Soyinka tackles the internet

Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka has expressed fears that the current internet revolution and the heavy reliance on the internet for academic activities was endangering scholarship.

In a lecture delivered at the 3rd Zik annual lecture titled “The Magic Lantern, Excursions in the Creative Realm” at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State, Soyinka said the development would soon witness the end of books as instrument for mind development and potential building.

Vanguard reported him as saying that: “Such communication gadgets like computers and IPAD were capable of bringing an end to the culture of book writing and reading, adding that the end point should be how to find a way of collaborating between book writing and use of internet knowledge.

Their partnership, he stated, may have witnessed a revolution in the communication world, but regrettably has essentially destroyed the realm of imagination in young people.

He observed that certain traditional, religious and western teachings enslaved Africans from exploiting their environment and potentials, adding that the problems in Nigeria today such as Boko Haram, which could be attributed to poor mental development occasioned by wrong teaching.

He enjoined the young people to tap their potentials and not allow certain primordial factors within their environment inhibit them.