A ticking time bomb: How Graphophobia is destroying the future of Nigerian youths

– Graphophobia is gotten from the words, ‘grapho,’ which is Greek in origin and phobia

– It simply means the fear to express someone’s thought in written form

– The four cardinal points of learning are speaking, listening, reading and writing

– A person who lacks the necessary writing skills could face an uphill task in his quest for academic greatness

Graphophobia is the uttermost detest to write down words on paper, especially when the words are a bit lengthy. It means the passionate hatred or unwarranted fear for writing. A person who engages in graphophobia is said to be graphophobic.

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The foundation of knowledge starts from the formative years of a child. This is when his mother starts teaching him how to pronounce words. Although, the baby’s pronunciation is inaudible, he still tries to do exactly the way his mother does, which marks the beginning of his education career.

Commencement of formal education

In elementary studies, the difference between formal and informal education, is basically the learning environment. While formal education is primarily defined as the education gotten in a school setting, informal education is the one gotten mainly at home.

As the child starts his education, either from Creche or Montessori or Kindergarten or even Nursery school, his journey to academic greatness or academic downfall has begun. As the child moves on to primary school, his teachers will begin to introduce him to different learning-made-easy devices and gadgets, using learning aids, especially if the school is the type which the children of the creme de la creme of the society attend, in which school fees run into thousands of dollars or millions of naira per academic session.

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Some of the learning devices include: robots, toys, computers, palmtop, mobile phones, laptops, TVs, and the likes. As the child progresses in his education, he interacts more and learns more using information and communication technology, which could make writing down his assignments and homework on paper less attractive. Invariably, he depends less on jotters and pen.

How Graphophobia sets in

In Nigeria presently, it is unfortunate to see every Tom, Dick and Harry, go about with a mobile phone, especially advanced handsets. Although, the advantages of using a mobile phone far outweighs its disadvantages, a good number of students have no business having this device. Why is this so? The proliferation of handsets among Nigerian youths is directly responsible for graphophobia, since graphophobia means not liking to use the pen to write down words on paper.

Students prefer to use their mobile phones to type and do all forms of writings, which are sometimes not needed. It is highly embarrassing to see graphophobia creeping gradually into the Nigerian work environment, whereby an employee will find it difficult to write a simple memo to his boss, without unpardonable grammatical blunders. Even if such a person writes an email, the number of errors in it could be more than the number of words in the email.

Another common case of graphophobia is seen when a graphophobic writes employment letter or a student writes to his teacher as seen below:

                                                                                                            Dear Anti Omolayole,

                                                                                                         how r u? i hope u r doin gr8.

                                                                                                        d reason i want 2 stay away frm skul 4 2 days is bcos i want 2 visit d hospital is 2 allow my doctor 2 treat me of my frikwent asma atak

                                                                                                         tnx u Madam.

                                                                                                          urs sincerely,

                                                                                                          Johnbull.

The above short letter and far even worse written texts are common these days among Nigerian students, and even among some so-called higher institution of learning graduates. It is a pity that Nigerian youths are finding it difficult to differentiate between a formal and informal setting.

What the student actually wanted write is  re-written below:

                                                                                                               Dear Aunty Omolayole,

                                                                                                       How are you? I hope you are doing great.

                                                                                                       The reason I want to stay away from school for two days is because I want to visit the hospital to allow my doctor to treat me of my frequent asthma attack

                                                                                                         Thank you Madam.

                                                                                                         Yours sincerely,

                                                                                                          Johnbull.

Johnbull really had an idea of the message he wanted to pass, but his detest for writing made him to write the way he felt.

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