How many times do you say admiring words to the people whose photos or posts are liked umpteen times by you on Facebook or anywhere else on the internet? For most of us, it would be hardly 1 or 2 times and that too to only a few selected persons.
So, what does it mean? In my view, it simply means that, in reality, we don’t even want to praise those persons because if it had been the other way then we could’ve praised them face to face. By hitting the ‘Like’ button, most of us seem to just complete our duty that got automatically assigned to us because the other person often hits Likes on our posts too. Elements like hitting ‘Likes’, upvoting someone’s comment or following someone have now lost their actual meanings and have just become norms for people these days.
Now, think about the glee and the amount of happiness on that person’s face whom you would’ve appreciated directly instead of using the internet for doing the same. Also, no one’s able to cherish the smile of the person when he/she sees our Likes on his/her photo or post.
Imagine all such emotions that we miss just because we’ve devised a new lifeless way of interacting with the people surrounding us. Nowadays only typed words, electronic audio and recorded videos have become the primary medium for communicating with each other. Why is it happening? Aren’t the natural ways like talking, sharing smiles, making gestures, holding someone’s hands and taking a walk with them good enough to survive and express our thoughts to our acquaintances (at least for those whom we meet often)?
In between all such interrogations, one fact that can’t be denied is that internet and social networking has enormously helped people to connect with those dwelling thousands of miles away or any past friends. As far as distant interactions are concerned, internet has proven to be nothing less than a boon for the human fraternity. Then where’s the problem?
The boon gets converted into a bane when it comes to the adverse effects caused by internet on the lifestyle of the bunch of people living in each other’s vicinity. Yes, it often happens that people sit close to each other for hours and still fail to make an eye contact because their eyes are buried into the display screens of any electronic gadget and their minds are logged into their social networking accounts. Due to this horrifying trend where people adjacent to each other seldom strike a conversation, the games and the creative activities that people used to perform 10-15 years ago are vanishing at an unprecedented rate. What’s more saddening is that with the rise of online world, the humanly feelings, true happiness, harmony and emotions are getting leaner day by day.
We cannot forget that the human race is a paradigm of co-existence and being social. There’s no way of living a typical human life by secluding ourselves from the real world. No matter how luring and vivid the world of internet is, but ultimately it is VIRTUAL!! Knowing what’s real and then living it is the way to true happiness. Humans made inventions for raising the standard of living and making implausible things plausible but with the passage of time, humans have become slaves of their own creation and ironically, the invention of smart-phones has made people dumber and more stupid.
Finally, it’s time to discuss the impact of internet and social networking on us-Indians. Today, approximately 243 Million Indians are internet users and out of which 92 Million Indians are Facebook users, but I can assure that not more than 10 million of the total lot make correct use of it. Rather, most of us end up wasting our time, energy and most importantly our creativity. Understanding the gravity of the situation, China has started taking some really effective measures especially to ensure that their children lay more emphasis on physical activities like Karate, painting, aerobics, etc. instead of diffusing their potential on social networking.
At last, what I want to convey is that for once please log out yourself from this enticing virtual world and try logging in to the real, tangible and natural world.
