When I first started using social media, coming up on two decades now, I had a few friends on places like Facebook and X (formerly known as Twitter).
For the most part, we were satisfied to share thoughts and the occasional comment, and that was fine. But, during my time in Zimbabwe, when the government there tried to limit contact between their young people and foreign diplomats, and social media was the only safe place we could meet, the number of followers on my social media pages mushroomed.
Within a year, I had 7,000 local followers on Facebook, and given the situation in the country at the time, our exchanges were lively. So much so, in fact, that I had to ban a few people for violating rules of decorum.
I made a mistake, though. I responded to questions and comments because it was close to my only way of interacting with that particular audience. I think I sent the wrong signal. I left Zimbabwe in 2012, but still have over 2,000 followers from there, many I know only through social media. It’s no longer my mission to communicate with a youth audience in Zimbabwe in furtherance of US foreign policy aims, but many of them still just want to chat. Worse, a lot of people who are not from there, are joining my page, who like to send chatty little messages every day, and who want to be responded to.
In addition to this column, I have a ton of other things to do, so I really don’t have time to respond to over a thousand ‘hello, how are you’ messages each day. I’ve posted a notice that I cannot do this, nor do I want to engage in conversations about how to take advantage of some government giveaway, but the chat boxes either don’t read such notices, or they ignore them.
In my message box on Facebook at the moment, I must have ten rather angry-sounding queries wanting to know why I do not respond to things like, ‘how are you today?’, ‘where to you live?’ or ‘what are you doing right now?’
I don’t like ignoring people, or making them feel bad, but please. I have work to do. I do not have the time to respond to every greeting. Nor, after I’ve said ‘hello’ or ‘welcome to my page’, do I have time to engage in an extended conversation. Just as I keep my cell phone turned off when I’m writing, I log off my social media pages once I’ve read what interests me and posted whatever it is I had to post. There are days when I don’t log onto those pages at all.
So, if you’re one of those people steaming, wondering why I haven’t answered you, my apologies, I just don’t have the time. | NWI
