LOVE, LOYALTY AND LIKES: MANAGING FAMILY DYNAMICS
AND PUBLIC IMAGE IN THE DIGITAL AGE BY SULAIMON OLANREWAJU
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Family dynamics is a subset of group dynamics. The term group dynamics was coined by a socio-psychologist, Kurt Lewin, in 1945. Group dynamics is the interplay of the behaviours, attitude and aptitude of members of a group and the effects of these on members of the group as well as the actualization of group goals.
Family is the smallest social unit. Family is a group of persons related by blood, marriage or adoption. According to Burgess and Locke in their 1945 work, The Family: From Institution to Companionship, “Family consists of a single household, interacting and intercommunicating with each other in their social roles of husband and wife, mother and father, son and daughter, brother and sister creating a common culture.” While that definition may hold true for Western countries, in our clime here in Nigeria and, by extension, Africa, family is much more than that. So, that definition by Burgess and Locke is defective. In Nigeria, a family is a group of people with a common ancestor. Thus, family consists of every living relation; grandfather, grandmother, father, mother, brother, sister, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews and nieces. As a matter of fact, kith and kin make up family in Nigeria.
I went that route to bring out a point. Family type determines family dynamics. The dynamics of a nuclear family portrayed by Burgess and Locke will be different from that of the extended family system practised in Africa.
Family dynamics is the mode of interaction among members of a family. It is also the organization of a family unit, the obligations, responsibility of family members and the factors that influence how they relate. Family dynamics determines how these roles and relationships influence communication styles, aspirations and expectations.
Since every interaction has consequences, family dynamics has its effects on members of the family as individuals as well as the family as an entity. As observed by Thomas, Liu and Umberson in their paper, Family Relationships and Well-Being, interpersonal interactions among family members have long-lasting effects on the overall development of an individual. So, the mores, values and virtues of a family play a critical role in the formation of the individual, the shaping of his character and the construction of his worldview.
Love
Love is a beautiful thing. Love makes living exciting. Love makes hustling enjoyable. Love breeds hope. Love births energy. Love inspires creativity. Some of the most beautiful songs ever were composed for love. Some of the greatest works of art were inspired by love. He who is rich in everything but is poor in love is of all beings the most pitiable.
Love is an emotion characterized by strong feelings of affection for another arising out of kinship, companionship, admiration or benevolence. The purpose of love is to make its object better. Hence, love is never passive but rather passionate; it never takes a rest until its purpose is accomplished.
Love is emotionally connecting with a person or a group of persons. Love is bonding. It is caring about issues that matter to someone or some people. It is being concerned about what concerns them. It is being interested in their progress and well being. It is helping them to become better individuals. It is helping them to lead a fulfilling life. It is positively shaping their lives.
Love is the common thread that runs in a family. Family members are obligated to love one another even when they don’t agree on issues or when they pursue different interests. Family should be the most secure fortress for any individual. One may not be appreciated or valued by others but the story is different with family. The Yoruba people put it perfectly by saying gbogbo omo l’akin l’oju iya e (Every child is valued by the mother). Family members have one another’s back. Family members go on a limb for one another. Family members bear one another’s burdens.
Love also connotes erotic desire between members of the opposite sex or even members of the same sex. Copulation should be the most valuable gift anyone can give another because it is akin to the release of your innermost treasure to another person. It is like surrendering your being to another. But sex has become commoditized; it is often given in return for favours. Nevertheless, its commoditization has not deprived sex of its usefulness. It still serves the purpose of romantic expression, conjugal consummation and procreation.
Expression of Love
Dr Gary Chapman, a marriage counselor, gave the world languages of love as contained in his 1992 book, The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate. In the book, he identifies five different ways of expressing or receiving love. These are Affirmation, Service, Gifts, Time and Touch.
1. Words of Affirmation
If you love someone, you build them up with your words; you do not pull them down. You make your partner or child’s day by complementing them. Words have power. As a matter of fact, words have life. Relationship is strengthened when partners make complementing each other a way of life.
When last did you tell your spouse, “I love you”? When last did you tell your daughter, “You are awesome”? When last did you tell your son, “You look great”? When last did you tell your friend, “I appreciate you”?
