Social Media Scratch On ‘Real’ Social Interactions.

“Truly, knowledge is powerful.

However, it is important to know that the power of knowledge can either help us or harm us”. 

By: David Oletu

Proverbs 2:11 KJV

[11] Discretion shall preserve thee, Understanding shall keep thee:

https://bible.com/bible/1/pro.2.11.KJV  

The social media age is a blessing to humanity!

In line with Mark Zuckerberg’s vision, social media has indeed helped bring the world closer together.

But, I think, in one way or another, it has also eaten deep into our real-life social interactions. 

It is not surprising to see its negative impact on our day-to-day interaction, for everything that has an advantage will also have a disadvantage.

However, when the disadvantage begins to outweigh the advantages, let us be vigilant, not losing sight of every other salient aspect of our lives.

The social media age has made a lot of young people, out of pressure, admire those they should ideally run away from. 

When using social media, let us not drop our empathy and thinking faculties. Let us also remember that there is a real-life to be lived and real people to embrace. 

Often, we boast of our social media advancement,

but how is our social media development affecting our humanity, mental health, relationships with people and God, and our thoughts and character? 

Were those developments supposed to come with such a price?

Is it not a call for concern today that families have turned to strangers, friends and neighbours have turned to enemies,

generosity has now become a thing of threat and fear to show, criminals have turned to models and mentors to young people online?

Social media has become a bin of toxic and insane commentaries?!

Social Media Scratch On ‘Real’ Social Interactions.

I remember those good old days when social media hadn’t been so much in use as much as it is now:

I lived in a small bungalow ‘In Africa, its’ called “face me, I face you’ house with my mother and brother, surrounded by a lot of neighbours who turned family. 

Then, my mother used to be the chief cook of the house.

You may wonder what I mean by her being the ‘chief cook’ of the house. 

After all, is she not supposed to cook for her home in normal circumstances?

Yes, but do not get me wrong. 

In this case, I meant my mother had always single-handedly cooked for almost the whole neighbourhood, especially for the children around.

Whenever she cooks, the children in my neighbourhood will always come to have a taste of her meal.

Their parents are also always excited to see their children eat from my mother’s pot, with zero worries in their minds. 

There were times when my mother would go to the market to buy ingredients used for baking snacks.

She learned baking and culinary skills—perhaps that was why no child or youth could resist her food then. 

Mother would bring the baking ingredients home from the market, set her baking tools in the passage of the house, and begin to mix her baking ingredients.

As she mixes them, neighbours and children will join her in the baking process.

And, after she is done baking whatever she is baking, be it chin-chin, puff-puff, or cake,

she will give it to children and neighbours around her freely to eat. 

Even if I also enjoyed eating her snacks for free,

I had always asked myself, “Why can’t this woman just start selling her snacks and food instead of giving it out for free?”

I mean, she went to culinary school, and her food was the big deal then—you can’t pass by the sweet-smelling, savoury aroma without desiring to have a taste.

Her food and snacks should have made her a whole lot of money if they were sold. But she gave it out for free!

I wouldn’t blame her,

because that was an era where one man’s business was like everyone’s business—an era where one man’s child was like everyone’s children.

Many people lived together and shared things. There was a communal bond!

My mother’s generous acts then further strengthened the bond between her and her neighbours, and up to date, none of them will ever forget her.

The children, teenagers, and youths who tasted her meals and snacks are now like her biological sons and daughters. 

My mother had probably learned her generosity from her late mother,

who also, in her days, embraced and fed every child in her neighbourhood who came to her house to play.

According to my mother, it was my late mother’s generosity that also strengthened the bond in her family,

to the point that even strangers turned out to become like her children. 

But, in today’s social media age, the plot has been twisted.

Social Media Scratch On ‘Real’ Social Interactions.

Due to the widespread advancement of social media, knowledge is now cheap.

People’s minds have been opened to different realities of life.

You log in to your social media page to see terrible videos of adults abusing children living around them,

how some money mongers are using people for money rituals, and how some people cook their food in an irritable manner and environment. 

The sight of such widespread disturbing information on social media has instilled fear and distrust in us. 

Everyone now simply minds their business to avoid stories that touch the heart. 

Parents can no longer freely release their children to play with neighbours or even spend time with family. 

Givers can no longer give freely because of fear of the evil that the receiver may face or do afterwards. 

Even my mother is now scared of giving out her cooked or baked meals freely because of the level of bad news we see today.

What if she gives someone’s child her food and the child falls sick a few hours or days later?

The reality now is that even if the sickness is not a result of the food that was given to the child, all eyes will be on my mother

because social media has revealed to us that no one should be trusted, and that people are full of evil.

It is, however, unfortunate that the good and innocent ones are affected, and that poses a big problem in our ‘real’ social interaction today.

Social Media Scratch On ‘Real’ Social Interactions. 

Recently, I saw a tweet on Twitter that read,

“Sometimes, knowing less can be incredibly freeing. The less you know, the less you have to worry about, and the less you are likely to experience. Embrace the peace of not knowing so much, and enjoy the freedom that comes with it.” ~n0tesforyou

The above quote now rings a bell in my ears, possessing all shades of truth in it. 

Does this mean that the rate at which we now know and see too much evil displayed on social media is now affecting our peace with others?

It is not that evil did not exist before social media came fully into our lives.

They do!

But social media has opened our eyes to more evil, which has further heightened our level of insecurity. 

Truly, knowledge is powerful. However, it is important to know that the power of knowledge can either help us or harm us. 

