, Samrawit elaborated.
Samrawit said, “Most definitely, social media have primarily been used for entertainment and social networking purposes instead of academic values. In educational settings, they may have no more values than diverting students’ attention from mainstream academic activities. It is better instead to look for how a given social medium could become a rewarding tool for the academic purposes. Such a lucrative channel has to be prioritized, indeed. But strong watchfulness would be taken by the teachers, parents, and school psychologists for the well-being of learners. If this is so, educational epicenter can absolutely be hubs to produce responsible, farsighted, competent and productive citizenry.”
Since social media have two faces said Samrawit namely positive impacts and demerits, protecting oneself especially students from inappropriate online interaction and cyber bullying is of paramount importance in channeling the uses of social media into the right, positive, constructive and lucrative engagement apart from recreational drives, she underlined.
BY MENGESHA AMARE
The Ethiopian herald may 12/2022