These words are simple and common but the effect they have on the hearers is out of this world, especially when they are uttered with sincerity.
2. Acts of Service
Another way of expressing love is by lending support to the object of love. If the purpose of love is to make the object of one’s love better, it goes without saying that the loved ones must be supported to achieve their goals.
How much support do you give to your partner’s aspiration?
How well do you support your child’s plan?
How much of support do your siblings or friends receive from you?
3. Giving Gifts
Everyone loves getting gifts. But gifts speak a number of languages. What you give as a gift is a pointer to how you rate the receiver. Therefore, put a little thought into what you give your loved ones so that you drive home the right message even when the gift is a simple one.
4. Quality Time
Bonding is enhanced when time is shared. To show affection to your loved ones, create time for them. We all find time for what we consider important. So, if you value your loved ones indeed, you will find time for them.
5. Physical Touches
Nothing is as frustrating as unexpressed love. So, show affection by holding hands, kissing, hugging and other touches. Appropriate touches convey warmth, safety and assurance. They also boost confidence. But when you fail to demonstrate affection by touching your loved ones, you create a gulf that will affect the relationship.
Characteristics of Love
1. Love gives – If you really love, you will not but give. You may give without loving but you cannot love without giving.
2. Love is forgiving – If you love indeed, you are quick to forgive. The power of love weakens the pains of hurt.
3. Love is selfless – If you genuinely love, you are willing to subsume your interests for your partner’s interests.
As good and beautiful as love is, it has its downsides. Lives have been lost because of love. Thrones have been destroyed because of love. There have been wars fought because of love. One of these is the famed Trojan War.
As the story goes, Helen, a Greek princess was betrothed to Menelaus, the King of Sparta. However, she was having a secret affair with Paris, a Prince of Troy. But Paris was not satisfied with the “coded affair” he had with Helen. So, he abducted Helen on the night of her wedding and escaped with her to Troy. When Menelaus got to know what happened, he called upon all the cities of Greece to join him to rescue his wife.
But Troy was one of the most heavily fortified cities of the time. So, the conflict evolved into a ten-year siege of the city, with many of the most revered warriors of the era- Ajax, Hector, and Achilles – being involved in the battle. After years of fighting, an ingenious plan, devised by Odysseus, resolved the conflict. Odysseus and 50 of his men hid inside a hollow wooden horse of colossal size, and the Greeks offered the “statue” as a gift to the Trojans to call for a truce. Much debate ensued over whether to accept or not, but the Trojans later decided to accept the “Greek Gift” and allowed the wooden horse inside the city. There was no consensus on where to keep the gift, so it was left in the open. In the dead of the night, Odysseus and his men came out of the horse and opened the gates of Troy, and signaled to the Greek warships- which were hidden just out of visible distance from Troy- to return. Troy was destroyed and nearly all its people killed. Menelaus, eventually, was able to rescue Helen, his wife.
Imagine killing thousands and destroying a whole city because of love.
Loyalty
Loyalty is a feeling of allegiance to a person or a cause. It is having a feeling of obligation or sense of duty. According to Josiah Royce in his 1908 book, The Philosophy of Loyalty, “loyalty is the willing, practical and thoroughgoing devotion of a person to a cause” in that it is not merely a casual interest but a wholehearted commitment to a cause. He adds that loyalty is “the heart of all the virtues, the central duty amongst all the duties”.
Loyalty may be interpersonal as that between a parent and a child, two spouses or two good friends. Loyalty may also be from a person to a group of people such as loyalty by a person to his or her family, to a team that he or she is a member of, or to his or her country.
Loyalty is betrayed when there is a mismatch in feelings or emotions.
Love should be fully reciprocated, but experience has proven that more often than not, love is either not reciprocated at all or disproportionately reciprocated. It is this gap in reciprocation that leaves room for disloyalty.
As put by Teddy Pendergrass in his 1978 album titled When Somebody Loves You Back, the only time that love is good is when it is reciprocated.
Pendergrass sings:
It’s so good lovin’ somebody
And that somebody loves you back
To be loved and be loved in return
It’s the only thing that my heart desires
Just appreciate the little things I do
Oh, you’re the one who’s got me inspired
Keep on liftin’, liftin’ me higher
So good, good lovin’ somebody
And that somebody loves you back.
