So just a few days back we were having a conversation here at Techzim and somehow we ended up talking about how Zimbabweans tend not to engage much on online platforms, even on social media. I thought maybe I could write about it since it’s a Friday (we can have a lil fun) and find out from the people themselves. Well I acknowledge it sounds a bit of a paradox that I’m asking why people don’t engage online on an online platform, but ey let’s just do it!
I first noticed the trend on Facebook.
Initially, I thought that it was normal for a person to post even the funniest of jokes and get say at most 70 likes (that’s actually for felebs otherwise the rest of us get at most 20). It was until I travelled a little and got international friends that I noticed NO, it wasn’t normal. If you haven’t noticed this, you can just check out the engagement disparity yourself between local and international posts.
But anyway here are 3 simple reasons why I have a problem with this phenomenon
We don’t get to take part is decision making.
My first example was of a joke post but really that’s not where the big problem lies, the big problem comes when people stop engaging on more serious posts that actually affect them in the long run. Social media has become a great tool of reaching out to masses without having to use that many resources, hence many organisations and companies have leveraged on them to carry out preliminary surveys on how to better their services or products etc. However, at this rate the representation is skewed and these entities are bound to produce something that is not satisfactory.
We’re not big on being constructive, we all about trolls
I know you might be thinking this has more to do with internet access but I can assure you that’s not entirely true. Proof? Just look at how people jump to comment on posts that have to do with a complaints of some sort! Or even check out on how people are big on trolls! So yes people can engage, more so when they have something to diss – it doesn’t take python to figure out that’s an unhealthy culture.
No discussion
Yes, discussion. I always talk about how I value discussions and I don’t mind saying it again. The internet has given us an opportunity to get in touch with so many different people from different walks and that’s a very good thing, if we know how to take advantage of it. We can easily improve our way of thinking and broaden our scope by interacting with each other on social media. We can easily get better insight of topics hence make much more informed decisions pertaining that topic because we’d have gained some knowledge (though of course some of it needs validation but we’re better off with it than without).
So now, let’s hear your reasons for not engaging..
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