Someone has rightly said “Social media has created jealous behavior over illusions. Sadly, some are envious of things, relationships and lifestyles that don’t even exist.”
Social media is one of the most common platforms for everyone to connect with known and unknown people from all over the world. The impact of social media (WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, etc.) on human behavior totally depends on how we use it. It has brought people with common interests together and expanded the horizon of ideas worldwide. However, there has also been a powerful negative impact of social media on human behaviour and society.
Social media helps us connect with our friends and relatives. It keeps us updated. It is a great employment provider and also helps businesses understand customer preferences and save advertisement costs. Truly, social media gives access to varied opinions and thoughts from different cultures and regions. This has the power to make people broad-minded and develop mutual respect for people from different backgrounds. Besides, people are also using social media platforms to collaborate for good causes like for imparting education, helping those in need and spreading awareness, etc.
However, nowadays, the negative aspects of social media often overshadow its positive aspects. Social media is becoming one of the dangerous viruses attacking society. The daily use of social media by people has increased so much that it is slowly injecting an inflexion into our behaviour, mainly among our younger generation. A tremendous amount of time is wasted across the globe for nothing. Addiction to social media resembles addiction to alcohol or drugs. Lack of communication and face to face interaction, are some of the primary problems that social media gives rise to.
We are not able to fully enjoy eating out or other social activities because we are busy with handling and posting on social media. We also suffer from they-are-doing-well-syndrome, when we see other people enjoying their life and posting photographs of various activities they are involved in. We, humans, are crazy for attention and social media is a channel which gives us this high resulting in various severe situations such as teens suffering from anxiety, depression when they face cyberbullying, low self-esteem levels arising from watching others showing off their talents and success, fake news causing panic among people, gossiping, a threat to privacy, and many more limitations. Trolling is one of the major negative consequences of rampant use of social media.
However, despite the adverse effects, social media can be considered as a boon for society. If used appropriately, it will enhance personal growth, make people familiar with new developments and technologies, and help in learning new skills. However, serious steps should be taken to mitigate the negative influences of social media, particularly fake news, trolling, etc. Cyber protection cells and artificial intelligence together can solve these problems to a great extent. More awareness programs are needed to help people know about the good and dark sides of social media.
In the end, we must all remember, “Social media should improve your life, not become your life.”