The socio-political and economic world, as it exists and functions today, is increasingly shrinking and interconnecting itself into a globalized village; a veritable system or structure where all parts are assigned specific roles and functions to play. It is increasingly and absurdly metamorphosing into a major theater, where the actors are assigned, again, specific roles to play. The multiplier effects of this symbiosis are enormous as some had profited from this relationship, whilst others gnash their dentition in despair over the ‘curse’ and debilitation this relationship had caused, vehicle by the Information and Communication behemoth and the cable televisions. This paper attempts to examine this relationship, the consequences thereto and some measures to stem the tide. We discovered that the unbridled usage of the internet and other communication outlets has the capacity and tendency to cause more harm than good in the contemporary African societies and the Nigerian nation in particular, if left unchecked.
Introduction
Hundreds of years ago, before the ancient Ming and Han dynasties of china, before and during the Grecian, Persian, Macedonian, Roman and other empires and centers of social, economic and political acculturation, the relay of information and communication to far flung provinces and regions of these empires, as well as other smaller Kingdoms, Principalities, Dukedoms, Earldoms etc., were often nightmarish. News travelled at a snail speed. Instructions and orders were received by potentates and other lesser official’s weeks if not months from the time of issuance. Voyages were slow too and even in times of war, information about enemy units was often pieced together through a large, unwieldy and mostly inefficient network of spies. In contemporary times, the reverse is the case as information and communicative news, directives, instructions; social networking and important events are carried live to the average, ordinary man and distant places due to the sophistication of technologies employed for its execution. Traditional National boundaries are now things of the past as the deluge of information to the average man increasingly defies official censorship. The sociological impact of this in our modern world has far reaching consequences. This paper attempts to examine such consequences, with recommendations that may cushion the effects of its negativity.
The term information and communications technology (ICT) tends itself to a variety of definitions. As used here, the term describes changes in the electronics industry and parallel changes in the key user industries of telecommunication and computing. These changes are all concerned with applying the information, handling and processing capability of modern microelectronics and include the application of related technologies such as optoelectronics and artificial intelligence. In practical terms, this involves the use of new storage and retrieval systems of new forms of process control such as robotics as well as new ways of analyzing information such as computer aided designs.
The contemporary world is a one where every single detail of our daily life is a reflection of what transpires across continents. In essence, a kind of “squeeze” feeling is currently being experienced by an increasing number of people over what they perceive as the dearth of privacy, of social values, of eroding norms, of tarnished mores and the gradual growth of decadence of the human society. Others argued on the contrary, that life has become more easier, the knowledge of the continents and political/ economic upheavals /events and achievements at the fingertips of the larger global audience the minute the event happened, and most importantly, they argues that this free flow of ideas, knowledge and information, unprecedented in the centuries before, had actually made man safer (Compaine; 2001). Whilst the former school of thought argue that these free flow of information heralds societal decadence and the spread of dangerous ideas, ideologies and decadent social and moral values, which is exported to the hapless global audience, thereby making living less safe, nasty brutish and short, the latter argue that the world today is a better place to be owing to these flow of information. As the arguments go back and forth, we discern that all the hoopla raised was necessitated by the rise, and rise of Information and Communication Technology.
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