The Internet is defined as the global
system of interconnected computer networks. Through the internet both time and
distance are reduced. E.g. someone in Delta state can communicate with another
person in London as if he is communicating with his seatmate. Documents that
could have travelled through land and sea for months, take split seconds with
zero distance traveled. This reduction in time and space caused by the internet
is what we call Globalization.
The globalizing
effect of the internet has been majorly seen as a landmark achievement of the
human intellect. It facilitates international trade, intergovernmental
cooperation, sharing of research information and so on.
Plato’s Allegory of
the Cave talks about bondmen who have been in a dark cave all their lives. They
know nothing about the world outside the cave. So, if someone outside the cave
comes to tell them about the world outside the cave, they would disbelieve him.
When you carnally compare the world of internet with the world without
internet, in the light of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, you would be tempted to
think that the world of internet is analogical to the world outside the cave,
and the world without internet is represented by the world inside the cave.
This is a sensual appraisal of the internet. If you look more closely, you will
discover the hideous and heinous disservice that the internet is doing to our
beloved youths.
The globalizing effect of the internet
facilitates the easy spread of immorality. A world without the internet would
lack pornographic websites, abortion tutorial websites, and other websites that
teach all the bad things that the youth are now emulating. In traditional
African society without the internet, the youths do not have access to
pornography and other foreign teachings like homosexuality and Bestiality.
The
spread of all these immoralities came with the advent of the internet
It is in the world of internet that
uncensored falsehood spread like wild fire. The internet is a free zone.
Anybody, at any time, for any reason, publishes any piece of news he/she likes
without any form of restriction, whether the claims are true or false. During
the ebola epidemic, the number of people that died of false information was
more than those that died of ebola. Somebody just went on the internet and
published that people should drink and bathe with highly salinized water to
prevent ebola. This false information went viral, and before the government
could address the public, a lot of people had taken more amount of salt than
their body could endure. And they started dropping dead. Without the internet,
the government could have blocked such information from public consumption
through censorship.
The internet has used its double
swords of globalization and modernization to erode our culture. Today, you will
hardly find a Nigerian youth that is willing to dress in our native attire to
occasions like birthday party, red-carpet events, shows and so on. They prefer
foreign designers. Ask them what they are wearing; you will hear something
like: Gucci, Lorenzo, US Police and so on. They got all these from the
internet. Thus, the internet is a neo-colonial tool. Colonialism is an
imposition of a culture upon another culture. The western culture is gradually
displacing our culture all thanks to internet.
In the world of internet, the youth
waste their precious time on snap-chatting, face-booking, instagraming,
youtubing, and other unproductive things, instead of being in the farm planting
and harvesting, or in the market, selling, buying and contracting, or in the
construction site, building roads, residences and industries. Hard work use to
be the identity of a traditional African youth. It is in the days of one’s
youth that one can store up treasure for the rainy days of old age. But today,
because of the internet, they have diverted their youthful energy to
unproductive ventures. This is lamentable.
In all these areas mentioned above,
the internet has proven to be an object of oppression. Walter Rodney, in his
book titled: “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa”, he explained the effect of our
interaction with the western world. It has always been an oppressive
interaction. First, it was Slave Trade. And when Slave trade was banned, it was
baptized and renamed Colonialism. And now that Colonialism has ended, here
comes the new tactics of taking the youth into the Cave. It is called Internet.
Internet will seize your time and money. Internet will take away the
originality of your culture and make you an inferior ‘Americana’. Internet will block your ears to the valuable advice of
your parents at home, and lure you into the false information being spread by
unknown authors abroad. And before you know it, you are back in the Cave, just
like your forebears. Beware of Internet.
No comments:
Post a Comment