Abstract

Social Media Communication has effectively infiltrated all kinds of social groupings, be it at family, community or corporate level. Incidentally, almost everyone who owns a smartphone, laptop, iPad or other related gadgets belongs to one, if not several, social media communication groups through different social media handles such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or WhatsApp Messenger. It is evident that social media groups have come to fill in the gap that has been created by distance between family and friends when members separate or are not together for a while. In this regard, social media group communication has kept family members, friends and workmates in constant and consistent interaction regardless of the distance between them. Regrettably, social media group communication has come with integrity challenges. The African cultural values imbedded in the family court among the Ndau people in particular have been severely affected. In this chapter, an interrogation of the ethics of social media group communication from an African auto-ethnographic viewpoint is proffered. The chapter argues that, while social media group communication has become trendy in the era of the global village, it has also shattered the essential and valuable African traditional family court system.