How to better protect children from absorbing violent content on social media
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By Zuwaira Usman
Indubitably, the revolution which triggers the rise of a series of sophisticated equipment to be used principally for the purpose of communication beyond conventional means has made life more interesting to dwell in than in the past. Interestingly, through the nascence of these instruments, social media came to the fore and paved a way for communal interactivity. And, subsequently, the interactivity then turned into an agent of excitement and enthusiasm for people to the extent of becoming an intrinsic part of their day-to-day activities.
For the essence of clarification, Merriam webster sees social media as “a form of electronic communication (as websites for social networking and micro logging through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages and other content (as videos)”.
Buttressing this definition will give us the abundant opportunity to echo the uses of social media which are; Archetypal avenue of sharing information for online users, a way of creating individual meaning, a channel of connection between millions of riffraff, an epitome of learning, a veritable haven where the bourgeoisie and proletariat can meet, and the place where the masses voice out their voices to the government direct.
The pertinent question to pose ourselves now is, if these are the very true identity of social media then why is it deemed as a bane to our society?
Why is it seen as a dangerous place for our children? Why is it described as a place where malicious content like blue film and the likes are viewed? Why should it just give room to notorious people like that? Why is it spoiling our psyche every now and then?
Decidedly, the solid reason is that as social media have millions of merits being displayed overtly by people, there are a zillion disadvantages covertly awaiting the innocent users who are ready to embrace the media. In fact, if we were to undertake a survey comparing its merit with its demerit, we would see that its disadvantages outweigh its merit in manifold ways.
It is then unfortunate that most people that do fall inside the pool of its demerit are teenagers and children who have less knowledge of the diversification of social media or media generally.
For this, this article will center on providing the role of government, parents, and media in protecting children from this monster which is social media. More so, because of its terseness, it will assign work for each agent of socialization so that our society can overcome its menace.
Firstly, is the Government. And their task is to regulate. Last time I read about the word “Governance” I see that it has a broad meaning and it is beyond just the management of a country or society. So, the Government must not be docile in anything when running the affair of the state. The Government can ship in regulation in the affair of social media.
Take, for instance, we have NBC right! which monitors the broadcasting affairs. So as social media too must have its own regulatory body. That is, the government should create an agency that will be monitoring what is happening on social media in a socially responsible manner. It is worth noting that the regulation I mean is not the one that will impede the freedom of expression as it is granted in the section 39 of the constitution nor the one in which the government would be using it for its own affairs, by jailing those who criticize his ideology and leaving those who don’t vituperate his philosophy even when that individual is posting violent content, but rather, the one that will depict a sense of responsibility of individual tents and has minimal control of the government. This is because regulating it beyond the pattern of socially responsible state would just be a direct attack to democracy in which Africa especially Nigeria like to be mapped by it side even when they are not practicing it and it would even prejudice the country.
For instance, one of the Nigerian former ministers, Lai Muhammad once says” for those who may still be in doubt, ritual killing has assumed a worrisome dimension in recent years. The fact that some of these ritualists said they learned the money-making tricks from social media platforms has given a further fillip to our campaign to rid social media of unwholesome content.” So the agency would just be the one removing and make sure there is no room for unwholesome content.
That is just about the promotion of ritual activities and this is in the past, the image of social media has gone beyond that. All of us once remember the issue of Chrissland saga. The poor girl who had an Instagram account where she has more than 20,000 followers and even it named “bhadgurl4k” and even plus that she did do erotic dancing video before she practicalised what she has been doing publicly. Please help us to censor this thing.
Secondly, The parent. Nah, I mean the parent. No specific formula for parenting but please, use all your power to deploy a good strategy when playing the game as a parent. So in this, you have a healthy role to play if we really want our wards to be protected from that leviathan. we might not say it but many of us certainly know who is ought to blame most on that issue of Christland. So, Parents would do this by mulling over when the need for this sophisticated equipment becomes imperative to their wards before purchasing it for them. Otherwise, they would purchase an agent of destruction for their own family. Also after the purchase, they should make sure they monitor and check very often about their uses and the people they connect with.
This is because, when people are not mature enough, they would be ignorant of the implications of awful activities and eventually engage in Facebooking, tweeting, and viewing social media violent content. And subsequently, they would act in accord with what they view. The logic is very simple. It is taken from the aggressive clue theory.
The last solution is the responsibility of conventional media. According to agenda-setting theory, the media set and determine the issue worthy of seeing, viewing, and reading for their audience. So, this theory would be useful here. the media should incorporate the danger of using social media for bad things in their agenda, they should make a plausible clarification about the positive and negative consequences of the use of social media so that the average citizen could understand. Also, the media should put on the cap of social responsibility theory while broadcasting or sharing images of adverse content that is likely to be seductive and also monitor anything that will plant aggressiveness in the mind of our teenagers.
I believe by doing this, our teenagers who are the pride of our nation would be protected from all the evil of social media.
Zuwaira Usman, is a student of Ahmadu Bello University Zaria,
From Department of Mass Communication.
