Before You Click Send, Think Twice?

“Things we do for love” was the title of a TV love series that ran on GTV years ago. The programme dramatized some of the funny things people do to keep their relationships with their lovers. There are things we don't do for love, even in today's internet world. Where does the usual internet user start his virtual life from? From Facebook, through Twitter to Youtube, there are too many distractions in the blogosphere to excite a boring soul. They call it social networking but it is the whole of humanity cramped into a devil of a thing called the internet. Suddenly, there is nothing like privacy anymore.

One of the things internet users should never do for love is to get back at former lovers using the net. Last week, an Accra circuit court handed over a six month jail sentence to a young jilted lover who posted naked photos of a former girlfriend on the internet for global consumption. When I first joined Facebook, any user who visited the site that day might have noticed that I was the freshest face alive. 'Write on a friend's Wall', the instruction had said. So I poured my heart out to a long lost girlfriend who had jilted me years ago, shamelessly begging her to reinstate me in her affections. I thought the message was meant for her consumption alone. The whole world read my romantic plea, including my pastors and very good friends.

I made a few more mistakes. I had provided my cell phone number when signing on, so whenever somebody poked me or wrote on my wall, my mobile telephone providers charged me for texting me that information. The same information would be in my email and on Facebook at the same time. Then, there is the status column, where people just say anything on their minds. The messages range from what they are eating for lunch to their plans for the week. Occasionally, you would read something sensible and some important news reports. A few writers post their articles on their page, something I have only recently started doing.

What about the private photographs that have suddenly become a public album? Friends are allowed to comment on your photos. Often, it is refreshing to see photos of old friends with their spouses and children. That is also a good way to gauge those who are still single. A newspaper editor who shared a room with me at Commonwealth Hall, wrote against my profile picture: “Room, you need to shed some kilos and trim your belly. You are looking chubby.” Another friend in America teased: “Your bushy moustache is ideal for filtering foamy beer. There is a chat room, where you can exchange instant messages with friends. When they refuse your invitation for a chat, you feel ignored. You consider deleting them after a second attempt. Would they be notified when you delete them? At a point, you wonder whether this internet business makes sense. Maybe you would do yourself a good service reading a book?

I considered signing out from Facebook when I met my 23 year old cousin on the site: “Bro Kwesi, I didn't think I will see you here. I thought Facebook was kidstuff”, she typed. I decided to try Twitter, thinking that I would see an adult face to social networking. I didn't know about it until a celebrity dumped her boyfriend for spending too much time on the social networking site. On twitter, twitterers just tweet away, talking about nothing important. There, you have a following made up of friends and frenemies who type their minds out for usually self-aggrandising reasons. Some users have several thousand followers, and they spend time each day telling them how bad their day at work had been or how their dog did something funny at the vet. Is that how cheap modern communication has become?

The New York Times describes Twitter as “one of the fastest-growing phenomena on the internet.” Newsweek puts it even more poignantly: “Suddenly, it seems as though all the world's a twitter.” That is more than an accurate description of the meaninglessness of today's fast-moving, internet-dictated life. Intelligent pursuits seem to have given way to cyber social networking, where people are happy to tell friends every step they take everyday of their lives. You wonder: Do folks get time to read any books these days? No wonder the newspaper industry is suffering. The internet pretty much rules us, bringing together friends, news, articles for sale, videos and documentaries at our pleasure. But at what price are we enjoying these?

What about blogging? I have often been advised: Why don't you set up a blogsite where people can easily access your articles? Certainly, that is useful; at least more useful than perusing photographs of friends on Facebook or just twittering away on Twitter. Do folks like to read from the blogsite more than from the traditional newspaper? It sits well with the realities of the times for a reader to jump on your blog after seeing their face on your Facebook or catching up updates on twitter. By the time they finish, they are too tired to settle for any boring story about economic partnership agreements tucked away somewhere in the middle pages of a newspaper.

But, friends, let's ask ourselves: Is social networking all we bargained for when we hailed the internet as the greatest invention of this century? Often, I would quickly close the Facebook window when my wife walks into the living room. “Are you still on Facebook? Read a book, honey”, she would say. You don't come across as a serious person if all you do is chat on the internet and look at photos. So, I feel a weird sense of guilt whenever I spend more than thirty minutes on the social networking site, especially when I have piles of subscribed news magazines staring me in the face. Then, there is the television, which, fortunately, does not engage my attention as before. You can always refuse to answer the cellphone or simply turn it off. Life isn't all about communication; sometimes you need a private space to think, even if it means holding yourself incommunicado. But, will they let you be?

Social networking sites work just like Keep Fit clubs. Not everybody wants to join. But how do you keep fit in an internet age if you don't have any presence at all in the virtual world. By all means, use your space on the internet. Join Facebook or create your own blog, but before you click the send button, think twice and think again.

Kwesi Tawiah-Benjamin
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