Social media may spell the death knell of socialisation

Kenyans are said to be a social people. It is something that Africans share in general, a love for stories and talking. Our secondary school curriculum includes lessons on oral literature as part of English course work. In those lessons, high school students learn the importance of the spoken word. They are taught to tell stories and poems and the importance of passing information through verbal means rather than using written symbols. Unfortunately as soon as high school ends, so does the value of oral literature. Cell phones are thrust into their hands and they are sucked into the world of social media.

Media is supposed to be a channel of communication, a trigger of a healthy debate on various pertinent issues. Social media should refer to the increased possibilities of interaction with many more people from diverse backgrounds and cultures. However, the question is, of what use is it if one is able to interact with, or talk to people half way around the world if you can’t talk to the one sitting next to you?

Don’t get me wrong, I understand the value of social media as a means of disseminating information to all with limited barriers. Kenyans would have, for example, been lost without Robert Alai and his ilk informing Kenyans about the goings-on including the Garissa University and Westgate attacks by suspected alShabaab terrorists. Today, news breaks so fast that traditional media can barely keep up with the events. And that is all thanks to social media. Twitter and Facebook have proved themselves to be very effective in expanding democratic space, advertising and marketing. They have flexed their muscles in the realm of giving organisations the space to spread their messages far, wide and fast, but at what cost?

These days, walk into a university lecture hall and instead of seeing students with their noses buried in books they are pressed up against screens checking Whatsapp and Instagram just in case that message or that picture comes online. How many times this year have you been rudely interrupted by a chirping smart phone while trying to make a point to your friends, your spouse and more often your children?

To make matters better or worse, we use these phones for everything. They have become cameras. They have become our calculators, our address books, our calendars. We are so dependent on our phones that if by any chance they stop working, we probably stop functioning as well. We forget what appointments we had made, we forget the people we know.

But we forget something very important when our phones are working. We have forgotten common courtesy. Hellos have been replaced with cursory glances and if you are lucky, a nod or a tiny forced wave. Goodbyes are these days signalled by pulling out our phones.

I, too, am a victim and perpetrator of this phone addiction; because, glancing around at these anti-social individuals at the party, I took out my phone and looked at it going through social media posts while walking away.