FOREWORD As the world's population continues to increase and more people continue to find the internet or the digital world indispensable, users whether young or old will continuously yearn for knowledge about this great 'magic' called the internet, a better understanding of how it works and ways to maximise the potentials of the internet. Collins Okere through this brilliant work provides a down-to-earth, persuasive, enlightening approach to understanding the impact, opportunities and what the internet is all about. Matter-of-factly, the internet has greatly enhanced connectivity all over the world, and Nigeria is not left out. Our country remains the world's most populous black nation where the number of people on social media, continue to rise and more ecommerce platform spring up every hour. And more youths continually want to keep abreast on news, entertainment, scoop and trendy fashion. With the internet, there are no more geographical barriers. The entire world has become a market even for a business located far away on the world map. Therefore, there is need for 'guide' to using the internet to get the greatest advantage. 'Living In The Digital Age' is a reliable guide in the digital terrain. Perhaps some may conclude that they practically know all about day-to-day tools like e-mail, search engines, and even the seemingly ordinary social media platforms like Facebook,

twitter, Google Plus, WhatsApp, Pinterest, Nairaland, among others. But with a keen insight into the cyber world and alacrity to share his depth of understanding with those who were privileged to welcome the internet and others who are newcomers into the digital age, Collins finds it highly critical to help everyone explore the matter through 'Living in the Digital Age.' Whether as beginners or old timers, there are always new and exciting facts to know or even apply to our knowledge of social sites, emailing, applying for jobs via online, ensuring internet security, maintaining communication with contacts on the internet, using appropriate words while researching online, among other avenues that the internet offers. There is no doubt that majority of social site users are youths. And they practically need to be guided. Interestingly, the writer also connects with parents and guardians on why they need to be stay connected with their children online. The author therefore fulfils a vital role of an eye-opener, a coach and a guide through this masterpiece 'Living In The Digital Age.' Adefemi Adeniran Head, Public Relations Airtel Nigeria 2015.

INTRODUCTION Anyone who is living in these times and knows nothing about the internet is not truly living in this age. Since when the internet became accessible to individuals through personal computers and recently through the mobile, the internet has altered how we live. The internet as literarily connected the world. With your smart devices such as an BlackBerry, iPhone, Tablets, Phablets etc you can send messages to people through texts, voice or video formats across several platforms online and know about events happening in any part of the world. You can also get access to tones of information about almost every field of endeavor. The internet has also affected and is changing the traditional way we carry out our activities from our everyday commercial activity like buying and selling, to learning, to communications etc. In this book, I have helped to identify the basic things you need to know as an individual on the internet. Have a safe reading!

Creating and Maintaining An E-mail

E-mail (Electronic mail) is an address online where you can receive personal mails. It has become what we now use on a daily basis in communicating. Some have thought that social media will render e-mails useless thereby making it extinct, but this is yet to happen. Everyone needs an email account in this time and age to sign up to a social media site. You can have access online to several e-mail platforms online. The most common e-mail platforms are Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail and Outlook. While it is good to have an e-mail address from any of the several e-mail provider, institutional e-mail addresses attract more value. All that is needed for the opening of a new account are just your basic information like your names, password, date of birth, location, security. Every e-mails has two main parts, which is the header and the body. The header of every mail includes but not limited to the sender and recipient(s) e-mail address as well as the Subject of the mail. After the header comes the body of the mail. In the body of your mail, you are allowed to send messages in whatever format (in either text, images, videos or a blend of them) you desire. When e-mail are sent, they are delivered to the recipient(s) of the mail almost immediately. You can also send a single mail to more than one person at a time by either copying them 'cc', or blind copying them 'bcc'. Attachments are files that are attached to email.

