Today the world has invented everything from cheer, to quiet to kill. Is it perhaps that we have forgotten our history as a people? What is it about our society that will cause a young lady to show her nakedness to the world through the INTERNET?
Young Africans steal information from the INTERNET and use it to defraud their fellow humans, we use black magic to extort monies from white men and call it “taking back what the white man took away from us”. These are not my words but the words of ace comedian George Carlin of the 1980s and 90s.
The INTERNET is a computer system that allows millions of computer users around the world to exchange information. From this definition, one can see clearly that the INTERNET is a very useful and important invention to humanity. The INTERNET has helped the world in the areas education, telecommunication, trade and industries, governance, science, business, health, oil explorations etc. The original idea behind the invention of the INTERNET was to make the world a global village. It has indeed made life very easy and comfortable because the information, documents, messages etc that could have been received and accessed in days are now seen and accessed in minutes.
Have you ever looked at the other side of this invention? How Africans have used this invention? Today, there are about 1,073,380,925 people in Africa. These people form 15% of the global population of over 7 billion.
According to Mini watts Marketing Group, operators of the World Internet Stats survey on 31st December, 2012, Africa's INTERNET users are 167,335,676 forming 7.8% of the world's INTERNET users.
In recent times, there has been a high demand for INTERNET bandwidths across the continent; this is due to the rate which the global economy, education, science, and communication are changing. Morocco is said to be the highest consumer of INTERNET bandwidths in Africa with 16,477,712 people representing 51% followed by Egypt which has 29,809,742 representing 35.6%, Kenya, 12,043,735 representing 28.6%, Nigeria, 48,366,179 representing 24.4% respectively. It should be noted that countries are graded based on the number of people who have access to the INTERNET out of their total population not merely by countries with the highest population [As at 2013].
In the case of Ghana, there are about 24 million people and out of this number, 3,568,757 representing 14.1% have access to the INTERNET.
This shows clearly how we are crawling slowly as nation to catch up with the world and what makes the world go round-the internet.
These statistics are very beautiful and show that we are at least making some headway as a people and a continent. But the question that needs to be asked is whether we have actually used the internet to better our lives as a people. Of course there are those who will argue that we have, but I beg to differ and I will offer premises to drive my argument home.
Gadgets manufacturing companies like Samsung, Nokia, Motorola, hTC Corporation, and Apple have now invented technologies that allow them to manufacture handsets and personal digital assistants (PDAs) that have in-built INTERNET modems that allow customers to browse the INTERNET anywhere and at anytime. With the introduction of smart phones and Ipads which have over 25,000 applications and come with different and faster operating systems, the world has become a global village.
Social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Google+, YouTube, Vigzin, and chatting applications like Yahoo Messenger, Whatsapp, Viber, weChat, Tango have now caused computers and mobile phones to operate similarly.
Today, the INTERNET has gained roots among many young Africans and this phenomenon is becoming dangerous in that the few who have access to this technology have shamelessly resorted to exploring the negative side.
Social media has now handcuffed millions of young Africans; these folks usually stay online for hours. The craze is usually found among students at the tertiary level. They shamelessly log online and chat with friends whilst even lectures are underway, this attitude or craze has inadvertently affected the reading, studying, and writing habits of students.
In Asia and specifically India and Pakistan, young people have developed mobile applications that solve problems pertaining to their age groups and are currently earning an income out of it.
In Pakistan, a student of the Karachi University in 2009 developed a software that allowed him to teach mathematics online for free. Millions of students across the globe benefitted from this cause and thanked him as he was being interviewed on CNN. Now the arithmetic table, encyclopaedia, Encarta, Google scholar and whole lot applications can be downloaded into mobile devices for easy reference. This has been made possible yet again by our white friends.
In Africa, young people surf pornographic, dating, and proxy websites, these young folks use the internet to dupe people all over the world by pretending to who they are not. This is mainly seen in Ghana and Nigeria. A visit to most of the public INTERNET cafes in these countries will confirm this assertion.
In my quest to provide you with the troubles of the African youth, I switched my television from analogue to digital in order to watch how cable TV is making it out there and to my outmost dismay, I tuned into Emmanuel TV, a Nigerian TV network owned by the Synagogue Church of All Nations headed the famous prophet T.B. Joshua. It became evident that young people were having sex electronically. Surprised? These people even uploaded their love making sessions unto the INTERNET.
At the church’s prayer line, a lady was said have had sex with Indian man she meet online and was asked to wipe the fluid that came after her orgasm with a white handkerchief and send it through the post office. It was also revealed that another lady also had an online sex with a fellow lady whom she met on Facebook.
Why have we not used this blessing to exchange and learn new cultures, education, trade, tourism and study languages? I think these truths are not new to African leaders since they already know and perhaps have been victims of it.
Parents and people in authority will have to discern to the level of young people to ascertain and offer solutions to their teen problems. Laws makers should censor access to certain websites by minors. It is however imperative for policy makers to structure the internet education in schools to facilitate the creation of applications that will solve their nations’ problems. Africans have solutions to their own problems and one of the possible ways is through the internet because after all it is here to solve problems.
Article by a Communication Studies student
kwasiadjei@outlook.com
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