Many times, we fail to realise that knowledge is not enough, for it is one thing to know, and it is another thing to apply wisdom when acting on our knowledge.

Social Media Scratch On ‘Real’ Social Interactions.

This reminds me of the story of Adam and Eve;

how their deeper knowledge from the devil about the forbidden fruit made them disobey God.

That’s how far knowledge can lead us when we don’t apply wisdom.

Yes, through social media, we are now more aware of the evil that exists around us,

but should it affect all our perceptions about people and our day-to-day social interactions and relationships with people who should matter to us?

I think good people and things still exist,

but due to some people’s cravings and eagerness to always share and absorb bad and insensitive news,

the evils have been projected more than the good, blinding our eyes to see the good sides of our lives and our people.

I won’t also fail to share the story of a popular fraudster in my country.

He is known for always posting his exuberant lifestyle on social media.

And He posts his fleets of cars, mansions, and different fashion outfits each day. 

There was one of my very good friends who admired the fraudster so much!

My friend became so eager to make money and was ready to go to any length to make it,

even if it meant dropping out of school, due to his high admiration for the fraudster.

A few months later, to everyone’s surprise, my friend rose to wealth suddenly!

No one knew how he was able to gather so much wealth for himself so fast.

Although we suspected he got himself into fraudulent acts because of the kind of company he started hanging out with, in his hardened quest for quick money.

A few years later, our suspicions about him turned out to be true when we heard of how he was arrested by the government law enforcement Officers, for fraud and organ harvesting.

Social Media Scratch On ‘Real’ Social Interactions.

The social media age has made a lot of young people, out of pressure, admire those they should ideally run away from. 

Many young people are now ‘tapping’ from the so-called ‘grace’ of different online influencers who post their luxury lifestyles online. 

Many young people no longer know the meaning of ‘contentment and growth process’.

The pressure is now so high that they want to become like their ‘masked’ social media idols so fast, by all means. 

It is not bad to post luxury things online, nor is it bad to admire people who are wealthy online,

but in all the things we do and see on social media, let us be sensitive,

and not lose our good conscience in the process of tapping into the luxury of our idols online in our wide imagination. 

Moreso, social media has become a mental-relieving space for people who battle mental health challenges.

When those mentally challenged people should be in the hospital receiving some psychological treatment,

or with a counsellor, pastor, or company of good ‘real-life’ friends receiving good counsel and motivation,

they spend their time using social media, without thinking, to express their pains and bitter thoughts.

Social Media Scratch On ‘Real’ Social Interactions. 

In my study, I discovered that there is a part of the brain called the frontal lobe.

It is located in the anterior (front) part of the brain.

This part of the brain is responsible for our reasoning, judgement, decisions, social understanding, etc.

Some conditions can, however, damage that region of the brain.

Those conditions include traumatic injuries, head injuries, strokes, dementia, etc.

And such things can affect people’s actions and character. 

So, whenever we see some social media users regularly come online to insult people or initiate violence in other forms,

in most cases, many of them are suffering from a mental health challenge or a stigma that has affected their way of thinking. 

80% of people like that cannot even boldly face the people; in reality, they cannot address them in the rude way they addressed them on social media. 

They only find social media as a space to pour out their toxic minds and anger behind their keypads. 

This is why it is needless to engage in any form of intense fight or argument with anyone on social media, including with your close friends and relatives. 

Have you ever broken up with a best friend on social media due to a heated argument you both had while chatting online?

And, when you eventually rethink the argument, you will realise that you both had no reason to have broken up in the first place,

if not for how both of you or one of you had misinterpreted your texts or voice messages.

Come to think of it, what if your friend was just mentally stressed and found it difficult to interpret your message very well at the point when you both were arguing? 

What if what you both needed was a physical interaction to understand each other’s situation and perspective better?

Many people go through a lot mentally offline,

and social media seems to be like a place for them to either ease their mental stress or express their mental instability.

Social Media Scratch On ‘Real’ Social Interactions.

In a similar vein, you may have also come across some bitter radical feminists who come online to speak against men, generally every single day. 

Their social media content may cause violence, spread anger, and influence other young girls to follow suit by speaking ill of men. 

However, if we investigate more about the background of those bitter radical feminists,

we will discover that many of them have been through a lot of sexual abuse from men who could even be their relatives.

Some of them grew up in a family where their father constantly beat up their mother in their presence. 

As a result of their traumatic experience with men, they find no better place to express their grievances than on social media.

As much as people may say that it is their media space and they have the freedom to express themselves,

it is important to know that people who experience traumatic experiences as such need help,

and their actions are affecting the thoughts of other young girls who may begin to see them as role models.

With their regular toxic actions that show their high hatred for men,

they are indirectly raising more dangerous women who will detest all men, generally, because of one woman’s experience with one man. 

Sadly, many people do not realise the stages of their lives where they need real-life attention,

and not social media attention to keep their mental health stable and develop a more logical approach to issues.

In conclusion, I would love to admit that social media is not bad.

But we should have it in the back of our minds that social media is not for everything! 

When using social media, let us not drop our empathy and thinking faculties.

Let us also remember that there is a real-life to be lived and real people to embrace. 

There should be a thin line drawn between our real lives and our social media lives.

The earlier we realise this, the better for our mental well-being and social interactions. 

Also Read: Be a Good Citizen – Diademng (thediademng.org)

Social Media Scratch On ‘Real’ Social Interactions.