The break or make effect of social media

Robert Ndlovu
ANYONE who thinks of shutting down social media is day dreaming. From a technical point of view it is impossible. There is a difference between shutting down and blocking it. Social media is here to stay. The sooner people come to terms with the new reality the better. Two decades ago very few people had access to a computer, the internet and let alone a cellphone. I am talking around 1997 and earlier. The main reason was cost and limited knowledge about ICT.

Owning a desktop was a huge investment. Few companies, organisations, academics and some commercial farmers had PCs. Connection to the internet was via dial up. This is a connection via a “land line” plug into a modem to your PC. This is not ADSL. The speeds were nothing to write home about. A speed of 9.6kbps during those days was good enough. Someone might be asking “what has this got to do with social media? “You will later understand why speed has a huge bearing in digital communications — social media. At the turn of the century 2000, a few internet cafes had been established around the country.

These operated on a prepaid basis. For Z$1 an internet user would browse, research, check email and chat for an hour. Most cafes had capacity of up to 10 people. Internet cafes still exist and operate on that business model today but with faster broadband speeds. Social media is not a new animal in town. Only that today more people have access to the internet thanks to the smart phones. Smart phones have lowered the barrier of entry into the digital world that in the past was limited to a few people who could afford an internet connection and a desktop. The cost of smart phones is going down and cost of broadband data is within most people’s reach. As a result more people have unlimited capability to send and receive messages at a fraction of a cent.

The messages can be in text, image, audio or video format. Previously such wide communications was limited to few people like technicians who worked for ISPs! As a result few people engaged in social debate and discussion online. The level of debate and discussion was pretty much consistent with the persons who could afford a PCs and an internet connection then. There wasn’t much negative chat and hatred online as there were very few internet users to start with. So social media did not have any much headaches. I used to chat for hours on AOL, Yahoo Chat, AIM with friends mainly from UK and USA and a few colleagues in the same industry locally. Internet was expensive and chatting came at a price.

Enter Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram and many others. The uptake of these in developing countries was initially slow owing to the cost of handsets and limited wireless coverage. But that is history.

Phones are cheap and 3G coverage spreads all over. This means that more people have access to the web, internet, social media and any other applications that are available online. That is a game changer. Mind you most people who use smart phones in Zimbabwe care less about Googling and Wikipedia but are home and dry with Facebook and WhatsApp access. Rewind. During limited internet limited access era, news dissemination was naturally limited to media houses like this newspaper and other private ones. As a result it was not very difficult to check the quality and authenticity of news items presented by journalists. Quality of news met higher standards.

Today anyone with a phone is a potential news reporter and consumer.

This has had both positive and negative effects. The fact that millions of people have internet access at their fingertips is a great milestone. This is the whole idea of bridging the digital divide. It also means that no one person can censor what people can read and access in terms of news. People take photos and record videos of scenes be it social events, fuel queues or bank queues in an era of erratic commodity supplies. Naturally those with the responsibility of making sure that we do not face these shortages do not like such news to be shared. Images or videos of empty shelves on social media often go viral. Thank God my favourite spot in Luveve accepts EcoCash and plastic money any time. But on the other hand you have people who have nefarious agendas in their scripts. To further their agendas they will search and identify a situation that is negative and then capture it. The problem here is the intention and not necessary the act.

Last week some rumour hit social media that EcoCash was going to shut down. The social media post was urging people to cash out their monies. This was obviously FALSE. Such incidents give social media a bad name. It is now difficult to control what mobile phone users send and receive. This is a big challenge. The Government like all other governments cite national security issue as the reason why they want to monitor our activities on social media.

This brings up the contentious issue of privacy vs security. With more and more people going online, there are numerous opportunities and threats on social media platforms. From a business stand point, social media is that platform that can promote a sole trader or a small to medium enterprise to market their products.

Visibility on the internet is the same. You have access to unlimited markets 24/7 literally. This is what we should be using social media for. But in an environment where internet access excitement is still high for many it will take a while for most people to take social media within their stride.

Social media is being blamed for a number of vices. Social media can break or make you. Ask uZodwa Wabantu ! — @robertndlovu; mobile (077) 600 2605