MANY YEARS AGO, when most of our children were but toddlers, we walked round Masindi town and stopped at a fair-sized shop for refreshments.

While there, I struck up a conversation with an elderly gentleman whose interest in me was raised by the number of times I turned to my phone to work. At the time, I was employed by an ICT-based company performing tasks that required me to be online every few minutes or so.

In between, those days, I also interacted heavily with my social media ‘friends’ and audiences.

The elderly gentleman – I cannot recall his name now – quizzed me about this briefly and then laid down an argument that surprised me.

He had a specific figure in Uganda Shillings of how much the Ugandan economy was losing in productivity as a result of social media use (usage?).

We argued (in the sense of having a discussion from two different standpoints) in Runyoro and English for a while, and I was persuaded by his logic.

It included the numbers published by the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), historical figures of employment and unemployment in Uganda and Kenya, and more.

This elderly shopkeeper in Masindi, like most of my compatriots of his generation, was well-read, highly informed, deeply analytical and yet hidden away from the public eye.

His very demeanour, depth of knowledge and analytical criticality (you have to LOVE that phrase there) during our discussion proved the point he was making.

I often recall that discussion when I bump into the numerous shallow statements on Twitter by people with tens of thousands of ‘followers’.

Which is A LOT THESE DAYS!

More, he made me laugh out loud that day in his shop doorway when he said that on top of decreased productivity, the way people kept their faces glued onto their phones was putting them at risk of falling over as they walked, besides developing deformed neck structures.

I have recently started using TikTok – uploading a couple of clips here and there rather than watching others.

This is not my first entry – the app happily reminded me that I first signed up six years ago. Even back then, I recognised how much time I risked losing if I did not control my use of this specific app.

Today?

I see too many people so totally unaware of how deeply immersed they are that they physically trip themselves up as they walk around their homes ‘tiktokking’ and failing to Be Serious.

The mental trip-ups are more concerning.

On one recent weekend we noticed the sharp difference between two pre-teens – one who had access to a smartphone, albeit controlled, and another who had none at all and maintained an interest in reading books.

The book-reader’s earnest, adult-like demeanour made us interrogate her parents a little bit as to what type of boot camp they were likely running in their home. Both gentle souls had no clue what we were referring to, though they did recognise their daughter to be quite intelligent.

The second pre-teen was also quite perturbed, as they was not much in common between them – and he was most dismayed when she revealed that she could speak a bit of Spanish and could count up to ten in a Chinese language.

One parent uninvolved in that incident later on told us how they had ensured that the internet-enabled tablet their child had access to only offered edu-tainment apps that her child had naturally falled in love with.

More importantly, she said, her child minder was given the same app-restrictions on the phone (provided by her employer so…she had to Be Serious about how to use it.)

I was immediately envious – not because I had a pre-teen or toddler to condition – in my case, I need a solution for my security guard and his TikTok access.

We all do – look up from your own mobile phone while going round this city and see how many people have their faces locked into their phones while on official duty.

There is clearly some truth in the argument of that Mzee in Masindi all those years ago about this economy losing millions in productivity because of how so many people are hypnotised by social media apps.

I have seen an askari reach for his rifle with one hand while still watching some video on his phone held in his other hand, and winced when I noticed him placing a finger dangerously close to the trigger.

Safety catch?

Who knows what social media app distraction had held his attention when he was supposed to be engaging that?

As I created a very safe distance between us I realised why, in the last two decades, the concept of zombies is so pervasive in popular entertainment.

Zombies are also called ‘The Walking Dead’ – which is what many young people have become, as a result of their social media usage. Intellectually, emotionally, and – if they don’t take their damn eyes off the phone at crucial times like when handling rifles – really, really dead.

So it’s not a myth any more; the Zombie Apocalypse is upon us.