Alcohol is the most commonly used addictive substance in Kenya. Excessive drinking can lead to serious health problems, chronic diseases and even death. Alcohol abuse also impacts users’ behavior, which can result in accidents and violence.
EABL is currently making a profit of Ksh 10 billion in this pandemic. Most youth are now full of depression and cases of suicides have become rampant. The effects of alcohol addiction are grave and far-reaching. While some people can overcome this addiction on their own, most people need assistance. We need to have higher values in our corporate sector. Exploitative business practices must never be appreciated as an achievement.
Social media has also played a disruptive role. Smartphones have opened the door to a new form of mingling ‘isolated socialising’ where Whatsapp or Snapchat group messaging is their way of ‘meeting up’ with friends. Such reclusive interaction has replaced what would have been going out, decreasing opportunities for drinking.
The most influential aspect of social media however, derives from the vanity, self-consciousness and hysteria that is invoked by the documentation of Gen Z lives. A constant need to keep your social media audiences posted has created a sense of paranoia. Generation Zs friends are not just the typical group of friends they are switched to an automatic setting, ready to quickly turn into paparazzi, chronicling moment-by-moment updates of theirs and their friends’ movements.
Today’s kids understand that everything is captured, instantaneously uploaded to social media, and has a minimal chance of total eradication if need be.
