Social media has become a major part of our lives. It influences almost everything in our life _ the way we talk, the way we think. Social media is something that is constantly there in all aspects of our lives.
We check Instagram, Facebook every 5 minutes on an average. That means we are borderline addicted to internet and social media. Well, this is not entirely bad as it has been helping us in various ways too. Let us dive into the perks and cons of social media and how it has been affecting out lives on a day to day basis.
Creating and Maintaining contacts
You meet new people and make new contacts over social media. The most common question we ask someone upon meeting and getting to know a bit is whether or not are they on any social media platform. You make and sustain connections through social media as it is very easy. A like, a comment, a text and you will know about them or check on their wellbeing.
Keeping track of our acquaintances
Through social media it becomes very easy to keep a track of our friends and acquaintances. You can just know where they are, how they have been etc. This way you know about your loved ones and their lifestyle a little better.
Sea of endless opportunities
Social media is a sea of endless opportunities. There are so many examples where social media has landed people with tremendous job opportunities. Creative companies usually put out their ads on Instagram and Facebook to get the attention of youth and some socially active people who can help bring value to the brand by being media aware.
Social media and society
If you are a millennial you would have definitely heard your mother yelling “Aag laga de iss phone ko” – well they think that it is the root cause of all our problems and whilst I don’t agree with them, I don’t completely disagree with them either. Social media and phones have practically taken over our lives in every which way. I have seen people take their phones to the loo. Isn’t that a tad much? Well anyway, as I was saying, let us state facts here. More than 80% of our population is on Facebook. That means, most of the population has the access to information and the ability to share and spread that information. This is a good tool but every coin has two sides and likewise, this ability to share information can also be used to spread rumors and create panic or cause worry.
Social media and Mental health
Social media affects mental health on a major level. We are all aware of cyber bullying and various other negative aspects of it. Teenagers have a need to fit in, to be popular and to outdo others. Add Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram into the mix and you suddenly have teenagers feeling pressure to grow up too fast or FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) in an online world. All of this leads to a very vicious cycle of teenagers falling for various scams that may even be deadly at times.
I guess you all know about the ‘Tidepod challenge’ where, media publications started reporting about teenagers participating in the Tide Pod Challenge. The challenge is an Internet challenge in which an individual consumes Tide Pods. Teenagers were the reported demographic participating in the challenge; they would record themselves chewing and gagging on pods and then daring others to do the same. Some of these videos were posted on YouTube. Some teens cooked the pods prior to eating them. many teenagers were admitted to hospitals, and nearly a dozen children died.
“The Blue Whale” Challenge is also still fresh in the memories. Blue whale challenge has said to have killed nearly 350 people across the world. The Blue Whale Challenge was a suicide game, conducted primarily through social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. The game lasts for a total of 50 days, presenting the “player” with daily tasks. These tasks would start off easily with small things to do, but then would lead on to a difficult tasks like carving a blue whale shaped tattoo to even suicide. If the participant refuses to complete their task, the administrator will release, publish, share, and/or post something extremely personal or highly-sensitive online from their accounts (or at least lead them to believe they will).
To sum it up, social media is a good servant but a bad master. When you are in control of it, you can enjoy its benefits, but when it takes over you, you will face problems. Social media is a good platform to share your thoughts and ideas, but at the same time it has been affecting our personal life by making it transparent, because almost everyone knows where you are and what you are doing; sounds a little scary right!
Make use of social media in the right way and it will serve you the way it should, with moderation. Get too deep and you may drown.
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