28 Mar 2017

Gone are the days when children could be spotted reciting poems, singing traditional songs or playing games in the neighborhood.
Such activities have been replaced by watching television and of recent trolling the internet, especially social media.
Like almost all developments, social media has positive and negative sides to it. WhatsApp, twitter, my space, internet, friendstar, Google, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, Instagram and WeChat have eased communication for most people. Documents and pictures are shared between many people instantly.
However, some use it to commit crime such as distribution of pornographic material, identity theft and cyber-bullying.
“What is interesting is the power and the impact of social media. So we must try to use social media in a good way,” said Malala Yousafzai, the young Pakistani active proponent of education as a fundamental social and economical right, who was shot by the Taliban at the age of 15 for her campaign on girls access to education.
Her sentiments are echoed by St Joseph’s College school head, Ms Constance Male, who has observed the tremendous impact  social media had brought to communities and the world at large in many aspects such as culture and business.
 She says in schools, students are so much plugged into social media than ever before such that they no longer respond to traditional teaching methods.  She says the fact that some students make social media their first priority over their academic work, core curricula activities such as sports and family are a course for concern.
This mostly contributes to poor results, she says, noting that cyber bullying and online harassment are also common among learners.
Ms Male is of the opinion that if used properly, social media has some positives aspects such as speed in communication, access to more information, increased knowledge, improve socialisation and marketing.
On the other hand, she notes, there are some negatives as cyber bullying and online harassment, which mostly leads to depression and suicidal thoughts by students,  people portraying themselves as someone they are not, hijacking of accounts and online cracking.
Ms Male cautions both students and members of the public to think before posting anything on social media as whatever is posted online cannot be reversed and as such could bounce back to haunt them.
She advises that people should not reveal their personal information on social sites to avoid vulnerability to crimes like identity theft and stalking.
Posting embarrassing information online can also have a drastic effect and ruin chances of getting a job as most companies nowadays perform background checks on social media before hiring potential employees,
“To address some of these negatives, as educators we need to understand the generation of students that we teach and the way they learn so that we could best assist them in order to avoid adverse repercussions,” she says.
 “We normally advise our children who fall victim to online attacks not to take it lying down, but rather to report so that appropriate measures could be taken against the culprits.”
Botswana police public relations unit has narrated some of the policing problem social media has brought.
Deputy public relations officer, Mr Dipheko Motube said in an interview that, through social media, dating has proved to be a serious emerging problem in policing.  
Some distant love relationships established through facebook have left many women crying foul as most of the relationships later turn out to be fake and in the processes, women end up being cheated of large sums of money by their so called lovers, he says.  
“People are revealing too much on Facebook. Their home and personal security is always made vulnerable by their facebook posts. For example, people have a tendency to reveal their absence from home and their new acquisitions.
People also have a tendency to advertise that they are home alone.” Such posts give potential criminals an idea on how they can carry out attack on them, Mr Motube states. He says that some people have made policing very cumbersome as scenes of crime and accidents are often published against the will of the police. Pictures of victims of accidents are often posted on Facebook and next of kin get informed through social media long before the police can even attend to the scene.  He also says that in some instances people’s accounts are hacked and the criminals use their accounts to commit cyber crime such as defaming others.
Lawyer and businessman, Michel Meyer also reasons that sometimes she feels disheartened because of what she describes as wicked acts in social media.
She narrates that with its speed and efficiency, social media should be used to unite the community. She says in this case one has to understand that networking means opening up and sharing information online with others, but there is some information one should never share online. She says people must never share their confidential information such as social security numbers, places where they were born, birth date, home address or home phone number where not applicable. In this case she says one will avoid such cases as kidnapping.
Deputy kgosi of Batlokwa, Kgosi Michael Gaborone decries the improper use of social media, saying social media was solely made for easy transmission of messages.
He says the misuse use of social media websites is sometimes done by media personnel, showing disrespect for those in authority. “They normally do this by distorting information. In a number of cases data is sensationalised, defaming and blackmailing. ENDS