Social Media

Social Media

Man is a social animal, since the time of evolution he left all the wild and frightening habits and acquired new social ways of living. He started worshiping various virtual gods, like Rain, Wind & Sun because they were giving all the tools for living. He started celebrating festivals, from the day he learned farming he started enjoying harvest season as a festival.

Now things have changed a lot, with the development of new technologies all the scenario is different, with the advancement of telecommunication in the whole world has come close to the edges of our fingertips, initially we used these new tools of communication for sharing important information, news, alerts etc…but now social media has become part and parcel of everyday life and means of communications has gone beyond just sharing news, this has become need of modern life. And there is nothing wrong with using Social Media but now this is going beyond limits, it has gone above need and become craze or addiction, people are forgetting the real purpose of it.

Few of my friends are spending most of their time online on WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram but are they communicating? Daily I get one message from few of them and that’s is Good Morning, Good Afternoon, Good Evening…and they are so particular in sending this, that do not forget to send it on time – daily & regularly, just like doctor prescribes medicines but I really wonder how they manage the timetable as in today’s busy life we forget to have lunch on time, at times we miss important calls due to work and how these people find time and energy to send these messages which actually do not have any information, any news and just eat our important time and data, suppose if they are really concerned about someone and send these kinds of messages, then at times it could be understood, but I replied to one of the good morning messages saying hi, how are you, is there anything important, please call, can we speak but sadly there was no response!

That shows that there is no emotions attached to social media messages people have just become habitual so they send it, as I said above the world came closer, we speak to the strange person at few kilometers away may from different country but we are afraid of talking to someone next door, someone seating close while we travel, we don’t speak to the friend or relatives but we just forward baseless unimportant messages. There are few cases where husband and wife could not speak to each other on their real issues at hand but the same couple was chatting online comfortably, they even can’t convey their love in person but only online and this is really very strange. Time has come that we all should educate ourselves on Social Media usage.

A few days back people were not accepting that snoring and insomnia is a disease and we need to seek medical help for the same, but now people are visiting doctors there are so many sleep therapists around us. The same way though we won’t accept widely that Social Media addiction is a real issue but there are doctors dedicated to this and if we don’t educate early then their numbers would increase.

What’s the moral of the story: Self Discipline

1. We should restrain ourselves from sending a useless message.
2. Check the authenticity of the message it’s sender and then forward that too only if it is necessary.
3. Don’t circulate any message which contains hatred, religious disharmony, or racist views.
4. Don’t fall prey to rumors and promotional messages, don’t send any message which asks other people to ask them to send it to another 10 people.
5. If there is any message asking for help like searching for lost person or asking for blood donation, job vacancy or any help, make sure it is authentic and there is a date in the message, otherwise people circulate 3 years old message of searching a kid or asking blood even the patient is out of hospital now.
6. Don’t think that if don’t send any knowledge filled post which you received the world will lose some important skills…no. There are enough sources online to get all the knowledge so don’t take that burden on your shoulders.
7. If there is some personal invitation, then please try and call at least to the people who really matter to you.
8. Sending Motivational messages is good but before sending just think once that, is this message unique, please talk to yourself what was your reaction when you got a motivational message from someone, do you enjoy it or got irritated?
9. Make real friends online, don’t go for number game unless you have some business which solely depends on online shares, likes and subscribes, as those who have 5000 online friends could not get 5 real friends when in need.
10. Don’t see the last seen status or online status and make misunderstandings: as there are so many other reasons for the other person to be online than to respond to your message, for example: you send some message which you thought is important and you saw the other person online but not reacting, please understand that he might be there online for some other purpose checking and responding to official message, making some payment, doing google search etc… so be patient and learn some basics like msg. sent, delivered, read. If doing a WhatsApp call then please see if another person is online, I have so many missed WhatsApp calls and people complaining that you didn’t pick up my call, dear when another person is offline caller gets the ring but other person does not.

Happy Texting, be a Good Social Media user. Best of Luck.

Vilas Sonavane

September 22, 2018