The advancement in technological innovations and inventions has led to the breakdown of telecommunication barriers, making each one of us virtually in touch with the rest of the world at the click of a button. Communities that resided in remote parts of the world, places that were once thought inaccessible to civilized humanity, are now becoming global citizens, thanks to the internet and more so social media. With a fast internet connection and the possibility of getting virtually anything in this global network, people are increasingly using cyberspace to conduct their business, whether legitimate or not. The usefulness of social media and the internet cannot be gainsaid. Every imaginable business start-up that wants to survive and has a competitive edge over its rivals is going electronic. Similarly, government institutions have to operate within the boundaries of accountability, transference, and efficient delivery of services. Academic institutions are embracing information communication technology as they aspire to attain academic excellence and churn out competent graduates into a cutthroat job market, where only the well-trained survive.
However, these technological breakthroughs have come with their fair share of challenges that pose serious social problems. According to Cagle (513), social sites are being blamed for the lack of critical skills and increase in anti-social behaviors in schoolchildren, technically reducing them into idiotic robots. Most children are technologically savvy and are spending a lot of their time in front of their computers to get in touch with their friends over social sites. Schools also have encouraged the use of computers as a medium of teaching, communication between students, student registration, and instruction. Therefore, the use of computers and the internet is inevitable in the modern setting.
Several questions are being raised as to whether the use of social media as a form of communication between individuals in virtual communities is rewiring users’ brains. Increased incidents of autism in children are suspected to be due to use of social media, though with no tangible evidence of the same. However, it is important to note that the brain continuously undergoes changes that correspond to the signal impulses from different stimuli. These physical and intellectual changes are ways in which the brain prepares the person to cope with the new information that he receives. Social media messages have been noted to induce a more primal activation of the brain and, as such, emotional adaptive responses are gained by the receiver.
Excessive computer use has been linked to attention deficit that generally occurs among users. However, the internet, being an information superhighway, allows users to absorb as much information as possible within a short period of time. This information overload causes the brain to automatically protect itself in the form of context switching. Here, the brain prioritizes the work, giving priority to the processes that require less energy to perform. Mental fatigue is one of the signs of brain overload in information processing. This continuous barrage of information from social sites has deleterious effects on the emotional, psychological, and physical well-being of the users. Children exposed to social sites from early on tend to lack in social skills with their fellow colleagues, because their brains have been wired differently by the kind of stimuli they get.
Conclusion
Society is dynamic and therefore any changes that occur, whether technological, political, or social, play an important part in reshaping how people adapt and conduct their business. People are increasingly finding solace in social media, where they are not judged for who they are or stand for. Virtual friendships are common online and children are making thousands of friends with the click of a button. This can be attributed to the shifting socio-economic status and people’s enhanced mobility for work, travel, school, or migration. Making friends through social interactions becomes difficult and physical friends can yield to the online ones, who are out there for as long as one decides.
The internet, despite its pitfalls, is here to stay and people should rather get used to the idea because almost everything is going online. The younger generation can easily absorb the impact of the internet, and so it is for the older generation to adapt to the fact social media are an idea whose time has come. The important thing for the parents and guardians is to try to monitor what their children do online. It is an uphill task because you cannot police your child round the clock, but you can at least let them know that they can trust you.