The Negative Consequencies of the New Media in the Nigerian Educational System by Joshua Nicholas
BY JOSHUA NICHOLAS
Despite all the interesting features of the New Media ( Internet) to our educational system, it has also contributed to its increasing decline in a number of ways.
The purpose of this article is not to spell the new media as “bad”, but to suggest for little restrictions and control over the excessive use of the new media technologies especially amongst the Nigerian youths.
One of the negative consequences of the new media is the increase in social vices. There were some practices that were not welcomed in the society, but the new media has socialize vices and made it very common in the society, that moral values are not regarded as children and youth learn so many immoral things online, get bullied and bully others. Some of these vices are internet fraudsters, hacking to people’s account, hacking to organization’s account, hacking to examination websites, sell things online, sex predators and evil offline relationships that emanates from online friendship.
Amongst the negative consequences of the New Media are:
a. New Breed of Netizens: The word ‘netizen’ is a combination of the words Internet and Citizen as in ‘citizen of the Net’. It means an habitual user of the internet, someone who uses it a lot. The new media has raised and nurtured new breed of citizens that are addicted to the internet. They prefer being cyber-citizens and these have serious implications like netizens refusing to be law abiding, they prefer their online families and neigbours rather than their biological families and neigbours respectively. The only friend they have is their mobile phone or personal computer or anything that gives them access to the internet. They tend to get isolated when they are not online, than when they have not seen their family members.
Even when the idea behind netizens maybe for an active participation in improving the internet, on the other hand it becomes a problem to the society.
b. Invasion of Privacy: The new media has so far served as the best tool for the intrusion of someone’s privacy. It is so easy to invade on people’s privacy, because there is nowhere to hide on the internet and this is a social wrong.
Whereby anyone can impose to be somebody else, information about somebody are just leaked out without permission. With the internet, there is no room for confidentiality, as hackers do not have respect for economic and personal safety.
c. Consumerism Culture: Heavy exposure to many attractive and alluring materials on the internet sometimes makes the youth to yearn for material things and to seek to acquire such even through unethical and orthodox means. Okunna (p141,2012).
d. Inconsequential Messages: With the new media, there is little or no room for censorship of any kind and the ever absence of gatekeeping information. The messages or information been circulated in this medium are sometimes inconsequential (worthless, unwanted). This has huge implications as there are some sites that will be dangerous or obscene for anyone with good moral standard. E.g. Pornography sites
E. Indolence towards Academics: This is a growing concern as so many young ones are getting addicted to the internet, forgetting their academics. Because of the time they spend on the internet doing other things, their academics get badly affected. Finally, it makes the youths to be unserious with their education which was supposed to be the firsr priority.
f. Brazenness: The internet has made some youths to adopt some shameless culture. They surf the net and see youngsters, celebrities dressing so odd and could be regarded as obscene and indecent. This has had a severe consequence on the youths as most cases of indecent dressing by both females and male could be attributed to some online identity.
It has also led to the adoption of the western culture since they are on the frontline in the internet business. Societal values, cultures and conventions have been put to side and defied because of the new media.
g. Potential for Obsolete Information: In the same bid for the internet to serve the publics and feed them with some breaking news and research materials, in the same vein the internet load its users with obsolete and outdated information – while some of its messages are falsehood.
There are some information on the internet that has been uploaded about some years back and needs to be constantly updated which sometimes does not happen and subscribers to the internet consumes this information or facts which will be a very big error.
Caution, not all the information on the internet are valid and in place, so when sourcing for information, you need not absorb everything and always check when it was posted or uploaded.
h. Academic Indolence: The advent of the new media has not just made research very easy, it has also weakened the strength of learning in the society. As students are not any longer interested in learning anything because of their too much internet activities. Most of them cannot recall even the list things been taught because of how they rely totally on the internet for everything. It has also increased the rate by which students engage in malpractice by just simple ‘Send’ or ‘Ok’ the answer of the ‘big question’ pops up and it becomes very cheap and this has had dire consequences on the academic performance or after college performance of the youths.
In conclusion, some measures can be put in place to control the negative use of the new media in not just affecting the educational system In Nigeria but also in every other sector of the nation for collective growth, development and performance.
One of these measures could be parental censorship because of the way the new media is built. It can seldom be censored, so it is now left for parents and guardian to watch their children carefully, keeping it close on them and become the gatekeepers to gate keep the contents been available to them. The internet facility of the home can stay in the sitting room with limited subscription and internet access.
Another measure should be from the government as they have the power to regulate and checkmate excesses of every sector in the nation.
To further achieve this, a body could be created to oversee website owners and every owner should be a registered member and the website providers should also be part of such body and illegal or unethical practices will have its penalties and those that refuse to join should be traced down and punished.
To an end note, the new media has been a major player in the Nigerian Educational Sy tem and to this endnote am still strongly convinced that the new media has saved the Nigerian Educational Sector some stress and has opened a forum for development and growth in the educational sector despite its excesses; which should be curtailed and controlled.
God bless Nigeria!
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Email: joshuannicholass@gmail.com
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