The choice of subject for your e-mail should be detailed enough to summarize the essence of the mail. You will do yourself a lot of good to avoid funny subjects, as this may make your mails delivered to the spam folder of your recipient e-mail instead of their inbox, I am sure nobody wants that. When the mail you are about to send is an official one, such as application for a particular position in a firm, make sure your subject captures it. For example when applying for the position of an IT Manager in a firm, your subject should read 'Application for the Position of an IT Manager' except otherwise stated. Some basic letter writing skills will come handy in sending mails. It is polite to start and end a mail with a salutation. You could start the body of your e-mail with 'Good day ma/sir' or 'Hello' followed by the person's name. Your choice will depend on the kind of relationship existing between you and the recipient of your mail. You can end your mail with 'Best Regards', 'All The Best', as the case may be. When sending a mail containing only an attachment, do well to write a short note starting either with 'Kindly find attached' or 'Please find attached', then proceed to what is attached in the mail. When writing this note, let it be descriptive of what the attached file is all about. Your email can help you keep track of the various sites you visit

online. This is possible when you subscribe to receiving newsletters from such sites. This also helps you be abreast with information about latest happenings in such sites. Also, make it a habit to check your mail regularly, as you do not want to miss out from a vital information. Opening a new e-mail account should not take you more than 5 minutes, but it is advisable you keep and maintain a particular email except in cases when the password and e-mail address cannot be retrieved. Using email address containing your full name is the best. Avoid using emails containing names like 'sexy', 'hot' etc. or funny names in them for official purposes. For example, [email protected].

Power of Search Engines

Search engines are like your guide in life when you get to a new place and are trying to find your way around. They help you find easily whatever you are searching for online. When it comes to search, a name comes to the mind easily, which is 'Google'. The name 'Google' is no longer just used as a noun but now also as a verb. That tells you how large and widely accepted they are. Google.com has an index of a large chunk of the web, making it easier for people to find whatever they want even at a faster time on their site. Other examples of general search engines include baidu.com, yahoo.com, bing.com etc.

How To Use Search Engines Search engines have a text space where you can input words you want to query, such words are called keywords. The kind of keywords you use determine the results you get. There are over a billion websites existing on the web today offering you different kinds of information across every area of life. And unless you use the right keywords to trigger them in your search result, you might never come across them. Keywords are powerful when it comes to search engines. Knowing the right keywords is good but you must also know how to use them. A simple research is when you search for 'red roses', the results that will be generated for you will be quite different from when you search for 'rose red'. Even adding a 's' to red roses will generate a different string of results

without putting the 's'. So you have to know what you are really searching for and be detailed enough to get the right result. Also, bear in mind that adding punctuation marks to your keywords affects the way the search engine sees the keywords. Many people who have been able to know how to use the search engines well, have done that to their good. This is because they can always get answers to most of the questions they come across at whatever point in time. With search, you can learn anything from any field of endeavor, irrespective of your educational background. Instead of typing full sentences or questions, keywords come handy, for example instead of searching 'what is the weather of Lagos State', simply type 'Lagos weather'. Almost every knowledge required to be a specialty in any field of endeavor is online. You can benefit from so much online resources. There are now so many online schools both free and paid offering educational services. All you need to do is search with the right keywords and you will get your desired result. With the power of search, you can learn something new on a daily basis and you can be all you want to be. The good part of this is that it is at your own convenience and you can decide if you just want to read alone, that is, in text format or you prefer to watch videos, which are more engaging. Information that cut across life science, programming, medicine, technology, art, history, economics, psychology, politics etc. are in their tons online and you can get access to them. Never assume you have seen all that is on the web because there are over a billion sites on the

web, with even more web pages on it. You do not need all the information online but you can harness the information you desire to be better.

