Social Media in Africa: From Art Sharing to Influencer Culture and Civic Engagement

Nairobi, Kenya – When I walked away from a career in law and moved into what is now called content creation, the intention was simple: To share my art.

At the time, photographers in Nairobi were known for their work, their shooting style, subject matter and sometimes even the cameras they used.

When I joined the industry, it was clear that Instagram, Twitter (as it was then known) and Facebook would be platforms to share work, not oneself.

But there are few things more fluid than the internet. A decade later, many of us have become something entirely different. We are now content creators and influencers.

The model has shifted from being known for what you do to being known for who you are, how you dress, how you speak and even what you have for breakfast, whether tea, coffee or whatever OMAD (One Meal A Day) practitioners consume in the morning.

As it turns out, the way I live matters to other people. It influences how they live their lives. Brands have taken notice, to the extent of offering contracts to integrate their products into my life in ways that resonate with my audience. For years now, since 2018, that has been how I earn a living.

The phone as daily newsroom

Across the world, social media has become a defining force in how people live their lives, particularly among younger generations, millennials and below. Africa is no exception. In urban centres, where mobile phone and internet penetration are high, the first thing many people reach for in the morning is a smartphone to check their social media feeds.

Instagram, X, TikTok and Facebook.

A Kenyan wakes up and checks WhatsApp. Before breakfast is over, they have already consumed information from across the world: A missing-person notice, a religious verse, a meme, a job link, a protest poster, a fake quote from someone who never said it, a dance challenge, a death announcement, a political insult, a YouTube tutorial, a screenshot from Parliament, a voice note from an aunt, someone’s holiday in Diani.

All of it is delivered through the same device.

Speaking to Grace Ndiege, a digital marketing specialist at Digitribe, it becomes clear that in 2026, we are not only living in reality, but increasingly inside our phones.

“We spend a lot of time capturing moments as opposed to living in them.” For someone working on the business side of social media, she says a large share of marketing budgets has moved online because that is where audiences now are.

So when a beverage company, for example, wants to introduce a new product, shift consumer behaviour or build emotional attachment to its brand, social media becomes the primary channel. It is also where people like me come in, integrating those products into our everyday lives for our audiences.

“Attention is currency,” Ndiege told Al Jazeera. “That is why the algorithm keeps changing to grab every piece of it.”

When the internet became a civic space

David Mbotela, who previously used social media actively but later stepped back from it, describes the transformation of the internet in broader terms.

“The internet began as a miracle of connection; machines speaking to machines. Then people speaking to people. Then ordinary people speaking to the world. What started as a network became a road. Once that road reached us, life began to move differently,” he told Al Jazeera.

We saw this in Kenyans for Kenya in 2011, when the country responded to famine in the north not only with sympathy but with coordinated action. M-Pesa, a mobile money transfer and payment service, became a lifeline, and mobile phones became collection tools.

Later, in October 2015, students in South Africa launched the #FeesMustFall movement, a student-led protest campaign against rising university fees, challenging the status quo and mobilising around free higher education.

A crisis that might once have remained local became continental, visible and shareable.

It happened again during the Finance Bill protests in Kenya, a youth-led movement against proposed tax increases, when young people turned the internet into a civic classroom.

Legal language was translated into TikTok explainers. People who had never read a bill before began discussing clauses, taxation, representation, police powers and public debt. The internet helped make political power and public policy easier to understand.

There is also the everyday transformation of social media. YouTube University. A boy in Kampala learns filmmaking from a creator in Canada. A Nigerian chef builds a global audience and breaks a Guinness World Record. A dancer turns 10 seconds on TikTok into a career, an arc that mirrors my own experience.

Social media has sped up cultural exchange and changed everyday language. Words and expressions now travel quickly and take on new meanings. In online culture, approval is “clocked”, excellence is seen as “cooking”, and strong statements are often marked with a full stop. The way people communicate has become faster, sharper and more informal.

The cost of constant connection

But social media also comes with consequences.

A family psychotherapist based in Nairobi, Maggie Gitu, told Al Jazeera that “social media flattens things in the way that it does not contextualise connections. Are we friends because we have access to each other?”

The answer is not straightforward. As a content creator, I build communities and relationships with audiences, and there is, at times, a sense of kinship. But these audiences know only what is shared with them. What is shared is carefully curated.

The same platforms that connect people also invite comparison. Instagram becomes a source of inspiration and, at the same time, a measure of inadequacy. An age-mate has bought land or is vacationing in Zanzibar. Someone else is engaged. Another has abs. A favourite podcaster has a new car, a child, a larger kitchen and a better sunset.

Social media did not invent envy, but it amplifies it. It produces constant evidence that someone, somewhere, appears to be doing better. Even when we know it is curated, the emotional impact remains strong.

We might as well learn what to carry, what to question and what to leave by the roadside.

Then comes embarrassment, shame and blame. We begin to understand that connection is not the same as community, but only a pathway to it. Constant connectivity has not necessarily produced deeper human relationships. The content creator does not show everything: The collapsing marriage, the pressure to maintain appearances, the mental strain when ideas run out, or when a post fails to perform.

Even the idea of what is “enough” becomes difficult to define.

Maggie Gitu offers a simple intervention: “You need an offline life and reality so that you don’t give undue power to other people’s online space.”

The solution, she suggests, is to log off and log back in, like David Mbotela did, only when one is grounded enough to distinguish reality from performance. False information once required institutional backing to spread widely. Now it only requires a caption and a viral moment.

What social media has become

So, what is social media to an African?

“It is a school. A market. A stage. A warzone. A newspaper. A courtroom. A rumour mill. A protest ground. A diary. A weapon,” according to Mbotela.

“Maybe social media was never going to save us or destroy us on its own. It was just meant to put our kindness, cruelty, hunger, boredom, and brilliance on the same vehicle.”