EENHANA – About 25 percent of people surveyed by the Time Out here in the capital of the Ohangwena region recently say they have been witnessing important moments because they have been too busy sharing aspects of their lives on their favourite social networks.
The more one is on Twitter, Instagram or Face book, the less they are paying attention to other important events taking place around them. Modern technology has greatly benefited many people in the way they do business. In Namibia, in the past five years, social media has worked its way into the daily lives of the close to 2, 3 million people around the country with about a million subscribers registered on the country’s Mobile telecommunication (MTC)mobile networks. People can now contact their friends and family from mobile phones, laptops or iPods. People can talk via video call or share photos and videos in seconds. Now they can start relationships and end them on social media. We may feel that we are being more sociable than ever before but is it not making us anti-social to those around us?
Namibia’s huge love of social media cannot be denied. The speed with which it has wormed its way into our daily lives is astounding. And there is absolutely no doubt that social media is here to stay. Mobile phone, computer and internet technology has revolutionized the way we process information and do business too. More people today rely on information from the internet and their phones. However, there is a negative side of technology. We are increasingly becoming isolated from each other because of a false sense of connection. E-mails, mobile phones and social media are valuable methods of communicating information. But do we not need to meet with people face to face so that we can truly connect?
“Honestly, I think it distracts people too easily. My boyfriend constantly checks his cell-phone and Face book updates during dates, and other social fun events. Being in a room with someone who always is on their cell phones for me is hard to try to fight for their attention all the time when you are being constantly ignored,” says a teenage who preferred to be called “Ndeshi Theopolina” on Twitter. She adds that it appears people nowadays rely on technology too much to focus on what’s really important in their lives than texting. “I do not think it is being anti-social, I think it is more of an over addiction to being social. They have a need to know everything and talk to everyone at once. It is rude but unfortunately with these people, unless they realise it themselves it is not worth the fight,” says Julia Negongo a trainee at the Valombola Vocational Training Centre (VVTC).
It is striking how quickly we have embraced and adapted to new technologies and the social media. They have changed our world in ways too numerous to count. Unfortunately, those changes are not always for the better. Amid all the buzz and innovation, very few experts have taken a step back to look at how social media and technology are changing us. In spite of all the positive ways they help us connect, they also have a way of cheating us out of more complete experiences.
Applications on mobile devices – are they turning us into anti-social individuals? How many applications are they now? There is no point in counting as more will be created before the day is out. Face book, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or FourSquare, Photo Warp, Photo Editor and Twoo are many of the current forms of social networking mobile applications turning us into a group of anti-social individuals, lacking the proper social skills.