Social Media Platforms

Today if you ask many young people what site they visit the most online, the answer will most likely be one of the social media sites. However, as much people as we have on social media sites, it still does not form the largest percentage of the web. Social media platforms were created to satisfy our desire for communication and interaction with one another on a different level. This is therefore the main feature of all social media platforms where you can connect with someone. Although all social media platforms possess this unique feature, they are all different in the way they are structured. There are two platforms for connecting on social media that exist online, one is through websites and the other is through applications. Example of social media sites are Facebook.com, twitter.com, pinterest.com, nairaland.com etc. while example of social media applications include Whatsapp, BBM (Black Berry Messenger), Instagram etc. Social media applications give you more privacy compared to social media sites. Social media gives you a face on the web, a face that others can identify with. The challenge with many is that they seem not to understand the privileges social media gives them and how to leverage on it. Such people live a different life online from what they originally are. All they are after is either a like, +1, retweet, etc.

Nowadays recruiters tell people to add links to their social media accounts in their CV. Social media should be used to sell your personality more than just the food you are eating, places you traveled to and what have you. Some do not even use names they are known by, just to portray a different image to people. So many people, who met at a point in time when there were no social media, now go online searching for people they once knew. So using a name different from what you are known is not advisable online. Do well to also use your picture as your profile picture online. The essence of a profile picture comes to play more when more than one person is using a particular name online and you want to distinguish them. When you scan through the profile pictures of all persons bearing that name, you are sure to recognize the person you are searching for. So profile picture help in identifying people easily online. While it is good to give a proper picture of your personality online, it is also safe to be discreet about some personal information online even when it involves chatting with someone you think you know well, because such persons account might have been compromised. You've got to be careful about what you post online because they may never leave, as social media has come to stay but the impact of your post may leave either positive or negative mindsets about you in the future to come. Many years from now, someone might loose the race in an election simply because his opponent was able to fetch a post of his

which could be three decades back. I believe the parents and guardian of every child should be his/her first connections online. Having your parents on your friendslist makes you cautious about the kind of content you post online. Many a time kids tend to post how they feel or what they are passing through online especially the introverted ones. When a parent sees this, it should help them understand their children more and be the help they need at that point in time. Engaging with posts or discussions by your friends in a polite and constructive manner is a good practice. This will make people know your stand on certain subjects and help others see from your own point of view. Try as much as possible to be polite with people online especially those you've never met in real life. Having a plan for what you want to embark on social media is good. You could decide to use it as a means of connecting with far away friends, meeting new people, displaying your abilities and skills, and learning from what others are contributing or else you will just be a part of those increasing the number of users online but add no value to themselves or others online. The traditional way of increasing your reach and influence in social media is by posting good content online. Good content will always attract people of like minds. Content they say is king, and

make it consistent too.

Facebook As at the 3rd quarter of 2012, Facebook had over a billion users. If it were a country, it would be the second largest in the world after China. Facebook was 'born' out of a vision to bridge the connection gap among students in Harvard University. Today the number of Facebook users is growing rapidly. Facebook is today the largest social media site. A valid e-mail address is needed in signing up for an account on Facebook. Depending on your objectives, you can decide to run a personal profile account or a public page. A profile account allows you to send friend request and receive friend requests from people you know. With this type of account, you can have up to a maximum of five thousand friends. At the level of having exactly five thousand friends, you can no longer accept another friend request but can only be followed, I.e others can follow your posts online. However, they can have access to your post but do not have privileges a friend has. With a profile account, you are constantly abreast with posts from your friendslist called newsfeed. You can post text, photo or videos on your timeline at any time. When posting personal

pictures, make sure the image is named with your name or family. Your audience either have the privilege to like, share, comment or report it. There were news that a dislike button might be added soon. Facebook tries to make sure people on your friendlists are those you know in your real life or have met before. You tend not to see newsfeeds from friends you do not engage with either by chats, or to their posts online. So do not just come online to put a post, but also take out time to see what others are also saying. When putting up a post you can decide to tag people to your post. This allows your post to come up on their own timelines and can be viewed by their friends and followers, thereby increasing your reach. However, there are limitations to the number of people you can tag and the number of times you can tag over a period, most especially when you tag people who are not on your friend lists. As a matter of decency do not over bug people with your tags. Facebook also gives you opportunity of either starting a group or joining one. Joining a group enables you to interact with more people who are online and are not necessarily on your friendslist. Different groups have their own policy that you must abide by else, you are sent out by the admins of the group. You can as well have a page account alongside your profile account. People can subscribe to your page by liking your page.

