The Internet or the World Wide Web is indeed a wonderful and amazing addition to our life. Some have even argued that it is man's greatest invention after fire and the wheel. Originally designed as a way for military institutions to communicate, the Internet is now known as a kind of global meeting place where people from all parts of the world can come together. It is a service available on the computer, through which everything on earth is now at the fingertips of anyone who has access to the Internet.

The Internet craze has not left out Africa, a place known for lagging behind in everything other than population growth, corruption and civil wars. Here in Rwanda a country previously devastated by the 1994 genocide, huge strides have been made in the area of telecommunications particularly Internet usage. Rwanda has got one of Africa's most elaborate Information Communication Technology policies in Africa today. MTN and Terracom are doing a marvelous job of providing high-speed Internet connections. However are the end users of the Internet getting their money's worth from this huge opportunity filled medium of communication? This seems to be a tough question but all the same we need to reflect on it seriously.

Without wasting time discussing the merits and demerits of this medium, we need to assess the usage by the "average" user in Rwanda. The typical Rwandan Internet user is a young man or woman, very well educated, who belongs to the social and economic elite. Now the question is, what exactly does he/she do when online? Of course we can have several answers to this question but for starters, is this person utilising the Internet in the best ways possible or just wasting time and resources imitating western cultural values transmitted on the net.

Many Internet users in Rwanda do not own personal computers so they usually visit cyber centers or Internet cafes. These cafes charge a high fee for one to access their services. Therefore users have more than enough reason to utilize the Internet optimally since they access it a high cost for limited time. But is this really the case? Personally I think otherwise. Well, we are not talking about computer experts here but the average guy who walks into an Internet café on a calm evening.

Mini surveys indicate that despite the numerous opportunities available on the World Wide Web, many users have confined themselves to rather trivial uses of the facility. The majority of Internet users are always simply reading and sending e-mails. In the category of e-mails we have those reading junk mails titled, "Win a free Nokia 9300i" Click here to get a free Samsung DVD player". Unfortunately I never hear of anyone saying he is heading to Magerwa to claim a Sony TV he won on the Internet! So basically this category never benefits from the Internet at all apart from chasing fantasies.

Another group is fond of reading mails from Nigerians claiming to offer huge sums of money in exchange for bank details of the recipients. This Nigerian invented form of fraud is commonly referred to as "419" in reference to the code in the Nigerian law books against the crime. Then others are always preoccupied with forwarding lousy jokes to all their friends with mail addresses. This is a very common habit among those with free Internet access especially at workplaces. These observations basically mean that many users restrict themselves to sites that offer free mail services like Yahoo, and Hotmail.

Other sites commonly visited are pornographic sites, which receive an incredibly huge number of hits by Internet users here. These sites which are essentially made to offer direct exposure to some of the reprehensible facets of the West cultures, seriously corrupt morals and encourage crimes like rape and defilement. Related to porn sites, are sites offering young Africans "the chance to find a French or German spouse."

Sports sites have also not been spared. Usually in an Internet café you will find a smart gentleman busy checking out the details of Premier league scores and player transfer gossip in Europe than checking out www.rwandafootball.com to know how many points ATRACO FC has amassed in the local league. This all points to one thing, we are not fully utilising the Internet. For example how often do you go to the Internet to download free tutorials for software? Do you know that you can get free software as well as the tutorials for using it on the Internet? Those in the field of academics could for example look for up to date research reports and current journals with important information instead of trying to win free tickets to the world cup.

On the social front, instead of chatting with crazy strangers far away in Europe, one can hook with relatives abroad and save thousands on international phone calls. Sending "real" mails to friends and relatives is surely better than sending stale jokes to your sister. More so, sending your graduation photos to a relative who missed your party is much better than checking out porn sites.

Maybe it should be incorporated in the teachings of Information technology that the Internet is much more than sending mail, forwarding jokes or visiting adult sites. For starters, newspapers, radio stations and Television stations should help users to know more about the Internet and how they can benefit from it more. Countries like India are reaping big from the Internet by offering outsourcing services to companies in Europe and the US. A customer in Texas who contacts a company's customer care service is connected to a lad in New Delhi to answer all his questions. Why can't we work towards the same here?

One helpful approach may be to try to determine the needs of current and future Internet users, taking into account the technology's untapped potentials. In this way it may be possible to better develop and plan activities aimed at "high priority" goals. A gap still exists between the potential benefits of the Internet and the reality on the ground, since use is low even among scientists, at universities and schools.

Today the Internet is mostly used by Africans to communicate internationally, rather than within the continent. African elites who are already used to the swift pace of online technology which Paul Virilio, a French specialist on new information technologies calls "the tyranny of real time," are gaining more and more exposure to the rest of the world. But is this a real advantage? For example African users can inform themselves about every detail of Thierry Henry decision to stay at Arsenal for another season by visiting Arsenal's website, even if they have no idea what is going on several dozen kilometres outside of Kigali. This exposure, which seems to be based on a latent desire to be everywhere at the same time and the almost magical power the Internet seems to possess, is reinforced by the West's continual domination of Internet's contents. All these add to the risk of cultural domination of Africans by the West.

Technology and information are only tools; what matters is who has access and for what objectives. So next time you walk into an internet café please remember that there is a whole lot of benefits beyond yahoomail.com, soccernet.com or those x-rated sites. Let us be more adventurous and try to exploit this great invention to the maximum.

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