Sunday Chronicles
“NO wonder they say ‘If you want to enjoy your day, stay off social media.’ Facebook used to be so nice before the majority of users started abusing it.”
Hearing this lament as I returned from the kitchen, I was curious to know what had caused the change of mood. I had previously told the ladies before I walked out to get their orders, that the three nursing students had been discussing where to get their nails done the weekend for a friend’s wedding at a cheap price because they wanted to remove their nails by Monday.
“I put their food on the table after I placed in front of them two plates of sadza, leftover beef, and one big plate of vegetables and one for themselves. They left to work on their food, leaving me in suspense. I moved around the table nearly, neatly arranging the condiments so that the table would be set for the resumption of the conversation.”
After easing their initial pangs of hunger, I was finally put out of my misery by the student with maroon-dyed dreadlocks, as she wiped her mouth with a serviette. A few of some crumbs that had fallen onto her scrubs.
“During load-shedding when our decoders were not picking up anything, we always complained about how efficient and fast social media news delivery was, even news organisations and other institutions took to social media to impart official themes. Companies no longer needed to pay hefty advertising fees; we were directly told by their customers and the sharers on hard earned professional admins to run their pages. Life became more interesting and as long as a person was having a good time, they were free to charge your phone, you were sorted,” she said.
The one with unusually light skin — those red patches on her face a clear hint of eczema — smacked her lips in appreciation of Chef Beauty’s latest addition to the restaurant’s menu now that she had seen it for the first time.
“But there became the problem — not all the page admins are professionals. Some are there just to post what they want, and you know that growing numbers means in Zambia — you need to post stuff new every day and be the first to post to your posts go viral. In their haste to post, there’s no time to verify any facts.”
“That’s why we had to wait for 13:00 or 19:00 to hear the news in Zambia because the journalists and reporters were confirming facts from credible sources, and even then the stories would be from a day or two prior. Now even the credible media houses are pressured to publish news instantly because they are losing relevance to the public who have a wider range of news sources,” said Shorty.
Bleached nodded while taking a sip from her drink to wash down her final morsel of pie. Girl was eating fast! As a long-time unemployed teacher, I imagined that being able to eat that fast was good for a nurse as they seemed to never have a moment for themselves when the wards were busy, even though carrying out a task at breakneck speed was colloquially associated with the military.
As a child, the phrase “eating like a soldier” had been commonplace until the 2000s when the story spread that someone said it in the presence of actual soldiers and was taught an instant lesson. It must have been a true story — I for one never used the phrase anymore!
Bleached touched another point. “Also, I once posted a report with their smartphones and cheap bundles. Did you know that the same incident can have more than three versions, with eyewitnesses filing from different angles? That’s why before anything is published there is the need to corroborate the witness statement with CCTV footage.”
“I just feel lost after discovering that a media page I trusted published fake news. And people shared that story for days and wrote long paragraphs about it, only to hear from the police spokesperson that the facts on the ground were completely different. Innocent people had been vilified and people started deleting their posts in embarrassment and fear of cyber bullying. You just can’t believe anything anymore and it’s so unsettling feeling,” Dreadlocks continued her jeremiad.
Shortly pushed her plate with crumbs aside and let out a small burp, while wiping the contents of her bowl around thoughtfully.
“You know what, this week has taught me the importance of listening to news to protect myself from misinformation. There’s an article posted on Facebook by the World Health Organisation. I remember it the page was called ‘Protect Yourself From Misinformation’. Yes here it is, I’ll share the link with you,” Bleached said as she went on to share the page. “Apart from helping answer the ties points to advise from the Bible which I think is very important for Christians because we are responsible for what we share on our profiles. If we see here some things it says: First is ‘Do not believe everything you see or hear’; second is ‘Evaluate the source, don’t just share because you like the message, not personal preference’ and lastly ‘Stop the spread of misinformation.”
“I heard of a third one, the one about preferences,” Bleached asked.
“You’ll see the whole thing you read but it’s referring to the fact that what we see on our feed is stuff posted by people who think like us and the algorithm selects what we see based on our browsing history so if we’re leaning toward wrong information, we’ll see even wrong information and rarely get the other side of the story. By default, you only get half-baked information all the time.”
“I liked the last point and life would be so much better if everyone followed it — we are very quick to share unverified posts and comment on them, but when updated information is provided or a false accusation is cleared, very few people share it the same way they shared the lies,” said Dreadlocks.
There was a short silence. Was it pensiveness? Dreadlocks sighed and said “I think I’ll just change hobbies. For the sake of my mental health, when I take a break from work, I’ll go for a run or do reading novels. That’s what I used to do before the pandemic and social media slowly crept into more of my free time. It even saves money on bundles!”
“Speaking of saving money, which nail salon are we going for?” Bleached suddenly remembered but had been discussing earlier.
“Will you let me open Facebook so we look for some promotions or are you afraid you’ll see yet another traumatic update proving you fell for yet another lie this week?” giggled Shorty.
“Ah, you do that search yourself. In fact, don’t be surprised if you hear that I’ve deactivated my Facebook account. You can end up looking like a fool or being traumatised — or both — on these online streets. Let’s pay our bill and decide as we head towards Kamwala Market.”
“Aren’t we going to Northmead Market?” Bleached asked.
“Well, we said we’re looking for CHEAP nails. We’re only wearing them for tomorrow’s event, remember?” Shorty insisted, as her friends giggled at her mock exasperation.