In another stanza, he says,
It’s so good needin’ somebody
And that somebody needs you back
We can build a world of love, a life of joy
Make our goal each other’s happiness
I will do for you anything that I can
Oh, everyday I want to do a little more
Do a little more, just a little bit more.
Then, he goes forward
It’s so good needin’ somebody
And that somebody needs you back
Said not seventy-thirty
Not sixty-forty
Talkin’ ’bout a fifty-fifty love
Though Pendergrass recommends 50/50 love, it is my considered opinion that love ought to be 100 per cent apiece. If you share 100, there is still room for 50 with each of the partners, which can be channeled to other people. That can lead to disloyalty. So, it is best to have 100 per cent on both sides that means there is no room for anyone else and there will not be any chance for disloyalty.
Likes
A “like” is a feature built into social networks and other online platforms that allows users to express their approval or interest in specific content. By clicking the “like” button, users can provide positive feedback quickly and easily, connecting with topics or posts that appeal to them. The “like” button was popularized by Facebook, which introduced it with great success in 2009.
Likes are a quick way to measure engagement, popularity, and reach. These metrics are used by business owners and influencers to assess audience interest, and they frequently depend on “like” counts to determine the effectiveness of their material. Because likes increase credibility and visibility, many companies are willing to pay for engagement to boost their online reputation. So, social networks and online platforms are not just social platforms but a source of income. People increasingly use them to make money. So, likes are not just an indication of approval or support, they are also money making means.
Digital Age
The digital age, also known as the information age, commenced in the mid-20th century, marking a rapid transition from traditional industries to an information technology-centered economy. It is a period that signifies the democratization of access to information because it is characterized by the ability of individuals to freely exchange information. It is the age when information can no longer be hoarded. It is an era when each citizen can create contents and shape conversation around all issues either by sticking to the truth or twisting the truth. It is an era when individuals can make money from the contents they create.
One of the signs of this era is the self-centered mentality, which is a growing individualization process. This is a situation in which personal needs are elevated above communal needs. Consequently, the society is losing its communality and becoming individualistic. This phenomenon means that social relations as they existed prior to the digital age have been rebuilt on personal interests and values.
Managing Public Image
The thrust of public image management is playing up the good part of the subject while underplaying the not so good part. The job of an image maker is simple: project and protect the image of the personality or the organization you are working with. Every other thing the image maker does is built around these basic responsibilities.
Image management is important because an organisation’s reputation is one of its most valuable assets because it directly influences its overall success. A strong public image fosters trust with customers, which increases customer loyalty and word-of-mouth referrals. It can also help in attracting great talents and retaining them.
Public Relations professionals carefully shape an organization’s image, brand identity and messages to fit its core values and goals. Effective image management ensures that an organization is seen positively by its stakeholders, which builds trust and trustworthiness.
Everyone who belongs to a family and identifies with a family is a Public Relations Officer of the family and has a responsibility to project and protect the image of the family.
Connecting the Dots
Technology is a life enabler. Technology makes work easy and opens up diverse opportunities for value creation. Technology has become the key driver of economic growth around the world. Technological progress allows for efficient production of more goods and services. This promotes prosperity. This is even more so for digital technology. In the history of mankind, no other sector has contributed more to wealth creation than digital technology.
The world’s first billionaire, John D. Rockefeller, who was an oil magnate, started his business in 1859 and hit the billion dollar mark in 1916 when he was already 77 years of age. On the contrary, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, became the youngest billionaire in 2008 at the age of 23.
Digital technology also enables family life; family members can stay in touch with ease even if they are thousands of miles apart. With telephone calls, text messages, Whatsapp voice and video calls, distance is bridged and family relationship is enhanced.
Digital technology has reduced work-related stress. Since the COVID-19 era, remote working has become a fad. There are organizations that allow staff members to work from home and only show up in the office when it becomes extremely important. In the same vein, there are many people who live on one continent and work for organizations that are based on another continent. There are people who make good and legitimate money just by working with their handsets, palmtops and laptops. All of these are made possible by digital technology.
