Social Media-Good or Bad

Social Media-Good or Bad

Today in the morning I went to a hospital to visit an uncle in our neighbourhood who lives alone as his children lives in foreign country. He had contracted a heart attack previous night. Thanks to his watchman who had come up nearly at the same time to check if uncle had taken his medicines timely.

None of the 1453 facebook friends he had mentioned proudly some days before came even to meet him after the mishap. That made me realize how the virtual world that we have created around us is far off from the reality. If we go on to check chronology we had pigeons, letters and newspapers, telegrams, telephones, televisions, PCs (internet, websites), small handsets, laptops, etc.

And now we have smart phones (digital apps). This is the sequential development of our information, communication and media which we owe it to our science and technology. This virtual global village and its connections enhanced further with social media websites on PCs getting converted in the form of Apps on the smartphones.

Social Media can be described as a virtual place over internet where we can express our views on various issues, share information, advertise our business, work on our hobbies, enjoy the celebrations of near ones by watching the live telecast of the events going on may 180 degree longitudes away and much more.

The well known names of some social media platforms are Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Quora, Youtube, Snapchat, etc. Lets talk some stories about this social media… On TV before my everyday serial starts, a guy in advertisement talks about how his dish painting hobby became a crore business in just few days. In Start up crazy world of today,

social media has become the most important tool to create and analyse the market base, check customer demands, advertise the product and then sale it over online shopping websites. One may think had the successful cooperatives like Lijjat Papad had access to such tools then.

Also when I try finding like minded peoples grps on my gardening hobby, I get a lot of new information about various plants, fertilizers one might use and also get them delivered at my doorstep on just one comment drop. Also Whatsapp like platforms have helped farmers of remote villages to create and maintain supply chains of their organic farm products through their customer groups.

Many social media platforms now a days shows us the happenings around the world. May it be some cruelty against humanity or some awesome natural phenomenons like meteorite shows, eclipses with the help of videos and photos.

Also government can be made aware of their ignored work as seen on Twitter. Students from different fields find excess sources of information on topics of their interests, various free courses to learn and upgrade knowledge instead of wasting energy to find them physically in the near by locality.

Also in the times of Corona and lock downs where people had to stay at home for long or away from their family for lot of days, social media proved to be a boon. People remained in contact with each other through video calls, online freelancing jobs for unemployed, work from home for employed, help for the migrants going back home, online education for school going children, mental helplines, etc.

all this was possible because of the robust connections through the social media platforms. Also many websites and organisations advertise themselves and the programs they organize like competitions or donation camps to encourage participation and creativity among children.

Government also finds it easy to reach out to the remotest places and make every nook and corner aware and reap the benefits from the various schemes being implemented for their betterment just because of social media. There are many good stories are related to social media. But just in the way Swami Vivekanand has said, ‘anything in excess is poison’, similarly use of social media in excess has catastrophic repercussions.

Hence there are many bad accounts reported about it. One might be aware about the Pegasus software which was in news recently for stealing of data from whatsapp and also Aadhar Case about the data privacy. Data piracy and data privacy issues and the first and most crucial shortcoming of any social media platform.

All this brings into picture the prevalent cyber crimes like hacking, snooping, data tempering, ransomeware attacks etc. In easy words, some people are able to use information of an individual may be for some wrong purposes or get access to some confidential information important for particular company or organisation to blackmail them for money.

This becomes the technical aspect. When we move on to societal angle of the problem, some of the issues that are being faced are of fake information and also copyright issues. So much of the information that we find being forwarded on the Whatsapp is most of the times unverified and false.

Also there are many such contents or e-books, movies that get leaked and there are copyright violations. Along with this, people who are new to social media are fearful about the privacy issues, lack the knowledge about various apps, various methods to do activities on the social media platforms.

Social media becomes a powerful tool for the terrorist organisations or separatists group to mobilize and recruit people to their organisations; also for money laundering and terror financing. Also now a days there is a new term in trend ‘Political Polarization’ through social media that is selective exposure to an individual only about his political preferences that he likes. Also u might have seen if one day you saw sarees on some website every time you open any platform you will receive advertises of the same everywhere.

This is a strategy of companies to advertise according to the likes of customers. One of the social institution that is getting most affected is family.

Generally everyone has family of 4 or 5 generally and not like the joint ones in the olden times. In that too everyone has their own smartphones to use. So living in one home also each individual is creating their own virtual walls.

