Friday, January 27, 2017

How the Internet Has Saved My Life






If there’s anyone that can testify to the effect the internet has had on people, it should be me.

Just last week, I went to conduct some series of routine tests and when I came back and Hubby asked what the results were, I told him in a very morbid tone;

“According to the tests, I have heart disease, alongside liver and kidney dysfunction”. 



What I did not tell him however, was that I got that diagnosis from Google. Poor guy! I didn’t know I had scared the bejesus out of him even though he maintained composure as he had hurriedly put an SOS call to a family doctor who came around urgently the next day to see the results and with relief passed across the actual results he interpreted as a certified doctor.

You would think I should have learned my lesson. But lailai! I am unashamedly addicted to Google for any information I do not have at the tip of my finger. And even though all its diagnosis are always terminal diseases without a permanent cure, I will still ask. Just this morning, I woke up with a left pelvic pain and as soon as I got to work, I visited my darling Google to help since I didn’t have the time to visit the hospital. The likely prognosis delivered were enormous- everything that was suggested required lifelong treatment and some even recommended surgery. Despite all these dramatic Google hullabaloo, one thing I have been able to deduce from the internet is this; whatever you are going through or experiencing- either medical, psychological or social related issues, you are not the first or the one millionth person and won’t be the last.

With the internet, you can safely proclaim to yourself “welcome to the club”!


And depending on who is reading and the experiences they may have had, the internet, especially social media and Google, can be said to have done some good as a lot of relevant information can be found online. For me personally, it has self-taught me on a lot of things. I think it’s safe to say I learnt graphic designing via the internet. There are even topics I wanted to write about and the writer's block was stronger than the spirit. What did I do? I visited Google and saw related posts, and took my muse from several. As a popular philosopher once said, there is nothing like a new idea. Every idea you may think you have was as a result of coming across it at some point in your life, however unknowing it was. It's called residual knowledge.

The internet with all its good sides also has several harmful sides as everyone knows it has been used false impressions.

THE SNAP-CHAT/INSTAGRAM FILTERS –




I know, right? I see some images and I’m jealously thinking like “Of course no one’s face can be that spotless, com’on”. Then you see some comments validating with “you are so gorgeous/handsome/perfect”. And I’m almost always tempted to say; "Come on! It is Photoshop. Are you blind? Really, you fell for that?” A lot of friends who had at some point slid into some “gorgeous guy/babe’s DM due to over filtering of images only to meet them one on one and started crying foul about how fake humans are. Will you sharrap! You mean you are so dense you don’t know a filtered image when you see one? How else do you think we hide our pimples and acne spots? Com’n gerrarahia! You saw flamboyance and your lower region dictated to your upper region. Something a lot of people are guilty of. On to the next topic jare.

MISREPRESENTATION OF INFORMATION-

If there’s someone that’s of the opinion that social media should be regularized, it’s yours truly. I have seen people do damages to families, relationships and even white collar workers because of information representation. Information is all about positioning and a lot of bloggers and data assessors know this and negatively use this. 


TOO MUCH INFORMATION-



We are now in a world where wives and husbands or boyfriends and girlfriends now send their relationship problems to popular relationship pages for people to help them beg their partner because of one issue they had or the other. We have even seen celebrity couples have their followers plead with their partners to forgive them and other bla bla bla. I mean WTF???? You think they care? This recession has made lots of people idle, angry and extremely bored. And gossip, especially a juicy one, is the sweetest way to form busy. People do not care about people they do not know or have any shared value with. It’s not their empathy to share, their problem to deal with and definitely not something they would lose sleep over. And people will only advise based on their own experience and not what best applies. Relationship problems are best channeled through certified coaches//counselors or people positioned to be very wise, level headed and can keep their mouth shut!

B**TARD TROLLS: 




With the advent of social media, people have now moved away from asking only their pastors, parents, Iya Bose that owns a shop in front of their house and their mummy’s elder sister for advice. The internet is the new place to ask for “help”. And with the growth of online help seekers, the online trolls are also out in full battalion. Whenever I read some insulting comments, I used to secretly wish I were a baddass hacker so I could track those trolls down and share all their dirty secrets to the public. James Blunt, Tonto Dikeh (I miss her comebacks to internet trolls), Ricardo are the few celebrities that I know that do not suffer trolls gladly. Their comebacks are usually epic. 

I cannot fathom why someone would need advice on depression and the comments would encourage him to kill himself. Isn't that just insane? The funny thing is that a lot of these trolls are quiet/shy or depressed people themselves. No happy human being can be an internet troll. You regurgitate exactly what is inside you. Sharing bitter comments shows the bitterness living within some people. But I guess with social media, we have to accept and expect the loss of privacy.

Let’s go back to Google jere.

Google is definitely a woman! “She” can so exaggerate things and blow it out of proportion. Choi! But despite this, this wonderful “woman” has brought information right to our door steps. While 40% of what I know today was via formal education and parental training, 65% came from Google. There is practically nothing on God’s green earth that cannot be found on the internet. Absolutely nothing!








The things we search for in Nigeria sha. Smh

I’m not really in support of seeking general relationship/marriage help on a free for all social media platform as I believe people can get answers to how to deal with various problems privately and directly from Google. Google will even protect your privacy. There is absolutely nothing new under the sun and if for any reason at all anyone has any problem or issue, one can always Google it. There are thousands of sites and links that would shed insight on how to handle a problem.

One of the main problems of depression is the fact that the victim is always too ashamed to talk about the problem. Suicide attempts are a desperate plea for help and rather than resort to ending it, one can take advantage of the internet to search Google and see how people in similar shoes handled it. 


People also need to understand that we all attempt to put our best foot forward especially on the internet. When someone goes to great length to let you know they are happy and thriving, most times than not, they aren’t really. I have met some people in real life who are actually less impressive than what they projected themselves to be on social media. And a lot of social media users are easily fooled by appearances. The social media has a lot of advantages asides from posting pictures of an almost perfect life though. There are so many educative pages on Facebook and Instagram that can give you more insights about life especially with regards to your outlook.

Some of the key things I can assertively say about the internet is that:


Seriously though, aliens don't exist jo. 


The Internet Can Purge You Of Your Ignorance: I can’t even begin to mention all I have discovered on the internet; how to identify fake items, what tea-bagging is, how to stalk someone anonymously on LinkedIn, how to know if your partner is hiding something from you, how to block people on Whatsapp, and how much Shell and Mobile pays its staff.

It Increases Your Knowledge & Makes You Less Judgmental Of People: The more you read, the more tolerant you become of people irrespective of tribe, religion or race. Some while back, I wrote a controversial post that trended for a while and sparked outrage across some single ladies and "feminists" and someone wanted to know why I was ignoring those comments and focusing on those that agreed with me. And my response was “it is very important to ensure you are reasoning with people “willing” to see reasons or are mature enough to communicate their disagreement without resorting to insults”. Insults during disagreement is the lowest form of intelligence and I NEVER resort to it. Because I read eclectically, I find it easy hearing other views and tolerating it. If I do not agree, I can clearly express that with logical reasons why I don’t or I just totally ignore. A high reading or researching culture equals to a high learning ability and superior intelligence.

It Makes You Unlearn Some Stereotypes That Were In Your Life: The problem with bigots is that they are very selective about what they read. Anything that will make them learn contrary information about their staunch beliefs, they shun. The best form of education and enlightenment is the willingness to learn, unlearn and relearn.

In another news, I just discovered that Hubby has no clue whatsoever about browser history and what it stands for, or where it can be found on his system.
I wonder if I could close early enough. I need to do some laundry….