Submissions/The Negative Effect of Social Media in Educational Development of Sub-Saharan Africa - A case study of Nigeria

After careful consideration, the Programme Committee has decided not to accept the below submission at this time. Thank you to the author(s) for participating in the Wikimania 2014 programme submission, we hope to still see you at Wikimania this August.

Submission no. 3032

Title of the submission

The Negative Effect of Social Media in the Educational development of Sub-Saharan Africa - A Case study of Nigeria

Type of submission (discussion, hot seat, panel, presentation, tutorial, workshop)

Presentation

Author of the submission

Martins E. Ogbu (meosmart)

E-mail address

martinsogbu1215@yahoo.com

Username

meosmart

Country of origin

Nigeria

Affiliation, if any (organisation, company etc.)

Blue Rose Media Productions limited

Personal homepage or blog

Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal)

Africa as a continent is known and described across the globe as belonging to the third world (under developed part of the world). As at July 2001, Nigeria like many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa had less than 500,000 telephone lines (all analogue) serving over a hundred million people (at the time). With the enthronement of Democracy in 1999 came the liberalization and privatization of the telecommunication sub-sector of the country's economy. Between August 2001 when the global system for mobile communication (GSM) was introduced, and 2013 (12 years), there was an astronomical growth in the teledensity with over 120 million active telephone lines (about 85% coverage). With the coming of digital technology in communication came sophistication in modes. Most young adults and sometimes minors are seen clutching smart phones with limitless possibilities. The Social Media is the centre of attraction for this group of persons. This has become the easiest and if you like, the preferred source of information for this group hence the growing concern as most of the information passed across through this medium are usually unverified before publication. It is also common place to find these young persons flip through their phones while lectures are ongoing. Prostitution, pornography, fraud, as well as instigated violence are equally issues of great concern here, among other issues affecting their development into responsible adults/professionals.

Africa incidentally has become the destination of choice in terms of investment and economic growth, yet there are growing concerns about the education of her people which seem to be in the decline, due largely to not just corruption but misuse of technology and in this case, Social Media. My proposal is therefore a presentation identifying these issues as well as rendering opinion on how wiki can come to the rescue, among other efforts that could help make our environment/society a better place where peace, social justice and good governance will reign supreme through the proper deployment of the internet and by extension, Social Media for such positive changes.

Track

Education Outreach

Length of session (if other than 30 minutes, specify how long)

30 minutes

Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?

Yes

Slides or further information (optional)

Special requests

None

Interested attendees

This submission seems to be a duplicate of Submissions/Wikipedia to the Rescue on "The Negative Effect of Social Media in the Educational Development of Sub-Saharan Africa - A case study of Nigeria"