Hiding Behind Social Media
A digital life is not supposed to take over your real life. And yet we almost always have our phones in our faces.
The world of social media is fast becoming the norm. People are living their best lives. Capturing it and broadcasting it on social media as a deeply recorded documentation of their perfect lives. Instead of creating memories, they are creating a story. A story built on lies hiding behind social media.
Instagram, Facebook, twitter. Almost all these platforms with their image sharing capabilities encourage daily postings, one user one-upping the other. There seldom is a place or a meal they would look like without arranging it and cropping it in their mind for the perfect instagram shot.
It used to be that social media was a way to get connected. A way to form bonds and keeping touch with others despite our busy lives. Now it looks like we are even busier with not a life to show for it. It has become a race for the most likes, the most retweets, the most heart.
But more threatening than these is the psychological impact it leaves our youth. That they need to be a certain way in order to be liked. That likes and popularity equals happiness. Not only is their psychological health in danger but also their physical health. There has been a number of reports of bad effects for short term and long term use like seizures, cybersickness, anxiety and dependency. They would hardly be on these gadgets a long time if not for their social media accounts.
More alarming still are those trolls and cyberbullies and so-called keyboard warriors. They hide behind their screen names targeting anything and everything. They utilise the power of anonymity and claim it all for their right to free expression. Trolls want attention and end goal is annoyance, that is why they are on the internet. Cyberbullies on the other hand, just want to cause deliberate hurt. They frequent social media platforms because their targets are on these platforms. It is best that you know what to do when plagued by these no-good entities.
These social media unpleasantries are now part and parcel of our technology-based world. It is a little interesting to see what good it will be to our society. But we should always be vigilant of the bad that could come of it, too.