THE VIRTUAL FAMILY

 

In the cool of the dawn, when the day was about to break forth out of the prison of darkness , skins of men rejoicing to enjoy the early morning breeze, the eyes eager to see the light but the body is reluctant to rise. In the midst of these struggles and natural chaos, Benita Doe, rose, picked up her phone, and wrote on her Facebook page “Good morning fams”. That was the first morning post on that fateful day, the preceding day, she had spent big share of the day on various social media, interacting with friends and folks. In fact! She forgot to switch off her data the previous night because she had chatted until the phone forced and begged her to sleep. Benita has been fond of this cycle that many a times she forgot to greet her younger sister  that do sleep close to her in the room. Even her dad had to call on her several times for morning devotion.  Benita has created a world for herself in the small portable world that she carried (Heart). Yes, that phone could be a world.

With the growing development and advancement in technologies, different means of communications have been invented; the birth of smartphones is a great breakthrough. As good and beneficial that these smartphones are, the side effects are enormous, apart from the fact that the radiations emitted from them are inimical, the effect it may have on our students and young adults are also great, the exposure and addiction to various pornographic sites, reduction in effective studying hours due to distraction, exposure and addiction to violent video games and others cannot be overemphasized.

The cumulative effect of this so called smartphones on our children these days is that it has, to great extent affected the relationship of our young ones with others. Smartphones have created a lacuna between our young adults and children in relating with others they can see physically.  The level of physical relationship with people especially elders is reducing drastically. A friend of yours can be busy socializing and relating with people he or she has not seen for years while he or she has not spent quality time with you in discussion and brainstorming. To some extent, if not being careful, our entanglement with smartphones can cause problem in marriages because these so called smartphones has created a scene of relating virtually with people we have not seen leaving out our interaction and relationship with those people around us especially our family and friends.

As far as catching cruise, socializing on social media platforms is very good and important; this must not be done at the detriment of our relationship and interaction with others that we can see physically.  Being addicted to smartphones affects our psychology and by research, may cause the various psycho-relational cases to be on an increase. Value your relationship with the physical friends and family you have around and you will be valued. Stop leaving the virtual family while some of your friends, siblings and family around you need you to relate with. Don’t create a virtual family for yourself   while you don’t value the physical one. Thanks