Social media craze: Are you at the table or on the menu?
What you need to know:
- These platforms – and they are many from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter to Tik Tok, among others – are a source of joy to their users.
- However, they are also a source of disinformation and misinformation, and all manner of miscreants are waiting in the shadows for those who are either ignorant and or vulnerable for whatever re
This last week, two husband/wife murders took place in Tanzania and shook the nation to its core, while in next-door Kenya, President Uhuru Kenyatta voiced concern that single-parent families were threatening the social fabric in that country.
What is going on?
Historically, marital strife is nothing new as it is part of human nature. However, in these heady days of the mobile phone and its ubiquitous nature, we are seeing a trend whereby man’s invention of a good thing is turning into man’s waterloo.
Enter the mobile phone and its ever-present accompaniments – the applications that we call social media. The applications are extremely useful to the extent that they have enabled the world to become a global village in which people from Wisconsin in the United States of America can keep in touch with those in Njombe in Tanzania, and vice versa, instantly.
These platforms – and they are many from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter to Tik Tok, among others – are a source of joy to their users. However, they are also a source of disinformation and misinformation, and all manner of miscreants are waiting in the shadows for those who are either ignorant and or vulnerable for whatever reason.
Used well, these platforms are a boon and some users, even here in Tanzania, are reaping rewards that include the ability to add value to what they are doing, be it advocacy, awareness creation, and marketing. Some are smiling all the way to the bank by monetising their reach to millions of followers.
In the same breath, and like in the real world, there are predators out there on social media, who are not in any way social. The predators know that there are young, weak, sick, vulnerable folks out there, and they use their skills and knowledge to lure their victims into traps that have consequences far beyond what the founders of those social media platforms and their users ever imagined.
Enter the ability to capture photographs anywhere and everywhere, and share them instantaneously from wherever. Back in the day, we would plan a photo-shoot for 11 months until December, but that is history.
Today, not all those posting sumptuous dishes on these platforms or those posting photos of themselves in posh cars are owners or partakers of those things.
In fact, until I met a 19-year-old girl, who, when invited for lunch, carried a huge bag of clothes so she could change, take photos at different locations and post to impress her friends, I had no idea how much pressure these youngsters are under.
It is not just a peer pressure thing. It has arrived at the level of the deceased Mwanza couple, who were married for barely seven months. While we are not privy to what led to her husband going bonkers and pumping seven bullets into the woman, 27, her Instagram account created the impression, rightly or wrongly, of someone who was single.
The point I am making here is that marriage ought to bring together a couple, and with it immense responsibilities. The trouble is all social media siren beauties want the best of both worlds. A rich, handsome trophy husband to be shown around where marriage is perceived to be fashionable, and also a social media platform where their behaviour represents nothing of their betrothal to the trophy husband.
This would be the best of both worlds, but the real world does not work like that. In the real world, there is a conspiracy between reality and make-believe that soon comes to a head with disastrous consequences.
They call it sliding into her DM, or direct messaging. Many couples have met and had dalliances through social media direct messaging. It is an opportunity where starry-eyed beautiful young women won’t resist a gift, and as we know, nothing is for free in this world, and especially so coming from a stranger sliding into one’s direct messaging.
The message is beware. Social media isn’t so social, after all. In fact, with social media, one is either at the table or on the menu. Decide which spot you are at by your own actions.
Disclaimer: The opinions, statements and views expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Citizen
