By Glory Mushinge
The new technological transformation of communicating among nations has influenced so much change in the lives of people regarding the way they look at things and are now living. Pessimistic ideals
With the wide introduction of Information and Communications Technology (ICT’s) (communications tools such as Radio, TV , Computers. Internet and other communications channels), people are beginning to revisit their perceptions of life and trying to catch up with the rest of society in the modernisation age and certain practices have and are being abandoned to be replaced by new practices that have a bias towards the use of ICT’s.
For instance, Instead of people going to visit family members such as their parents who live some several Kilometres away, they would now prefer communicating through electronic means such as the phone from the comfort of their homes or where ever they may be and not physically see them, and instead of people going to the office, they would rather work from home and send their wok via internet.
Such practices and others have evidently made life easy and thus ICT’s are gaining such popularity and proving to be a good example of Communication for Sustainable Development.
Also if used well, these new technologies could uplift peoples’ standards and different sectors. If you talk about business, with the help of the Internet, a small local business man could transform into a major wide exporter through advertising his products on the net, there-by attracting clients from different parts of the world. Also, people are able to get different professional degrees by distant learning using the net, while others are even getting married and having a wide choice of men and women to have relationships with through what’s called E-dating, etc.
But much as this could be so, there are certain negative effects that have come along with these new technologies and certain groups of society are having to pay the price, especially the African community which is just learning to fit in this transformation into the information society.
For this community, so many aspects are being negatively impacted on, such as the strong cultural/traditional values of the continent which are being slowly compromised.
There are a number of values which Africa has been attaching great importance to, which are today been thrown away because of the modern way of life which is been influenced by ICT’s.
For Example, Africans have been brought up to live in a community where they do things together . Sometimes members of the family including the extended family living separately could have an arrangement where they always eat together as way of strengthening relations. So, even when some of the members in the family relocate to living in other areas, they should still keep in touch and visit their families from time to time. If you are a town dweller, you are expected to visit the village where maybe your parents live from time to time and whenever you visit carry with you some things or gifts to give them. The strong desire to visit with gifts comes so naturally, because you would have missed these people after staying away from them for some time and not been able to communicate so you want to visit them and you are driven to take gifts. But now with the use of phones, where people can easily communicate, people are no longer travelling as often as they used to, because they are always communicating electronically and the zeal to go and visit in person diminishes, meaning you will continue talking and not seeing them and that means no more gifts to be taken there, and that upsets the parents especially, who have been so accustomed to the old ways of living.
TV and The Internet are also examples of ICT’s that having a big influence on the African values. Young Africans are using these channels to learn of new trends in fashion, language and other ways of living and trying to adopt that in the way they carry themselves. To the African culture some of these trends are disgraceful, such as wearing of very tight clothes, mini skits and some of the clothes that shape the bodies. This has been received by the old timers with such shock and disappointment and they blame it all on ICT’s, for they believe an African woman for instance is supposed to wear honourably and clothes that are revealing are not honourable as far as they are concerned. Infact, they blame such dressing to the so many rape cases being experienced in Africa, because what they are seeing when they look at the women entices them, there-by giving them ideas.
Language is also something that is of concern, because through the above ICT’s the young ones are now using swearing languages which was not the case in olden days.
Another very serious factor is Internet dating, where African women are being enticed to engage with Internet men they do not even know who promise them heaven on earth and at the end of the day create pornographic pictures out of the photo’s they send to these mysterious internet boyfriends(Though Some of these relationships end up into happily married couples).
What ever the good or bad that ICT’s could present, It somehow seems that certain people and parts of the Western world is using Africa as a litmus test to try all sorts of initiaves in the name of helping the continent to develop, when in the actual sense the people that benefit are the very initiators of these programmes. At the end of the day they acquire huge funds for these programmes, which they end up pocketing for their own benefits.
I think for Africa and other third world countries which are just learning to adopt and adapt to these technologies, a lot of sensitisation and truth needs to be told about the negative effects of ICT’s and how these would affect certain aspects of a people’s cultural values, even as the good opportunities presented by ICT’s are being outlined. That way, people would be able to know what they would have to forfeit in the process of enjoying the good tidings that come with ICT’s and also be able to make informed decisions even as they embrace this technological advancement.