By Rilwan Muhammad
When Herbert Marshall McLuhan, the recondite Canadian media and communication theorist coined, in the early 1960s, the term “global village” to denote or describe the phenomenon of having all parts of the world brought together by technological advances such as the internet that allow for instantaneous integration of all parts of the world, he had probably just finished studying the homogeneity that there is in village or a rural setting; for, close and careful examination of interaction among members in villages would reveal the semblance of the world of this day and age to that of the village – homogeneous interaction; everybody knows everyone.
Today, through the utility of the internet and because the world is a global village, as we have all agreed and nodded our approval in unison, we often find ourselves traversing distances without physically surfacing ourselves in such places, the internet flights take us to.
We often bury ourselves in the warm internet blanket while we enjoy the chatter we engage in, on our social media platforms – WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter; for example – with our friends when we visit or receive them as guests in our round-walled mud house, the typical village’s house.
Sometimes, we get too absorbed in our chatters that we forget we have our normal, daily routines to do, and so aplenty time is spent, nay lost, doing things that hardly have pertinence to our personal development as youth. But the grandeur of the internet makes us to quickly, albeit unconsciously at times, surmise that the activity we get ourselves caught up in on the internet is worth the time we spend.
So, this is the gist.
The internet, despite the myriad of advantages it has, addiction to it, if our idea for that is not productive; to do online businesses and all, can be detrimental to our productiveness as youth, especially now that we, against our very liking, are made to be under the thumb to offer our fragile hands for a shake to untold misery.
While some youth – and by “youth”, I mean its collective noun sense, to mean young people of both sexes – in Nigeria use the internet in a productive way by doing or promoting their (online) businesses, host of others take and see the internet as a place where one spends one’s time in utter enjoyment of one’s life.
Some, as far as the luxury of their time could allow, enter contest with their friends and the race of who gets many followers would begin. You might think this isn’t worth any fig, but to them, it’s an achievement that would even call for celebration.
Such is the story of some Nigerian youth, among whom is yours truly.
Until lately, after the realisation that the internet could be a stumbling block to the attainment of one’s set goals, I would spend some important, nay greater, part of my time on Twitter, WhatsApp, e.t.c., sometimes just as a lazy lurker who takes delight in reading numberless opinions of other people about different issues.
I was only to take internet break sometime ago to realise that there are so many things one can achieve, if one is off the internet for some time, especially if one doesn’t use the social media platforms for businesses or any productive activity that has valour and significance in some ways.
Anytime I take break from Twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook, etc, I find myself finishing the works I earlier started working on or devouring, with every relish, the beautiful and interesting pages of the books I listed and meant to read but couldn’t get around to because internet had sunk its pernicious proboscis on my atrophic flesh, dictating terms to me with its hoarse voice on how I use my time, forcing me to feast my curious eyes on its chicaning terrain and robing me of the time I thought was all mine.
By way of example, in the recent internet break I took, I made it a point to read two books and do some writings and engage in other productive activities that will positively shape my life.
But this is not, in whatever sense, saying that one doesn’t benefit, in a positive way, from one’s “netizenship”. There are so many good things the internet offers. It, I believe, all hinges on how we use the internet.
Through the utility of the internet, we today take online classes, pursue degrees, get useful knowledge on subjects of our interest, make friends that help unlock the unrealised potential engrained in us, hold virtual symposia or workshops, engage in online discourses that have direct bearing on our odyssey to success, take acquisitional expedition and so on. In the wake of this ravaging Covid-19 pandemic that locked down people and forced the stoppage of physical activities, Nigeria, as a developing nation that is embracing technology at a snail slow pace, has realised the importance of technology and how internet helps in accomplishing tasks.
But if you don’t use the internet for the above purposes or other rewarding, productive purposes, then it means your time spends on the internet may not be seen as something that could add value to your life.
If you are the type that takes to your Twitter, Facebook or WhatsApp account just to take delight in viewing pictures or reading trivial pieces and spend hours in doing so, then you need to desist from doing that, wring your hands and have truck with engagement in steering the wheel of your stay on the internet towards something more productive.
If you can’t steer the wheel to that lane, then make that bold decision and take an internet break and do those things you have been wanting to do but couldn’t get around to do because the internet forces have been deterring you from doing so.
The global village, unlike before, is now evolving as more and more members in the village are having more complex interactions and are using that to their advantage.
The wise among the villagers, fed up with idleness and the squeaky sound of their weightless pockets, are now back in harness, ready to leverage on the internet. It is the reason they are taking the call of delving into entrepreneurship for self-reliance as important and using the social media platforms to promote their businesses, rather than use it as chat room for having chatters or talking trivialities that add no value to their lives as youth who, as prevailing realities of the country show, are having hot, yet rotten and inedible, potatoes on their plates.
Rilwan Muhammad can be reached via reedwandk@gmail.com 07061124918
