Social Media Craze.

Home truth: "Perhaps Facebook is an alternate universe, created to enable the weak say they are strong. Where you can't easily recognise a real-life friend, whose image has been rehabilitated to sheer wonder by photoshop. A fellow I know, who dropped out of an ND programme, wields a "University of Namibia" degree on his profile. There is more... A career hater of religion boards a public bus. From the start of the journey to the end, some preacher would not let passengers have peace. Our Facebook religion basher is sitting in his own corner, timid. He doesn't say a word; he's fiddling with his phone, making an update on how religion has taken up every available space in Nigeria. No, he doesn't confront the perpetrators right there on the bus; he rants on Facebook rather, getting 100 likes and 200 comments, while the problem is still out there, waiting for him on the next bus. He fails to recognize that the foot-soldiers of religion mostly are not on Facebook. Even such on Facebook are so intolerant they can't have him on their friends list, so his vibrant update is addressing a fake crowd. The social media, especially Twitter and Facebook, have this dubious status-conferral appeal. An idle, hollow individual can easily pluck a celebrity status by mere cyber loquacity or even rodentry, if not by militant criticism of politicians and religionists. His activities are shallow, half-hearted; that is why when a call for protests is made, he won't honour it. Finally, Facebook is an annoying leveler: it places the professor, the intellectual, the illiterate, the rich, the poor, the workaholic, the layabout, etc., on the same social plane. An ordinarily empty,25-year-old young man, useful only because he saved from his pocket money to buy a smartphone, can hide in this cyber cocoon and hurl insults at people he cannot face in real life. His voice is louder because he is empty and idle. He has time too. He has never earned a kobo of his own in life, never run a start-up let alone employed people, never added real value to people out there . He has read quite some articles online, and therefore on account of this 'knowledge', has earned the superiority to hurl such words like "fools,idiot," etc., on the opposition. Let us understand that this medium is a virtual one. Work beckons in the real world. Someone posted a statement on Sahara Reporter's page: "Do you see the children of our politicians and the other elite on Facebook? They feel it's for commoners. They don't take us serious...." Maybe invalid remarks but they made me think. We need to seek actualisation more in the real world." - Immanuel James Ibe-Anyanwu