Everybody is on social media. We are all doing a thing or two on one platform or the other. This is the life we live currently – a virtual reality. Now, what is social media all about? I know we are all there, but do we truly understand the essence of it? I have discovered that people can have access to a thing and not know why they have access or what exactly to do with the access they have been given. So, today I want to explain what social media truly means. I know when you hear about the concept of social media, you think of the shiny apps that are littered around. But do you know that the apps do not accurately define what social media is all about?

Social media simply means any medium used to connect with society. To go deeper, social media is not new to the world. There is nothing new on earth, you haven’t just experienced it yet. Just because it is new to you, does not make it a new concept to the world. What I am saying in essence is that in every generation, there have been ways of communicating with society. For example, at a point in Africa, people were communicating with the society using gongs, and the people who used the instruments were called town criers. There was also a time in the world when animals were used to dispatch messages to the people who needed them. I tell you for free that all these methods were a form of social media.

You might not agree with me and you might be rolling your eyes right now, but think deeply about it. The essence of social media is communication. When you listen to the founders of these tools that are used as a form of media, they always repeat the same thing – that their platforms were created for communication. Every other thing is secondary. Communication is the foundation of every tool for social media. If we agree that the essence of social media is communication; then we can agree that any means of communicating your ideas, thoughts, and actions with society can be termed the use of social media.

The Agenda Behind Social Media
I tell my friends and people close to me that only the small-minded live life without an agenda backing their thoughts, words, actions, and even inactions. The most powerful people on earth are very strategic about everything they do. You can’t just live life without having a motive backing whatever you do. Knowing this, you should link it with the creation of the tools used for social media. This simply means that there is an agenda behind every app and platform you see and use every day. Every communication comes from motive. You know an angry person by the way he communicates, you also know whether a man is foolish or wise by the way he communicates with his society. This is the same way agendas “fly” about on social media.

However, the apps are not the problem; the minds of the people using the rented space on the apps are where the problem lies. No matter how beautiful and well-intentioned an app is, if filled with unreasonable people, the grand results would be chaos and toxicity. So the mind of the people on the app is as important as the app itself. There is a phenomenon called social conditioning, which is a method of making people act in a certain way. This is the reason some people dress, talk, eat, work and even walk in almost the same manner. Don’t blame them, they have been influenced by the use of social media to replicate those agendas. Social conditioning is the real agenda of the use of social media, and the mind of users. Until citizens understand this, they will fall for every trend that appears on their timelines.

Who are the Agents?
There is no agenda without agents. There must be people willing and even unwilling to carry these motives around for free or paid. Everywhere one turns, there are people called influencers – promoting one thing or the other via their medium. This is not bad as long as they are promoting what adds value to society and not what devalues it. Everybody is an agent, including you. As long as you use these platforms to share your opinions and contribute to matters online, then you are considered an agent. Being an agent simply means being a vector for carrying conversations and online activities around the media space.
Agent, what are you doing with the influence you have or the one you are building? Are you spreading hate or love? Are you adding to the development of society or you’re taking from society its beauty?
We all need to think of these things and decide whether we are good or bad agents. The choice lies in our hands!

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Ayodeji Iheanacho is a passionate and driven youth enthusiastic about technology and national development. He is interested in discussing and proferring solutions to issues affecting the black populace.