The Spate Of Social Media Warriors Destroying Nigerian Youths.
By Ibrahim Afis Opeyemi
With the increased access to keyboards and data bundles, crops of public analysts, social media warriors are emerging on daily basis. Many young people today, whether informed or not have turned their social media handles to platforms for airing their views on issues happening around the world.
While nothing may seems wrong about holding and airing an opinion, many of these street analysts now see as enemies people who share contrary opinion or tag as 'uneducated literates' those they cannot convince to see issues from their perspectives. They try to enforce their opinions on others any time they spew their gibberish.
Funny enough, many of them are people who apply sentiments (either based on political party affiliation, ethnicity, religion or a combination of some of them) in forming their opinions. They most times consider 'who' than 'what' of an issue in doing this.
Worse still are those so-called social media analysts who majorly rely on unknown blogs and sites peddling rumours as their sources of information. They praise or criticize government officials and/or policies, public figures and individuals based on the unfounded rumours published by the unreliable and unauthenticated bloggers.
Another major trait found with these social media warriors is overgeneralization. They use what an individual does to represent an institution or organization. They forget that while one's associations contribute to their perception and dispositions, one may exhibit idiosyncrasies contrary to what their affiliation is known for.
On a final note, there is no doubt that the new media has greatly influenced the nature and scope of public communication by making it a two-way deal. However, there is the need to source for news and information only from reliable outlets and be vast in doing this. Also, recognizing that there exist varied opinions on an issue is essential; thus, it is important to be civic in airing opinion without jeopardizing one's relationship with others who may have a different view on the same issue. Instead of youths to discuss the future, they tend to kill that future in the process of being loyal to their masters. This is actually killing Nigerian Youths.
Afis Opeyemi Gigabytes
Director, Gigabytes Education Consult
08163050884
15th May, 2020
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