Social Media

Social Media has evolved since it started when I was in my middle school. Back then there was only email, but there was very less influence of Facebook, twitter, Myspace or YouTube. The main aim of social media in my view is to provide information and also a better way for communication. Back then the main sources of communication were telephones and for information, it was television. Fast-forward to the present day, social media seems to be an integral part of our lives. For example I had a discussion with my friend where we discussed about an article which mentioned that Facebook was going to be shut down from Nov 1^st. And his immediate reaction was that “WTF, I can’t live without Facebook. They can’t do that “. This reaction really astonished me and made me think whether Social Media has done good or bad to us.

So I started pondering over pros and cons of it. Whomever I asked started talking about the benefits of it. But I thought there are many evil effects of it too. So here are a few of them why we need not take Social Media seriously.
       

People tend to wear a mask always:
What does that mean? Here in social media we are dealing with an artificially created world where the means of communication is very different. As people used to social media they feel these online conversations are better than face-to-face communications. In these conversations you can hide your originality and try to be someone else. It is literally possible to be invisible in certain social media environments: Whether you are viewing someone’s profile or page, watching videos or reading the comments on a thread, you don’t have to worry about how you look, how you sound, how people think of your body language. And all these conversations need not be happening in real time. For example if you comment on a photo the person has a lot of time to think and give a reply, unlike real time conversations.

Social Media can expose you to nasty people:

A September 2014 survey of 1200 social media users published in Personality and Individual Differences showed that sadism, narcissism and psychopathy were extremely high only among people who said that trolling was their favorite online activity. When you comment on a topic there are chances that you can be trolled. This is done by mostly “Sadist” people who find amusement doing this. This increases their level of sadism which reflects in their real life.

Social Media may be a new addictive drug:

I can give an example for this. Last month there was total blackout of Facebook for 30 min all around the world. That’s it people started behaving crazily. People started going mad. As a drug addict goes mad if he doesn’t get his drugs on time. In a survey conducted on 1000 students, where they were asked to keep technology away for one day. The people who conducted the survey were shocked to see the behavior changes in the students. They started complaining about panic attacks and heart palpitations.

Social Media and conflicts:

Now a days it’s become a habit of starting conflicts between 2 groups due some silly reason and this activates to a larger issue. People of one group start commenting badly about another group and the other group does the same…!! This becomes a continuous process and never ending too. Social Media is connecting all like-minded people but also creating conflicts between two groups.

Everyone tries to back up what they do. Same goes with social media. We always search for the good coming out of it. Who cares about those 99 ill effects when all we look is that one good thing. Isn’t that true??

Well, knowing those 99 flaws is more important. I didn’t find all those 99 points but some are here. You are most vulnerable on the web. You never know who you are facing. You never know who is hiding behind the mask. You never know what’s in the jack-in-the-box. What people show themselves online is in stark difference to what they are in real lives. The conversations we make online do not include emotions. You can never say if the person is really happy just because he puts a happy face at the end of the conversation. Online conversations are deceptive. I don’t say it’s bad to use social media you can all use social media as a tool but never get addicted to it. If you think u are using it too much, take a break.

Spend time in real life too..! 

#Knowing #9D

You may also check:

Top9 Android apps for your mobile

Android Lollipop 5.0 - new dessert on Nexus

R.I.P. Orkut