Social media, here to stay.

IN place of the Bible, the Holy Bible App is commonplace on our smart phones.
People no longer flip pages but swipe pages on the phone.
It’s now a familiar sight to witness the entire family at a dinner table facing down glued onto the blue screens.
It’s irritating to have a one-on-one meeting with a person who keeps on checking or responding to message alerts on their phone or iPad.
Or the way language has been mutilated, impoverished and messages are sent or received in highly abbreviated word form accompanied by strange but clever emojis summarizing emotions than words can ever do.
You now can send text, whatsApp and video calls to the village or to any part of the World.
In the past you could only communicate with a small number, usually a circle around you, but now you can reach thousands or millions at the same time.
There is no need to wait for a letter weeks after it was sent.
There is no need to wait for pictures sent to the developer to be processed.
Social media has adversely affected face-to-face inter personal communication.
Infact it’s strange how we lose our filter and trust complete strangers with our personal information. Many exchange even personal messages, pictures and videos.
Hence the disastrous outbreak of naked pictures and sex videos.
Infact various laws, protocols and regulations are preoccupied with the attempt to regulate the menaces and nuisances growing on social media.
Before the dawn of social media, governments, along with the traditional media, were the gatekeepers of information.
They let you know what you needed to know and when you needed to.
This has been rudely disrupted.
Industries such as banking, newspapers, and marketing have widely been disrupted in a significant way.
Newspapers are almost obsolete or have been forced to morph and survive by adopting and forced to be present on other social media platforms to survive.
Newspapers, radio, television have all moved to one platform-social media.
But its Governments that seem lost and are struggling to keep a lid on secret or confidential information, programs and activities.
The whistle blowers, leakers, and abusers of information are everywhere. It just needs a smart phone or memory stick.
Demonstrations, protests and processions can be organized at a flicker of a moment jumping over traditional and current security and media infrastructure.
Social media allows citizens to be the source of ideas, plans and initiatives and requires no gate keepers or authorities.
Everyone is a source, everyone can speak, everyine can communicate his/her views to a wide audience.
On social media everyone is important and can command following or attention just by being on social media and those that get good at it become social media influencers.
Unknown artist can share their new works and become instant stars.
There has been both immediate positive and negative effect impacting business, politics, and our general socialization.
The negative traits, however have been the rise of cyberbullying, invasion of privacy, fake news, and cyber crimes.
Social media is the unstoppable revolution that has gripped us.
Adapt, adopt or die.
Learn, participate, get involved, influence, organize or die.

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News Source: Mwebantu