Where Does Your Child Live?

The above question is for parents and anyone looking after a child or young person. It is a question so crucial today when many of such youngsters now live not in their physical environment but in the mobile and online space. Few years ago, a friend told me how he had warned a parent about her son who spent a better part of his time on Instagram. This friend was worried that this young chap was beginning to build his worldview around the amplified reality of the optics of Instagram. He spent so much time surfing through pictures that embody images of life that pander to the cosmetic and hollow grandeur. My friend observed that the boy was building his values and expectations around this pseudo-reality.

Life is beyond the glamorous images that have become the hallmark of the virtual space – the posts of exotic cars, luxury mansions, exquisite dishes, smooth radiant skin, and curvy body physiques. These images tend to oversimplify life as being all about optics – things that are pleasing to the eye. And these images have unfortunately caught the fancy of many young people and are naturally defining their view of life.

Evidence of this can be seen in how young people today base their preferences on what is glamorous to the eyes as against what actually works for their well-being. For example, I have since observed how my students would prefer an iPhone of hundreds of thousands of naira (just for its photographic efficiency) to a laptop of a much lower price whereas the latter is what they require for their school work. A social science student would rather have an iPhone that would capture exquisite photos and videos than own a laptop that would assist them in operating a software tool like the SPSS which they require for statistical analysis, a key part of their studies. Ironically, these camera-loving youngsters are neither photographers nor aspiring to be one.

The love, nay madness, for visual representations makes life unnecessarily expensive as people long for what is pleasing to the eye as against what works or is necessary. They desire what is impressive as against what is important. This is what is today fueling expensive lifestyles by way luxury cars, outrageously expensive fashion, unreasonably costly drinks as seen in the “dorime” culture of night clubs and bars. Regarding the “dorime” culture, one sees a worrisome spectacle where buying a bottle of wine is no longer a routine means of satisfying one’s craving for drinks but an elaborate moment of showmanship where the buyer’s ego is massaged through a ritual of “solemn” procession under dimmed light accompanied by somber tunes and hyping shouts.

The optics culture.of today now makes young people and even older adults obsessed about their body looks. This is especially as they continually see on Instagram and other social media platforms images of idealized body features including flat tummies, large breasts and buttocks, curvy hips, and slim bodies. Little wonder alteration of body looks through plastic surgeries is becoming more common today.

In the same vein, images of stacked bundles of naira and dollar notes are becoming common in our social media space as “celebrity millionaires” (who now include self-styled native doctors) flaunt wealth no one knows whence they acquired. The practice of lavish “spraying” of currency notes is also another social parasite daily groomed on our social media space.

All these potentially corrupting images remorselessly maintain dominant presence on Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok and other social media platforms, which today have become one dominant screen through which many young people view the world. What they view on this big screen becomes their world, their source of inspiration and their measure of what is desirable. Hence, if care is not taken, their lives will become nothing but mimicry of social media images.

As a parent, a guardian or a child carer of any other form, it’s your duty to watch out for any sign that the child under your care is becoming so enthusiastic about social media that they invest too much time, too much interest and too much emotion in it. This may be an indication that your child has taken their life off the physical space and implanting same in the social media space.

So, I dare ask again, where does your child live?

This is my meditation this midweek.

Henry Chigozie Duru, PhD, teaches journalism and mass communication at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.