Unlike a profile account, you cannot view newsfeeds from others. This type of account is usually run as a public figure, brand etc. and there are no limits to followers of your page.

Twitter Another social media site, which gives you 140 character message length to express yourself in what is called tweets. In 2012, after reaching over 100 hundred million users with over 340 million tweets per day, twitter became globally recognized. Today, Twitter has grown to about 304 million monthly active users. Signing up to a twitter account requires a valid e-mail address. Every twitter account comes with a handle starting with '@', for example @yourname. You have 'followers' which are people who subscribe to your tweets and those you are 'following' which are people you subscribe to their tweets. There are no limitations as to those who you should follow and those who should follow you. You can have as many followers as you desire. As at September 2015, the 31 years old singer and songwriter from the US, Katy Perry (@katyperry) had the highest number of followers with about 74.92 million followers making her the person with the highest followers on twitter. Twitter has the record of been the first social media site where an hashtag '#' was used. Ever since then, hashtags become trendy on

other social media sites. An hashtag can either be placed at the beginning, middle or end of a sentence or word. It is used mostly find messages of a specific theme or content. Other popular social media sites include Google Plus, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Nairaland etc.

Whatsapp Whatsapp is the most common social media app with over 900 million world users. It is compatible with almost every phone, from Java to Symbian, Android, BlackBerry and IPhone. This has given it the edge over other mobile social applications. It works with the saved phone contacts on your phone, unlike other social media platforms that require a valid e-mail before you can signup for the site. Each of your phone contacts who has his/her phone number registered with Whatsapp will now be seen on your Whatsapp contact list. It started as a free texting service provider but it has gone beyond just providing a free texting service to its users but more recently offering free voice calls. Making calls through Whatsapp will save you money spent on making phone calls. You also enjoy making calls to people in any part of the world without any extra charges, even when roaming. On the new interface, it is easy to see a display of your call summary. To call someone on your contact,

there is nothing to setup; simply click the “telephone” button to make calls. When chatting on Whatsapp, your messages when sent from your device are delivered with a single stroke indicating that your message has been sent. Whenever the message you sent is received by your recipient device, another stroke is added to the initial one stroke. Immediately your message is read, the double strokes changes to a blue colour. Your messages are not saved in any online servers, unless you have an automatic backup to your cloud account, so do well to either archive or set an automatic backup for your messages to your phone. Once you delete any message you send to a persons number on Whatsapp, and that individual also deletes it, the message is totally lost and is as good as nothing was sent. On WhatsApp, you can create a group. A group is like a forum where members of the group can all contribute to discussions. The creator of the group automatically becomes the Admin of the group and also has capacity to appoint other group members as co-admins. Groups can be useful for anything from brainstorming and collaboration. You can also send broadcast messages. Broadcasting on whatsapp looks a lot like the blind-copy (“bcc”) feature of email messages. After you have created your broadcast list, you can send messages

to them and it will be delivered to individual's chat history with you. The contacts in this list cannot interact with each other. Each person on the list is not aware of other recipients, so it has a “personal” feel.

