Welcome to Hive Mindset age! Sit down and watch one of the thrilling thinking patterns that can befall a generation. Like bees in their hive, man is spreading knowledge today through the Internet.
Crowds with smartphones have usurped traditional media that once behaved as arbiters of taste. Media Stars are starring without audition of media establishment. We don't need organisers of 'Miss Anambra Beauty Contest' before a Princess is crowned. A governor who controls state's Radio/TV station can only lie to a handicapped generation trapped in rural areas. Yet, that my mum now receives my WhatsApp video call indicates that even that generation is changing fast too.
A cheapest 'Techno' smartphone in the hands of goal-directed user can be as amazing as hearing "kedu ka I mere?" on the streets of Frankfurt.
Every internet user is now a potential creator and consumer. There are always food on the social media. No matter how badly prepared or served, there are always people to consume them too.
For better, for worse, we now see those gifted with nudity, others so high in low mentality, hatred, inferiority and superiority complexes, all competing for relevance. Like the primordial Adam and Eve, we have eaten the fruits of knowledge and our eyes are now open. We have literally exhausted our adjectives trying to commend or condemn ideas, persons, actions and inactions.
Significant again is the emerging trend of crime report. People can no longer get away from all that used to be the case. N100 worth of data plan is enough to send SOS and initiate hastag against hidden crime or oppression.
Not all of media exposition is not good. Dying parallel with the information flux is the culture of bearing witness. Leaders are becoming risk-aversed, afraid of being exposed. No risks, no progress. The greatest losers are also people at the receiving end of leadership. That is irony.
Secondly, Smartphone in the hands of all has led to 'Mass amateurization' which has created more problems than the traditional media. We have moved away from the concept of filter-then-publish to the social media concept of publish-then-filter.
Consequently, people are made and marred in social media because of public-before-filtering. It denies fair-hearing to some accused. This has seen many posts taken down because of their offensive nature. There are today piling social media disputes among friends, ethnicities, etc.
Again, the idea that everyone now has a choice is attractive. But we are now left with the problem of which voices to follow. Popularity war has made it worse. We have buttons for "most-viewed" and "most liked" and '"most shared". We have now assumed that what is popular is also what is valuable. A profile update of a teenager can generate likes more than a new breakthrough in the field of science. That concludes how bad our choice has gone.
There is nothing wise and valuable in popularity. On Palm Sunday, Hosannas greeted Jesus and on Good Friday, they turned to shouts of "Crucify him". Popularity belongs to wisdom of crowd which is another name for mob rule.
Two movements can define us here: turning outwards to broadmindedness and turning inwards occasionally to the wisdom of friends.
Outwardly, we need to adopt broad minded attitude and make social media a source of inspiration rather than a platform of quarrel. We cannot run away from madness in our society to create another madness in a virtual community.
The trend of friends washing and spreading their dirty linens in social media is unethical. Many souls have been sent into depression through this act. Social media demands maturity and not for meniacs.
We should know that anytime we decide to connect to social media, we are allowing our relationship to be monitored in exchange for fun. We create real friends in a virtual world. We should grow to this reality but we should not end in internet.
Inwardly, we need occasionally to move a way from the wisdom of crowd to wisdom of friends. There is wisdom to be found among friends who know us. They see our blindness with more clarity and may call us back to our better selves. Sometimes, public embarrassment is not enough to humble us but the wisdom of true friends supersedes the wisdom of crowds.
When Jesus needed wisdom, he walked away from the crowd. That was a clear strategy of figuring out how to deal with demands of every day life.
Crowd tells us what is trendy, what is popular, the most searched but friends tell us what is happening. Crowd rarely provides a space to think about what is happening.
We really need to dial into the audience of real friends to figure out the challenges we face and then return with more wisdom like Jesus. When last did you visit a real friend?