The Scourge Of Threatening Broadcast Messages 'BCMs'.

Broadcast messages or Bcm is not a strange phenomena to anyone on any of the more popular instant messaging platforms. It is simply the act of sending a single message to a group of individuals at the same time, without any sort of preference to individual differences, thus it is possible for you as a gainfully employed person to receive messages meant only for university student groups and associations, as a Christian, you may receive messages solely meant for the Muslim faithful and a whole lot of other such irrelevant messages which normally does not concern you, even remotely.
Anyway, becoming an unwilling recipient of such messages may be ascribed to be one of those inexcusable fallouts of being an Instant messaging subscriber, that was if the peddlers of such frivolous messages had not over-stepped their boundaries by incorporating the use of threatening statements, sentences and terms as they now do, all in a quest to garner attention for their messages and also psychologically coerce those naive enough to believe such concoctions, into re-broadcasting such messages.
It is now a common trend to see broadcast messages that end with phrases like "if you do not pass this on, you would be miserable for the next seven days", " my name is Jesus, send this message to all your contacts if you truly love me", "If for Jesus, forward this to 10 people, if for Satan, ignore and continue what you are doing" some even go as far as sending very outrageous and ridiculous broadcasts about how Bbm or Whatsapp would delete your account or begin to charge you for services if you do not rebroadcast the message, this i noticed seems to be the magic wand that does the trick most of the times, this is so since obviously our largely literate but uneducated populace think such Instant messaging application developers are actually doing us a favour by making those applications free, we however forget the fact that you have to acquire a very expensive smart mobile phone first, before you can download such applications.
Let us avoid sending outdated, scandalous, frivolous, derogatory, threatening and conditioned messages, also those impersonating God and other self-acclaimed C.E.Os of Internet Messaging companies who back their claims with spurious "it was on cable news" lies should also be discouraged by your refusal to rebroadcast such messages.
I hereby implore everyone to be constantly on alert for such broadcasts and also put a check on them by confirming the accuracy of their content, it's relevance, ascertaining the necessity of the message and if need be we still have to rebroadcast, such messages should be directed only to the right parties and not sent indiscriminately to everyone.
Unnecessary Bcms are annoying, time consuming, drains one's battery, causes widespread panic, and could lead to an abusive exchange between senders and recipients of such messages who may end up deleting one another.
It is therefore in respect of the aforementioned reasons and a host of others not mentioned here that i implore everyone to make BCs as efficient and desirable a tool for mass communication as it is valuable.

Social Networks As Tools For Development.

Working conditions in Nigeria may be anything but friendly, however i am opportune to be currently employed in an employee friendly institution where my right to human dignity is not being trampled upon. However i am not implying that the job is easy.
I had gone to bed early the previous night being a Friday and as customary to me, i woke at about midnight. Everywhere was silent and quiet except for the distant sound of steady music drifting in from a night club nearby.
I just picked up my phone and between reading the horde of emails, Whatsapp and Bbm messages that had accumulated, i felt the urge to change my PM 'personal message', of all things, i felt like changing it to 'it is banging in the club now', a phrase to indicate that i was not only present in a club, but also enjoying the entire clubbing process, meanwhile i was having a 'quiet time' at home.
This is one of the challenges posed by the advent of social networking as part of our everyday existence. Social networking has facilitated communication beyond our widest imagination, enhanced self-expression and to some other people, it has become a medium for emotional rendition of their feelings and thoughts. However valid these reasons and several others may be, it is undoubtedly true that social networking has also enhanced the spread of numerous social vices, in addition, it has also become a very efficient medium to spread rumours, share pornography and like a wildfire, spread scandalous gossips, articles and information about people, especially public figures, even as our ever-increasing army of bloggers keeps churning out such 'juicy gists'. Efforts should however be made at the individual level to reduce and possibly proscribe these rampant misuse of this great tool. Concerted efforts should be directed towards profitable and positive use and exploitation of the social media for personal and public growth and development, it could also be an integral tool for the dissemination of important news and information,personal business transactions and the likes. Cases of Internet bullying, abuse and swindling should be stopped. If everyone would make a personal commitment today towards a more responsible and profitable use of the opportunities inherent in the social media networks our society would become allot more safe and sane.