Social Media – Saviour or a Culprit ???

The Social Media Managers of popular social sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat etc must have created these with the intention to connect people from all parts of the world and make them accessible to each other irrespective of the large distances across. Considering the way social media has formed an indispensable part of everyone’s lives, it can be said that the world has indeed come closer and accessible by a single touch on the phone.  However on the other hand social media has also created distances between users and their own real world!

The basic tactic involved in social media management is all about the number of likes, more the number of likes on a particular post or picture, more would be the incentive to use the social media for self or a brand promotion. In the lure of getting more likes on a particular post, people tend to connect with more and more users and this is how people come together in the virtual world.

Apart from promotion and branding, social media also serves the purpose of keeping one updated with what is going on in the lives of friends through what they post on social websites, which may again be a false or exaggerated presentation of self. With websites like Skype it has now become possible to video chat with our loved ones around the globe.

As said already, there’s a lure and craze in people to get appreciated and liked on social media. Psychologically, it’s seen more in people who are actually isolated and suffering from inferiority complex. No wonder we see some people posting so many of their so called happy pictures and showing off their lavish lifestyle. However, the reality may be quite different and that’s why the real and genuine way to connect to friends should be through regular physical interactions rather than following up on social media.

Some users are so particular in updating every detail of their life on social media that they don’t get the time to actually live in that moment which they are busy sharing with the world.

While some like to share and show their lifestyle onto social sites, there are some people who might feel insecure, envious and tend to fall into comparisons. Such attitudes lead to negativity and even depression, especially among young teens. And to speak of teen, there are criminals who use social sites as snare to trap and torment young girls.

No doubt, there have been so many cases of cyber crime in past few years.

Social media is like a mirage…whatever one sees on it or whoever one meets through it may not be true every time, so one got to be on guard before believing anything one sees. And while it’s good to connect with long lost friends and with loved ones living far away, it’s also important that one doesn’t forget to live in the moment and to give more importance to physical interactions over online chats and lastly never let online time to kill all your time.

Time should be used wisely to live in the real world achieve goals and spend it with family. 

Social media is like a great power vested in our hands in its upto us to use it wisely

          The author of this opinion article is Ms. Kavya Pawar at PR Professionals