I have had a strong affinity for the social media right from the very first day I was introduced to the internet way back. My love for social media span the days of Yahoo messenger, right down to Myspace, Hi5 and to the present day lot. I just can't phantom a reason for this strong bond between myself and the Social media. Even though I know I'm not alone in this category. Perhaps i was hoping to meet a rich, white or black American beauty(not-so-beautiful would even have been accepted) who would be my visa away from poverty or y visa to securing a visa to America. But alas, I gave up on that dream long ago and have moved on with my life.

I haven't lost a bit of interest in the social media though, especially Facebook, Twitter and Instagram among a host of others. As an entertainment blogger, something I do as a part-time hubby, I get lots of news from there which find their way into my blog.
However, that is not the direction I'm heading to with this write-up. This write-up was actually spurred by an Op-ed i came in contact with on the New York Times.

The article encapsulates what is in my mind concerning the pains and gains of the social media. I am deeply concerned as to the purposes which the social media is being used for by various interest groups. It has become a very vital and veritable tool for propaganda, a tool for radicalism, a fitting vessel to mobilize innocent chaps for violent purposes, and all what not.

That does not in anyway case a shadow over the fact that many great things have been accomplished through the Social media; musicains have been made, models have been born on social media. The case of the Nigerian bread-seller, Olajumoke readily comes to mind. Several terminally ill patients have had donors come to their aid via the power of the social media.
But we cannot ignore the damage this engaging platforms are causing in our society.

I just reeled over an headline of a young lady who was beaten to coma by a roommate she met through craiglist. Cynthia Osokogwu meet her untimely death through the bloody hands of guys she met on Facebook. I can go on and on. We read about atrocities committed day in, day out by friends, acquaintances, stalkers who connect with their victim on Social media.

Another worrisome dimension of the negative use which the social media is been put to, is that of propaganda.
The article on New York Times deals exclusively on this angle of the merits or de-merits of the Social media.
I will reproduce exerpts from the article here;

Over the last few years we’ve been treated to a number of “Facebook revolutions,” from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street to the squares of Istanbul, Kiev and Hong Kong, all fueled by social media. But once the smoke cleared, most of these revolutions failed to build any sustainable new political order, in part because as so many voices got amplified, consensus-building became impossible.

Question: Does it turn out that social media is better at breaking things than at making things?

Recently, an important voice answered this question with a big “ yes.” That voice was Wael Ghonim, the Egyptian Google employee whose anonymous Facebook page helped to launch the Tahrir Square revolution in early 2011 that toppled President Hosni Mubarak — but then failed to give birth to a true democratic alternative.

In December, Ghonim, who has since moved to Silicon Valley, posted a TED talk about what went wrong. It is worth watching and begins like this: “I once said, ‘If you want to liberate a society, all you need is the Internet.’ I was wrong. I said those words back in 2011, when a Facebook page I anonymously created helped spark the Egyptian revolution. The Arab Spring revealed social media’s greatest potential, but it also exposed its greatest shortcomings. The same tool that united us to topple dictators eventually tore us apart.”

In the early 2000s, Arabs were flocking to the web, Ghonim explained: “Thirsty for knowledge, for opportunities, for connecting with the rest of the people around the globe, we escaped our frustrating political realities and lived a virtual, alternative life.”

And then in June 2010, he noted, the “Internet changed my life forever. While browsing Facebook, I saw a photo … of a tortured, dead body of a young Egyptian guy. His name was Khaled Said. Khaled was a 29-year-old Alexandrian who was killed by police. I saw myself in his picture. … I anonymously created a Facebook page and called it ‘We Are All Khaled Said.’ In just three days, the page had over 100,000 people, fellow Egyptians who shared the same concern.”

Soon Ghonim and his friends used Facebook to crowd-source ideas, and “the page became the most followed page in the Arab world. … Social media was crucial for this campaign. It helped a decentralized movement arise. It made people realize that they were not alone. And it made it impossible for the regime to stop it.”

Ghonim was eventually tracked down in Cairo by Egyptian security services, beaten and then held incommunicado for 11 days. But three days after he was freed, the millions of protesters his Facebook posts helped to galvanize brought down Mubarak’s regime.

Alas, the euphoria soon faded, said Ghonim, because “we failed to build consensus, and the political struggle led to intense polarization.” Social media, he noted, “only amplified” the polarization “by facilitating the spread of misinformation, rumors, echo chambers and hate speech. The environment was purely toxic. My online world became a battleground filled with trolls, lies, hate speech.”

Here is what he concluded about social media today: “First, we don’t know how to deal with rumors. Rumors that confirm people’s biases are now believed and spread among millions of people.” Second, “We tend to only communicate with people that we agree with, and thanks to social media, we can mute, un-follow and block everybody else. Third, online discussions quickly descend into angry mobs. … It’s as if we forget that the people behind screens are actually real people and not just avatars.

“And fourth, it became really hard to change our opinions. Because of the speed and brevity of social media, we are forced to jump to conclusions and write sharp opinions in 140 characters about complex world affairs. And once we do that, it lives forever on the Internet.”

Read the concluding part on my blog http://jed360..com.ng/2016/02/social-media-destroyer-or-creator_21.html