The New Age Of Digidiots -By Udeme Nana

Three unrelated events sum up the topic of this column. One was the recent statement made by the governor of Akwa Ibom, Deacon Udom Emmanuel, concerning the use of social media by the youth to insult their elders. The governor attributed this sorry state of our society to the abdication of parenting responsibilities.

The second issue concerned the wife of the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Mrs. Aisha Buhari, recorded on video in a moment of madness by a tenant in her Aso Rock quarters, Fatima Daura.

According to Fatima, perhaps young enough to be Mrs. Buhari’s daughter: “She was hurling insults and shouting that she had never seen anything like it… I went back and took my phone… she was making a lot of noise, saying she was being oppressed. I filmed the encounter to show our parents… from the way she was screaming, I even thought she would pick up something to hit us.”

That was a much younger lady ridiculing the wife of the president of Nigeria, inside Aso Rock, her official living quarters! She was armed only with a smart phone.

Confirming the episode, Mrs. Buhari said, “I was the one in the video… she was laughing at me because my husband (The President) said they should vacate the place for my son to occupy.” The incidence forced the wife of the president to apologise to her children, her immediate family and Nigerians for the embarrassment the video had caused.

A quarter of a century ago, I wrote an article, “The Age of Videots”, to reflect on the rampaging video and pop culture, which was on a march to conquer the minds of our youth. In that age, our youth picked up and adopted as a way of life what they watched, wholesale, from video and television sets – the good, the bad and the ugly. It affected their manners, their dressing and habits.

This transformation has turned full circle with the prevalence of digital technology, considering how it impacts on the way we now live. Armed with these devices as weapons of mass destruction, many youth and some elders, jealous of competition in the workplace, have thrown caution to the winds and assumed roles for which they lack the requisite training to handle.

This brings me to the third issue. In a lecture organised by The Next Edition Centre for Investigative Journalism and Gender Advocacy, in collaboration with Policy Alert and the Akwa Ibom State Council of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Ray Ekpu, the well decorated icon of journalism noted that, “apart from unprofessional news platforms, we also have the bloggers who seem to constitute a problem for truth. They speculate, exaggerate, distort, mislead; quote dishonest, misleading, unverified sources or no sources at all; they are the smear campaigners, the lynch mobs, the rumour merchants, the cyber bullies, the anonymous tipsters, the trial judges by commentary, the purveyors of propaganda…they use breaking news as a pivot for falsehood, adopting a publish first and verify later approach. They do not correct their mistakes, they only post updates. They don’t apologise for their errors. They just keep a bold face and move on. Those are the dirty job artists, the one person riot squads…” The 1986 International Editor of the Year added, for emphasis, that: “it is a misnomer to call such a practice journalism.”

And then the insults poured, like torrential rainfall, in the direction of one of the living legends of journalism, a highly well respected professional outside his home state; a display that showed nobody heard or respected the timely admonition of Governor Udom Emmanuel against the use of social media platforms by the youth to insult elders.

In that lecture, Mr. Ekpu’s only sin was that he pointed out the differences between the professional practice of journalism and other forms of public information dissemination, and the harmful tendencies of the latter. In saner societies, those who are not trained would have taken the explanation of the journalism guru to embrace opportunities to polish their rough edges and improve their trade. Definitely, their resort to insults was completely not in the character of Akwa Ibom people.

A drawback of the use of digital technology devices among the youth and elders in several instances, is a regression into digidiotism as pointed out elaborately by the sagely Ray Ekpu.

The digital age has created a “yahoo population and culture” promoted by post millenials, generation Z or I-generation, who are bolder, more outspoken and have a facility with gadgets. This population gives nobody a place to hide because with the posession of smart phones and other digital gadgets, they can record one’s unguarded moments, as shown succinctly by Fatima Daura, in no less a location than Aso Rock, Nigeria’s seat of power. Digital technology can turn mount Everest to a molehill, a woman into a cock, and a man into a hen.

This era, which I prefer to christen the “Age of Digidiots” demands more self-awareness and personal discipline, more circumspection from people – especially politically exposed persons, top business executives, academics, pastors, etc. Indeed, everyone in the public glare. This is because, a peeping youth, or an envious elder, armed with a digital device could be watching and recording you while peeing, pooing, breaking wind, spitting out sputum, adjusting a stubborn bra strap, a shirt, zip or wrapper as the case maybe, and the following day, the recording would go viral in the global village.

In this age of digidiots, there is no place to hide; your small brother or little sister could be monitoring and watching your every move.

Ask the wife of the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Mrs Aisha Buhari.

Udeme Nana is a mass communication lecturer at the Akwa Ibom State Polytechnic, Ikot Osurua.