November 29, 2022
Internet
Let us take a minute to thank God for allowing us to witness and experience the era of Internet and Online platforms, please. It is such a great thing, and I am in awe of it everytime I use it or think about it. If we were to list the number of things that the Internet has done positively, we wouldn’t leave here today because they are truly numerous to count. It is the actual gift that keeps giving, without end. My first experience of the Internet was in my final year in secondary school. I had heard of Cyber Cafes and how people used to go there to ”browse”. I had gone there the previous year to regsiter for GCE but I didn’t do anything myself as I only had to pay the attendants there to help with it, which they did. So on this day, my friend asked that I followed her to the Cyber cafe as she wanted to check something and I was pretty excited about it. We went there after school hours with our pretty uniforms and when we got there, she suggested I bought ‘time’ too so I wouldn’t just sit and be bored while she was doing her own surfing. I truly didn’t know how to operate the computer, so she showed me simple steps to search and trust your homegirl to be a fast learner. She was just going to browse some music lyrics and also read about Omotola Jolade and I did what she was doing. I went further by checking for Genevieve and it took me to the profiles of different people in Nollywood at that time. It was so interesting to be watching large pictures of these people and reading about them like they were right beside me. I enjoyed this so much that I didn’t know when the time elapsed; I think we bought just thirty minutes each and we couldn’t afford more, we also had to leave for home as it was getting late. I thanked my friend about the experience because it was indeed a beautiful experience and I knew I was going to tell it to everyone who cared to listen. After Secondary school, my parents registered me at a Computer training school and this was where I properly learnt how to operate computers. I learnt the basics of Microsoft office amongst other things, and yours truly graduated with a distinction. While at the training school, they didn’t provide us with internet but there was a cyber cafe very close to the center. I would use some of the money my folks gave me as pocket money to go buy minutes just to surf the internet and look up celebrities and their lifestyles. There was no Social media that I was aware of at that time. So, it was really just about using your entire minutes bought to look up entertainment. It was also good that you could use your minutes within a period of time so you didn’t have to finish everything in one sitting.
When I got to University, my friend, Olajumoke called me sometime and informed me that there was a platform that I could register on and we’d interact with each other from there. She mentioned how pictures could be uploaded and all. I discussed with my friend, Bukky, and she said she had also heard of it and she felt we should go to explore it. We went to town and bought one hour each at a Cafe then Facebook began. We registered and when it was time to upload our profile pictures, the attendant told us we needed to bring our hard copy pictures which he would then upload for us at a cost. We went back to school to bring our finest pictures taken on the motion ground and we uploaded them. Thinking about it now, why? Looool. We really used to take pictures on the motion ground ( which we’d pay for), then take them to the cafe to upload them and pay according to the number of pictures uploaded. We started connecting with our old friends and meeting new ones and it was such an exciting thing. We would chat for as long as our bought minutes could last, and this platform was actually what ensured that my friendship with Jumoke got maintained because we kept updating each other even though we weren’t online at the same time but we’d still meet each other’s messages. We were so innocent, so pure. Then came the time of Opera mini on our phones and we were able to access the internet somehow through the help of some guys on Campus who were tech savvy. Mehn, guys have been on this tech thing for long o. They’d just pick our Nokia phones, do some configuration and boom, you had access to Facebook and Yahoo. The steps to getting to where we are today is a long one o, and you guys should give me my flowers because I’m an OG in this Internet game. As with other things, the internet has its cons which some of us might know already, but as I always say, you have the power to be intentional about what you use whatever platform for and ensure that you are getting positives out of it. If used right, you can get the jobs, the collaborations, the friendships, the relationships, Marriage, the learnings and much more. Don’t dull it at all. The possibilities on the internet are enormous ,and I’d implore us to please tap into them. The internet brings everything to our doorstep, I mean, how else are you currently in your house and reading a blog post written by Omotolani who is miles away from you? What do you think about the Internet? What was your first contact with the Internet? Who introduced you to it? Let’s gist. I’ll be back. OBA
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