Social media- creating new bridges for communication

Recent trends indicate that masses are ever increasingly dependent on social media, not just for communicating and socialising, but also for keeping abreast with the times – for regular current affairs. This is problematic in the view of the unreliability of the information bombarded into our senses. For instance, a person sharing certain content may not be as powerful, beautiful, or influential as his/her social media profile suggests. We all are aware of the Photoshop tool, using which people modify their pictures in order to look ‘good’ and collect more ‘likes’. This, as confirmed scientifically, leads to a lowered sense of self, i.e., self-confidence, increasing inferiority complex and insecurities among teenagers, depression, and even suicidal tendencies in the case of being cheated or bullied online.

Another point that I put forth in this article is regarding the way in which social media has changed or reduced (I would say), the face of activism. All of us feel the emotional pull when the picture and description of some moving or not-so-moving incident flashes in our News Feed, asking us to like and share it as a token of respect or support or protest. But the point is how useful is this action? Liking a cause does not make a change, going out and acting in real time does! When a girl recently posted on her social media account about her grandfather’s demise, she was shocked and upset to see the number of likes hit on the update. When inquired about the same, her classmates admitted that it was their way of paying respect to the deceased. The implications of this in various aspects of our lives are complex indeed, and surely troublesome. Readers may view a very famous advertisement regarding this phenomenon at the given link –http://www.boredpanda.com/liking-isnt-helping-crisis-relief-singapore. The crux of the argument is that liking makes us feel we are contributing to a cause, when the reality is different. Think upon it…

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