I made my first email account(s) when I was 14 years old. At that time having an email ID was considered a luxury and going to cyber café was even bigger luxury (they used to charge 60 rs per hour in those days). Today having a mail id for kids aging 12-13 years is so common like owning a cricket bat was for kids in my days. Gosh I sound so old.
Yahoo messenger was the only medium at that time to interact with strangers and MIRC chat was available if you are a nerd. Slowly Orkut era took over and then facebook followed by twitter, whatsapp, skype, instagram and dunno what. Social Network is a huge part of almost everyone’s life and thou shalt have whatsapp and an account of facebook if you want to stay in touch with your friends and loved ones. We don’t write letters these days, testimonials and wall posts have taken over.
But something that is most important and you can say negative aspect of social networking is that it makes users think that they have an identity. Facebook and twitter are cluttered with online campaigns and petitions making people think that via facebook they can bring certain changes like curbing poverty in Slums of Mumbai, find a solution for hungry kids in Africa and bringing the world peace. Online soldiers of India and Pakistan are at constant battle on Facebook pages.
Somehow I smell a conspiracy about all this social networking stuff. People have stopped stepping out, they think taking a stand online is the best they could do and they believe that posting their opinions on social media pages and hashtags is the best way they can be heard. Social media is the best way to divert attention from what is actually going around in this world. In an attempt to be hypothetically social we are getting cut off from this world.
People don’t want to get out, to talk to their friends skype and whatsapp is there. Coffee shops are for people who seek solitude and want to read a book in peace. For further solitude people have even stopped touching books thanks to kindle.
We can conclude following things from this trend.
1. Social media is an attempt to keep people away from actual problems that exist around us.
2. It gives people power to be heard who don’t deserve to be heard.
3. An object of mass hallucination that we are living in a better world.
4. This is Matrix and Social media will take over humanity one day.
Social network has brought people closer and has taken far away at the same time. This addiction is going to prove fatal in the long run. I don’t want to step up as humanity’s last hope if A.I takes over the planet someday.
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