What is unacceptable on streets is accepted online. Reel can never replace real. Social media has turned out to be a monstrous web which has consumed us all. It has become a tool where people go crazy trolling others and indulge in shameless narcissism. Facebook has become a nuisance. It is a Fakebook where people mask their true colours and try to be what they are not in their actual lives. Lies, cyber bulling, criticism, hate, crusading and abuse have become a new normal on virtual world.
Devoid of ethics and authentication we are taught at journalism schools, the nonsense posted on social media sites breeds trouble. Most of its users post anything and everything without even meaning it. This faceless platform does not filter the content. It is a safe den for those digital self-styled clerics who issue fatwa’s on everything they believe does not subscribe to their cocooned and borrowed mindset. They indulge in mudslinging and defamation. Gone are the days of backbiting. Now, we are doing it on Facebook. Aren’t we?
With no gate keeping, an amateur chap calls the shots and befriends every unknown person to seek attention. While unknown person gets carried away with his rhetoric, his creativity and growth restricts.
The followers or so called friends judge a person on the basis of the content he loads on social sites. At times, we become a topic for a sadistic debate among our random ‘friends’. Instead of using it for information dissemination and rational discussions, our “impatient” youngsters have turned it into a garbage dump. This is really tragic which affects relations. It has become a yardstick to pass a judgement. We must stop looking at the world through our cell phone screen. A real experience always tells a different story.
Facebook has unmasked many who pretend to be decent and take high moral ground in their real lives. It does the ideological scanning. Do I need to explain it? Check out the personal messages of girls on Facebook, real demons will come to fore.
Its misuse by fickle minded greenhorns has fuelled rumour mills. Rumour mongering created chaos during last year’s polio immunization campaign and flash floods of September’14. The pseudo-scribes who operate these accounts do it for the ‘glamour’ attached to the otherwise sacred profession.
Recently, The Hoot carried a very important piece about the crisis in social media. Jeff Joseph Paul Kadicheeni, the author, raised some valid points which must be followed in letter and spirit. He points out that the generation next has come to accept obnoxiousness as a way of life and rants as facts. They weigh their opinion on what they see on social media feeds. It ceases the creativity of prosperous minds. Aggressive mob on social media rips apart and lynch the other who toes their defined and drawn Lakshman Rekha. Our two liners do not make us revolutionaries. Recent study by Indiana University found that social media users are unhappy than those who don’t access it. Besides, the disturbing news we all must know is that whatever we post on social media is never erased. Even if we delete it, the content is saved in data bank. So, think, before you vomit on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
Moreover, endlessly browsing through your timeline affects the state of mind. Besides being a waste of time, it is a constant source of anxiety and social pressure. People live and die for digital dreams. Youngsters have reduced it to a tissue paper where they vomit out every silly update.
Irrelevant posts, unnecessary tags and emotionless reactions irk people beyond bearing. Facebook has become an easy medium to humiliate people. It is our collective responsibility to refrain from posting the stuff which does no good to us. We may get fame for a day or two but it ruins the lives of many. Self-censorship will help us in our mental growth.
Of late, we are witnessing the sectarian divide on social media. Spreading hatred against other sects on particular groups on Facebook and WhatsApp where Facebook Molvis issue decrees and label the followers of different schools of thought as “Kaafir”. The ill-tempered lot carry out scathing attacks on Facebook. This “War of Words” has only spread hatred.
Twitter Co-founder Evan Williams recently remarked that there is a lock on our office door and our house at night but nothing online
[Source”indianexpress”]