When u check at home also even when sitting in the same hall instead of spending time with the close ones one might be busy entertaining themselves with social media. One might argue that one does have work on the phone, fine u might have but just remember the childhood days.

After coming home from work dad of the house became one with family and a delicious dinner served on the table with lots of fun to share everyone had in their day. I guess nowadays that fun is being sought into the jokes shared on the chat box of some platform.

Another incident that comes to mind is when guest came home they generally used to begin the conversation by asking “how are you?” which has changed to “Do you have a small pinned charger?”

This shows what place smartphones/ social media has taken in our lives. Now lets talk about the individual sphere, one of the most significant but the most ignored sphere now-a-days. Modern digital world is rightly referred to as the selfie culture.

I heard a speech from one of my school teachers who mentioned selfie culture being the two sides of the same coin. One takes us towards self-centeredness and another one takes us towards self-analyzation or contemplation about self

. The first one is the symbol of showing off and running away from the originality and the latter one makes us find out who we actually are. First one takes us close to material world that is the looks, appearance, wealth, etc. Another one takes us close to the actual truth about our existence, the true love, compassion, etc.

So it feels like social media is making us get entangled in the outer world and make us lose our connection with the inner voice. But must always remember, ‘all that glitters, is not gold’ and ‘appearances can be deceptive’ many a times in this context too.

Another major problem social media is creating, is due to this photos and videos of virtual celebrations, in an already over-competitive and over-stressed world, people are fighting with a new mental issue called FOMO(Fear of Missing Out).

Individual feels like he/she is not getting to enjoy the moment he/she is watching on the stories or status posted on social media sites by their friends. This is a fancy word given to a feeling of depression or social anxiety common especially among the youths. In short it is affecting mental health of youths and children.

Lets wait for a moment and think about the older generations when people didn’t have access to these entertainment units. All information they used to generate was through print media. But when mother shares her experiences as a child they feel more promising and enjoyable compared to what we enjoy on social media.

They use to have evening physical plays where many children met like khokho, kabaddi, langdi, etc or collecting some eatables and it used to be a 2 hrs of relaxation therapy, exercise and stress buster.

There was no need of special gyms and diet charts. Women in the home used to find time for chatting and other arts like knitting, embroidery, singing songs, etc. Other than 3 basic needs there were no competitions and no compulsory classes, no kitty parties and no photos of every single food item and every single celebration on facebook, whatsapp.

Everything came from bottom of heart and not just a decoration to show the world. Also they could survive without internet which seems impossible today. We have become such a slave of social media that, now we have 4th basic need in the form of rechargeable data packs in mobile or wifi for continuous access to internet.

There are countless number of such problems like cyber-bullying, addiction, commercialization, insomnia, etc. What a Paradox! Right? The science that has been found out for the betterment of humanity has turned out to be its biggest enemy. One must try finding solutions over these problems.

First and foremost step in case of technical aspects like cyber crimes and cyber terrorism government must heir experts to deal with the situations, and empower the existing organizations like National Cyber Coordination Centre (NCCC) to its maximum capacity. Also camps must be hold of digital literacy to make people fearless about the minimal use of these platforms.

The societal problems should be handled at society levels by making everyone aware about the hazards and organizing various programs that will encourage least use of social media and involve physical participation (taking care of all the current safety measures off course).

In family too the parents in the family must restrict their mobile usage and try to create such an atmosphere that every member in the family feels it better than sticking to the social media apps.

Lastly the most important is managing the personal anxiety and stress levels i.e. self examining and finding the solutions over personal problems that is best possible through meditations and understanding ones priorities, goals of life and making our mind strong. Also rather than building castles in the virtual world of fame, one must understand that they are chasing the mirage and the real happiness is living in the reality.

It is understandable that the world is moving forward and we must too in the same pace. But knowing stuff and coming under its complete influence are different phenomenons. One must know almost all the aspects of social media to make its effective use.

But one must always choose the path of moderation. It is rightly said that,

जे न देखे रवि, ते देखे कवी | जे न देखे कवी, ते विज्ञान दाखवी

This saying means that where sun has not reached there a poet can reach (by his thoughts), but in today’s world, where poet also can’t reach, science can take us to that place (by technological innovations). Science has made the impossible possible. But every invention of science works like a weapon and will always have both angles constructive and destructive.

Human has been gifted with prudence, understanding of wrong and right, decision making capacity, and how to use the weapon in hand effectively. Hence one must collectively take intelligent steps towards curbing the menace created by social media and work for betterment of humanity to make it sustainable.

– Aditi Dhale