For once, Kenya is in first place. Not in terms of budgets, healthcare or schools falling apart under the weight of election promises. It is in first place in something else, something much quieter and much louder at the same time: five hours and ten minutes a day spent scrolling through a screen.
Five hours and ten minutes.
Roughly the time spent waiting in an office in Mombasa, or the chronic delay of a plumber in Machakos.
Three hundred and ten minutes of daily life evaporated into Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, like water on the hot sand of Watamu or the dusty stones of Wajir. Three hundred and ten minutes in which the country stops, looks down and slips into a luminous pocket.
It's a world record, according to reports. More than the Americans, more than the Chinese, more than anyone else. Kenya is the most social nation on the planet. The most connected. The most glued.
And it's news that, when you look at it closely, is a little scary.
And a little touching.
Because for once, this country of chronic inequality, of roads that end abruptly, of schools without desks and skyscrapers with rooftop swimming pools, is truly united. From mud villages to glass towers in Nairobi. From fishermen on the coast to shepherds in the north. From shacks to guarded compounds. All together. All bent over. All with their phones in their hands.
A people finally equal. In front of the screen.
In the village without stable electricity, mobile phones are charged at the neighbour's house who has a generator. In the chic neighbourhood, smartphones are changed every six months. But the gesture is the same: scrolling. Liking. Sending audio messages. Watching videos of others living other lives. Dreaming within someone else's dream.
Five hours a day is not just a statistic. It is a collective biography. It is an unpaid shift. It is a second working day spent giving attention to the multinationals of attention.
While outside, the country continues to stumble.
We scroll while there is no water.
We scroll while the hospital has no medicine.
We scroll while the price of corn rises.
We scroll while politicians make promises and forget them.
We scroll while the future remains in the waiting room.
Kenya is young, they say.
And in fact, it is mainly young people who live on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. Ninety-seven minutes a day just for short videos. Ninety-seven minutes watching edited lives, filtered smiles, rented successes.
An entire generation is growing up learning more choreography than trades, more slogans than critical thinking, more filters than tools.
And it's not their fault. It's never just their fault.
It's just that here, free time is often empty time. It's just that when real opportunities are lacking, those with a salary and dignity, people seek virtual ones, with followers and illusions.
Better to be poor but viral than poor and invisible.
Better to have a thousand likes than no prospects.
Better a successful video than an ignored CV.
So the country tells its own story, without mediators or moderators.
It recounts its dramas, its funerals, its protests, its laughter, its improvised miracles. All live. All shared. All consumed in a matter of seconds.
Pain lasts as long as an Instagram story.
Anger lasts as long as a trending topic.
Hope lasts as long as a charged battery.
Then it starts all over again.
The report also says that men dominate the platforms of debate, confrontation and noise. Women dominate those of images, aesthetics and beauty. It is as if the traditional division of roles is reproduced online with cruel precision.
The screens change. The dynamics do not.
Facebook remains the great global village. Three billion people.
A huge square where everyone talks and no one really listens.
WhatsApp is the new rural radio, the new bar, the new confessional.
TikTok is the circus. YouTube is the alternative school.
Instagram is the showcase of dreams.
And Kenya is in it up to its neck.
Not because it is modern, perhaps. But out of necessity.
Because when reality is fragile, the internet becomes a refuge.
When the future is uncertain, the digital present seems more controllable.
When the country fails to keep its promises, at least the smartphone responds.
Five hours and ten minutes a day is a secular prayer. A national ritual. A collective escape. A silent cry.
They are the sign of a country that wants to be seen. That wants to count. That wants to exist even if, in real life, it is often not allowed to.
A country that spends half the day watching the world, while the world pays little attention to it.
And so yes, we are number one.
Champions of wasted time.
Champions of scattered attention.
Champions of modernity without a safety net.
From huts to skyscrapers, from beaches to deserts, all together in the same gesture: scrolling down.
As if, sooner or later, somewhere, a different notification should appear.
One that says: future available.
One that says: opportunity coming.
One that says: this country can really do it.
For now, however, only another selfie video arrives.
And we watch it.