However, as digital technology enhances work efficiency and family cohesion, so does it enhance unfaithfulness. This is called digital infidelity which could be defined as digital technology-enabled disloyalty to one’s spouse or partner. This comes in form of sexting with someone other than your partner or engaging in other intimate relationships through the use of digital communication tools. On this day that we are celebrating love (February 14, 2025), only heaven knows the number of men and women who have leaned on digital technology to commit infidelity by professing love to people other than their spouses. Digital infidelity has ruined many homes and destroyed many relationships.
But there is also the aspect of digital betrayer which is done for money. This takes two forms of people either using digital content to fleece those they claim to love, including family members or releasing private video or audio content to get “digital likes” for monetization purposes.
In 2023, a 10-second intimate video of Ms Tiwa Savage, a popular Nigerian musician, and her partner created a buzz on the internet. Ms Savage later admitted that the video was “accidentally” posted by her partner on his Snapchat account. Although she said the partner deleted the video immediately, it was too late because someone had already copied it.
In the said video, the only face shown is that of the singer. It was therefore not surprising that somebody later attempted to extort money from Ms Savage with the video. When she refused to play ball, the video was released.
Savage said in an interview, “I decided I would not pay the person because if I do, two months from now, three months down the line, or even two years later, you are going to come back again.”
A popular Ibadan-based female Muslim cleric had her share of digital betrayal when an intimate video of her and her husband surfaced on the internet. The cleric claimed that the video, which was released to generate “digital likes”, was the handiwork of her husband and her sister.
While digital infidelity is propelled by the lust of the flesh, digital disloyalty is fuelled by the love of filthy lucre.
Strengthening Family Values
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, it is my considered opinion that the way out of the digital infidelity and digital betrayal that characterize this generation is for us to go back to the basics and strengthen family values.
Family values are the moral and ethical principles traditionally upheld and passed on within a family. These are values which are held to promote the sound functioning of the family and to strengthen the fabric of society. Such values include fidelity, honesty, truth, hard work, support for others, selflessness, love and faith. I am sure most of us here today will agree that our values as a people have been eroded; hence we are where we are now.
The family is the primary environment of human development, where a human person acquires the first experiences, behavioural patterns, basic knowledge about the world as well as moral and social norms. It is the place of assimilating values, beliefs about marriage, family and the society at large.
In their work, Family Values as Predictors of the Quality of Close Relationships, Walęcka-Matyja and Banach submitted that the process of transmitting values in the family is very important in the aspect of creating meanings about the self, the world and the individual’s relationship with the world. It plays a role in stabilizing and regulating social behaviours and influences the development of an individual’s identity, their functioning in interpersonal relationships through shaping the ability to solve problems.
Those saddled with the responsibility of transmitting these values are the parents and older siblings. But these days, the search for the golden fleece has made many parents to jettison this role. In most cases, many young people are not aware that the family where they are raised has any particular value. This is because the values are never taught or expressed.
The systemic theory states that a person’s system of values affects interpersonal relationships in various subsystems, from the family of origin (parents, children, siblings, etc.), through extra-familial relationships (at school, in a workplace), up to the bond with the partner in a close long-term relationship.
So, why would a person be unashamedly engaged in digital infidelity? It is because of weakened family value.
Why would an individual be willing to betray the trust of her sister for money? It is due to weakened family value.
When we promote healthy family values, the family dynamics would work in favour of families as well as the society as a whole.
When we promote the right family values, there would be real bonding and betrayals would become a thing of the past.
Conclusion
The point has been made that betrayal is possible when love is not deep or sound enough. When your love is at 100 per cent, there would be no room for thoughts of betrayal.
The point has also been established that every member of a family is a Public Relations Officer of the family.
When there is perfect love, the question everyone would ask themselves before taking a step that might be harmful to a member of the family are:
Do I love ‘digital likes’ more than my sister or my brother?
Would I betray my family for a filthy lucre?
Would I want the chord of love in the family destroyed because of another man or woman?
Would I want my family’s name dragged in the mud because of lust?
As the family’s PR Officer, am I protecting the family’s image with my conduct or assaulting the image?
These questions would put anyone in check and would make them to do that which is noble and right.
I thank you for your attention.
Dr Olanrewaju delivered this paper at the Annual Public Lecture of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, Oyo State chapter.