Staying Safe Online

The same way you won't enter your house after a long day and leave all the doors to your house unlocked, you have to apply even more caution online. Staying safe online means that you should be mindful of your safety there. The first level of online security measure that you must be aware of is your password. Your password like the key of your house opens your house door, gives you access online to different platforms. There are weak passwords and there are strong passwords. A strong password comprises of alphabets (with a play of both upper and lower case characters), numbers and special characters. For example '61Gadle!'. The longer the length of the password, the safer, but it is also important that you can recall it easily at any point in time. Example of weak passwords are those that have your name, date of birth, age, etc. in it. Your password should be seen as your personal property and should not be shared with anyone. Avoid using a single password for your multiple accounts online because it is not safe, as anyone who can hack just one of those accounts can have access to the others with no stress. A constant changing of your password every three months is also safe. Going beyond the password level, there are sites online that are not safe for browsing, so one needs to be careful about the kind of information you divulge on such sites; such as carrying out

business transactions that involves inputting your credit card information or pins or any other private information. There are sites that just need you to view them and they are all over you with cookies that keep a trail of you online. Some of these sites inform you while others do not, so if you are okay with it, you can grant them the permission of sending you cookies, else you never mind to delete them manually on your system. You should also do away with clicking on links in mails from an unknown sender. When using an app or software, you are advised to always carry out an update on it whenever available. Updates help you get better user experience and more secured. If you are using a 'personal computer', you should make sure you have an internet security software installed on your pc as well as making sure to keep it up to date. Your windows defender should also be updated on a regular basis. Smart devices such as phones, tablets, phablets, pads etc. have apps for internet security that you can install on them.

Contributing To The Digital Space

In this time and age, you need not to be a computer geek or a programmer to contribute content online, though having computer knowledge and skill will be of great help to you. Presently much of the content we find online for our use are made available by other parts of the world. These contents have been of great help to the world at large, but it is time we all join in this work of quality content creation online. The web is home for everyone, so you as an individual can be a player in this space by developing and pushing great quality content on the online world. You can leverage on your natural abilities to start with. Someone who is a writer can do a lot of good because good communications skill such as writing is vital in reaching any class of audience online. You can decide to tell your own stories or rewrite other people's stories. This can be achieved by creating a blogsite for that purpose. You can also contribute your quota of information about a particular subject on other platforms, not necessarily yours. There are sites like wikipedia.com who require people to help preview their autobiographies, an editing skill will come handy here. Acquiring a skill in programming can also go a long way in contributing to the digital space. Every technology is now gravitating towards mobile. Which means that more people access the internet from their mobile devices and now want to

control their daily activities from their smart phones. Therefore mobile applications with great user interface and user experience can be developed to add value to people's everyday living. You can decide to solve a particular problem around your environment using available resources online or by using technological tools readily available for use. This idea of solving an indigenous problem has led to the development of several online products and services such as mobile and web apps which have created more online engagement. I have discovered a knowledge gap in my country between what is happening and readily available online and what people know about the internet, so I am using my writing to increase awareness about the internet, thereby promoting quality content. You may want to claim that you lack ideas as to what to contribute to the digital space, but you can see what is already done and look at how you can develop on it by creating something better. Facebook was not the first social media site to come into existence, neither is Google the first search engine to be built, but the founders sought to make something better from what already existed. Another challenge that many hide under is the age factor. But the internet has no respect for age, only content. Your age is not a barrier to you. Many of the game changers in the online world all started out as students, but have come up with great products that the world uses today. The story of Facebook, a social media site that currently has over

a billion users daily, was developed by college students in 2004. Bill Gates was in his twenties when he wrote the operating software codes that will run on all personal computers alongside his friend Paul Allen. These individuals started early in life, no one wanted to know about their ages anymore but what solution they were providing. With each passing day online, new needs arise and people need to meet them. You too can join in this work.

About The Author He is a technology enthusiast. He is currently involved in helping businesses scale using the internet as a digital marketing consultant and a digital content creator, as well as a facilitator of training sessions to educate about the internet. His Startup, CoLIT World offers various online services ranging from online marketing to digital business management (social media platforms and websites) and web design. You can follow him on twitter @collinsinchrist add him on BBM: 58B691A4 or send a mail to him: [email protected]. Y o u c a n a l s o l i k e t h e p a g e www.facebook.com/livinginthedigitalage to get latest trends in the digital world and join the digital literacy campaign by following #9jaDigilife on twitter.