Social Media and the 'F' word

I wrote this article on evil effects of social media for a youth magazine 'The Lantern'.

With the advent of new media in the form of social networking sites like Facebook, video sharing sites such as YouTube, BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), WhatsApp, and microblogging platforms like Twitter; social media has become a hub of social connections. The growth of social media and its penetration into our life has become undeniable.  It indeed has redefined communication and is setting new set of social norms and mannerisms.

People use this media to meet long lost schoolmates, college mates, meet new like-minded friends and online dating. They discuss on different topics, share information, and exchange files and pictures. Marketers use it to promote their products and services and professionals use it for business networking and get noticed.

Critics keep stating about the dark or rather evil side of social media. Now the question arises, do social media really have one? Well, to some extent yes. Parents, teachers and bosses are frightful on the usage of the ‘F’ word. I am talking about Facebook here.

The fast paced technology driven 21st century youth have become totally addicted to the social media. My personal experiences in the classroom regarding mobile usage are annoying. Most of the students spend their class time even during lectures checking, updating and communicating on social media sites. Students have become obsessed regarding their online presence. They spend hours on these sites even during exam period failing to realise the importance of high priority tasks.

Employees at work have been said to be equally distracted by social media sites, particularly BBM. Even if they keep the mobile phones on silent profiles during meeting, one has the tendency to check them regularly. The focus on work is easily lost and work begins to suffer as a result of it.

It has been observed that those who are addicted to social media particularly youth find it difficult to successfully interact with people face to face. Majority of them spend most of their time online; making friends and interacting with them in virtual world thus hampering their interpersonal relationships in real world. They can gossip, quarrel, build their fake image, boast about their life and most importantly do ‘sexting’ online thus giving them more power in virtual world. 

Social media encourages people to share personal information and people do not mind sharing it, many a times they share their email id and personal numbers too. Anti-social elements can use this information through fake identity to indulge into illegal activities. Hackers can commit fraud, send spams and do virus attacks using this information.

Social media users rarely cross check the information and keep forwarding it resulting in hoax messages getting spread all over. By doing this one is inviting trouble for him/her to become part of online scams and in worst situations identity theft also. Some of these sites sell this personal information to anyone who wants to buy it. On top of it these sites always carry a disclaimer stating that they are free to change their privacy policy any time. One cannot legally sue them for their misconduct. Let me ask you one simple question, how many times have you read the terms and conditions before signing up on any social networking platform?

One also needs to understand that whatever is posted and shared online is being closely watched by family members and potential employers. They may check your online profile to find your persona and judge you.

Researchers have also stated that social media is leading to narcissistic behaviour in people. Narcissism can be explained as “excessive vanity and a sense of entitlement”, meaning it leads to self loving tendencies in people. They further warn that such narcissist tendencies are anti-social as it can lead to an artificial life, increased aggression amongst users and also making people less sympathetic to others feelings in non-virtual world.

The time spent on social media is on the cost of social activities. People will look at the posts, updates and pictures of their friends and acquaintances on social media but rarely will they meet in person. This also affects their family life.  

Regular use of social media is resulting in decreased value of written word, slang language is used more over internet and overall disregard for grammar and punctuation is seen. Prolonged use of internet can also have severe health implications as it may affect your eyes, and result in back and neck problems.

There is no doubt that social media is having adverse effects. But any medium by default does not have good or bad characteristics. It’s the use of those media that makes it useful or useless. If one uses social media strategically, it can do wonders.

In a recent American study, it was found out that social media can actually increase students’ learning techniques. Students comfort level on social media is more while interacting and thus they can solve their queries and discuss their subject here in a better manner. Visiting right kind of pages will only enhance their knowledge. Lot of educational videos are also found on social media that makes learning process as a much more enjoyable experience.

It is not for the first time any media is criticised. Whenever anything new comes up people are awkward about its correct usage. There were cases where critics had confidently predicted that the changes would result in total shutdown of the society at large and individuals in particular. Definitely when new concept comes, it has to make space in the existing old set up sometimes there is loss of quality in the process but we need to carefully observe that the loss here is also eventually resulting in profit there.

What is needed is the right frame of mind and appropriate approach to fight the evil and stress on the good? This changed approach may help users to stand out by using the social media platforms.