Going Offline

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Leaving Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Linked In and other platforms is a personal decision based on reasons for boarding the flight in the first place and one’s perception of social media.  Is it a den of thieves or a source of information?

One thing it is not, is a social space.  It is an outdoor market where products, including religion are peddled.  Money has siblings, thieves. There are information thieves and financial thieves.  Information thieves photo-shop blogs and present ideas as theirs.  Plagiarism to boot.  This could be for profit, career advancement or academic deception.  Financial thieves want one thing, the dollars or euros in your bank account or credit card.
Information.  People stay online if they feel that one day somebody will buy their books, invention, idea of saving polar bears or vote for them.  Bloggers keep blogging because they believe they are sharing something valuable.  It could be recycling used clothes, recipes, wellness tips, investment advice, quotes or half naked women. 

You might scoff at that but there are more than a million people who regard what they are wearing or not wearing, as some kind of information.  They deserve a mention because they make more money than don’t text and drive blogs.
We see the retirement tweets, where people say goodbye to social media because they did not get the perceived financial or career profits.  The internet did not deliver.  Those still on the plane are hope-driven.  It’s coming.  It’s coming.

By:  Nonqaba waka Msimang.

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