Social media – a Connect or a Disconnect?

Feb 21, 2017: From the era of post offices to instant messenger and e-mails, we have come a long way. The technology has truly and completely transformed our communication media.

Information is spread in a fraction of second and peoples' involvement in using these platforms is tremendous. They likeably share every little detail of their lives. It is nevertheless an exaggeration to say the world is now available at a click.

Our forefathers must have told us about how they use to wait for letters or telegraphs to reach their relatives or friends. Maybe the generation today can't relate to thousand wonderful emotions embraced in a letter to their loved ones!

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With the gargantuan outburst of social media applications and technologies, it has increased the ease of connectivity to a great extent. We are spoilt for choices when it comes to social media apps like Facebook, Messenger, Twitter, Whatsapp, Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Viber, Hike and many more.

Social media has successfully manifested a thought in us that we are socially active. But the question today is this notion of being a social media freak really encourages a genuine social behavior or is it just an illusion? Well making a thousand friends on Facebook and followers on Instagram or increasing your Whatsapp contacts may sounds like an alluring idea of being popular and socially active but it is far from reality.

Likes, comments, notifications have become an important part of our appreciation and identity but it won't be wrong to say that how oblivious we are about the truth. Social media apps may have undoubtedly made our conversations feasible with friends and extended family but it is sometimes time consuming, privacy stealing and meaningless to search for friends online and judge people from their profiles.

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Social media is highly misused to stalk people, to defame them publically, to provoke people and community by posting offensive comments, private pictures etc. The cases of cyber bullying, online harassment, trolling, internet fraud, unethical hacking etc. is increasing with increasing number of such platforms. The psychiatrists say that there is direct relation between excessive social media usage and depression. It is eventually turning us into loners.

Well it is totally up to us to choose between a real life and a chat room life. It is no harm using such platforms to connect ourselves with world and express ourselves but we should always be aware of whom we should open up with. It is in our hands to decide what should be given more priority so that we can balance our lives to enjoy real life experiences and moments which are never available online!

Centre for Social Action (CSA) is the development wing of Christ University. Set up in 1999, it believes in strengthening student community with a view to enabling positive changes in the society. Athina Ann Thomas is a volunteer at the organisation.