By The Plu correspondent
One guy’s profile surely does not appear anywhere on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Myspace.com.
Mohamed Razak is a youthful Somali who tries to stay away from the current dating craze where many like him have found a soft and simple way to make friends just a mouse click away from anywhere in the world.
Even with boundless temptations to join numerous social sites available throughout the internet, Razak has tried to stay away as he observes keenly, the relentless destruction it had brought to many of his friends who have found themselves addicted to online networking.
Razak’s collegue, Hassan, sits by him, his eyes streaming towards his mobile; he is busy chatting and engages what seems an endless conversation.
“These days my friend Hassan, is so much busy with his mobile, I am feeling bored with him because he has made many other friends through the Internet” says Razak
Over the days, their usually hilarious evening gathering transformed into boring moments especially for Razak who enjoys story telling.
From the observation of Razak, the problem these days with Hassan is that he has abandoned his immediate friends as he stays online for more than 8 hours in every passing day.
“My friend here is always talking about learning new women, some in Nairobi, some in Europe, he is even missing to pray at the mosque these days” Razak says
Speaking from his own experience with Facebook and other social sites, now Hassan says he has made more than a thousand friends in the past one year alone.
Like many invasive young Somalis, Hassan 25, is deeply attracted to online dating, a thing that has come with the ravages of modernization.
“For the past one year, I have inherited from online dating, wastage of time, the most regrettable thing is that I often fail to pray on time at the mosque- which is just a stone-throw away from my house- because of it” he says
Hassan’s addicting to online sites is not a one-man problem, it is a communal crisis that is seemingly eroding family and community values.
According to education officials, long use of social sites like Facebook is having an adverse effect on the already dismal education performance of school going children who are finding fun on the Internet.
Although, online dating is one of the fastest growing social interactions of the 21st century, students who consider its use are barely exercising caution and safety.
“We are registering an increased addiction of online dating among secondary students in the region, facebook has indeed attracted the overwhelming majority of our pupils” says Mohamed Abdi a secondary school teacher in Northeastern Kenya.
According to classroom teachers in most schools, those who are affected are mainly teenage boys and girls who oblivious of the dangers learn people whom they wish to interact with.
“But for young people, not for a moment did they give a thought the effects of social networks, nor did they realize that what they think is fun is likely to be a treacherous modern way to keep in touch with trouble and devastation” says teacher Abdi
According to a recent research, Facebook users may feel socially successful in cyberspace but they are more likely to perform poorly in exams.
The research says, the majority of students who use Facebook every day are underachieving by as much as an entire grade compared with those who shun the site.
Researchers have discovered how students who spend their time accumulating friends, chatting and “poking” others on the site may devote as little as one hour a week to their academic work.
Teachers are now warning of an impending poor performance as Facebook is emerging to be the greatest killer of study time.
“These days, online interaction is the worst fears of parents and teachers” says Mr. Ahmed Abdi a parent in Mandera “We have to follow the ban on social networking websites in many offices, imposed to prevent workers from wasting time to enhance productivity. This should be the new rule for schools”
The number of secondary school students using Facebook is significantly getting higher as they try to keep in touch with friends and organize their lives online.
It is arguably frustrating to note that, in a society where the overwhelming majority is illiterate, the few who got the opportunity to educate themselves are fraying their own future at the edges.
The transformation of modern technology has allowed with much ease for internet users to browse from their mobile.
Students accessed their account daily, usually checking it several times to see if they had received new messages and friends.
“The amount of time spent on Facebook is longer in the evenings when students are suppose to do their homework and plan their assignments” worries Ms. Halima Abdi a female teacher. “This is indeed catastrophic for education performance”
But despite the seething wastage of time associated with online interaction and its effects on young children in schools, emphasis is now laid squarely on dating especially on the Internet.
Over the past few years, social sites have played a significant role in connecting men and women who are looking for partners.
And above all, it has been increasingly believed that online dating has the potential of breaking up families, and making families that cannot stay for long.
Many of its users who log-in have anonymous identity, it is because of this identity that predators use online links to lure potential victims.
“We are having online scammers, including married men and women seeking affairs and potential stalkers” says Mohamed Ahmed an IT expert “online dating can presumably be described as the deathbed of teenage boys and girls”
Many online users browse the Internet to seek partners and they start relationship which only aims to bilk for money.
According to investigations, majority of people who are finding fun in social sites are young girls especially school leavers and college students.
Some of the teenagers are successful in finding developing relations that is likely to shape into a real future, but to some it is tantalizingly out of reach.
“For me I have started using Facebook a year ago and I have got a man already and we are planning to marry” says 23 year-old college student Fatma- not her real name
“I can say I have no regrets so far” she says.
But the devastation it has brought to many young girls is huge and now some girls and boys have starting deactivating their accounts.
For, Sahra 22, not her real name, a college student in Garissa, her ambitious two year-old relationship with a man she had learnt through Facebook turned sour a few months ago as she established the man she was dating was almost triple of her age.
“I can say that Facebook had ravaged my girlhood innocence, in the first instance I came to believe in it, because here was a man I was talking on phone for months” she narrates her ordeal
But much to her dismay, her potential husband was an ageing 65 year-old Somali man, who had promised her of everything between the earth and the sky.
“I was shocked when I met him at a Nairobi hotel recently” she sobs “the rest is a story, I have since discovered that social sites is a stomping ground for liars and ‘I don’t cares’. I have deactivated my account,” she said
Now across the Muslim world, the Halalness of numerous social sites had been a hot debate that is sending jitters down the spine of many scholars.
For instance in Indonesia, Muslim clerics are seeking ways to regulate online behaviour among the faithful, saying the exploding popularity of social networking sites like Facebook could encourage illicit sex.
“The clerics think it is necessary to set an edict on virtual networking, because this online relationship could lead to lust, which is forbidden in Islam” said Nabil Haroen a spokenman for Indonesian clerics.
Many scholars in the Muslim world are weighing the possibility of declaring a Fatwa to forbid some social sites that may include Facebook.
But as Facebooking goes even into the remotest counties of Kenya like Northeaster through mobile phones, it is a question of taking chances with one’s life especially for teenagers who are dangerously falling into abyss.
“Facebook is a seduction site not a social site,” Razak says finally
