"For how long have you been scrolling now??"

What are the norms to be accepted as 'Dope' in the society? A hot girlfriend/boyfriend or an iPhone 12 pro max or an Instagram page with 100k followers with 'CANDIDS,ALL FAKE' or a car in which you can post stories of turning the steering wheel, while driving, like a million other cars around you?

Welcome to the world of SOCIAL MEDIA where topping the trending list is just a matter of seconds, where most of the so-called influencers don't have a real life, where an image of an egg can get million likes and shares, where real people with talents struggle to reach audiences, where girls can get thousands of likes and followers just by showing off their cleavage, where the cringiest posts get shared while the good ones are pathetically ignored and many more.

What is Social Media?

Social Media are highly interactive platforms  that allows an individual the freedom of sharing creative content, information, ideas, etc with anyone in the world. It allows us to stay in touch with our friends, families and it can also help us to communicate with random people around the world.

"By giving the power to share, we're making the world more transparent" - Mark Zuckerberg 2012

9 years later, after this great comment by the founder of Facebook which is one of the biggest social media platforms, most of it is filled with  cringe content and the algorithms in which these websites are designed are also in favour of these types of content. If you click on one such posts, you will get recommendations of all the cringe posts throughout the day. These contents are consumed far more by users than contents which can provide  us with some knowledge. All the owners of these websites makes huge amount of profit from irrelevant but pleasing  to mind contents.

How does Social Media affect us?

A day in the life of a normal person starts, especially teenagers, starts with Facebook and ends with Snapchat. Most of us have become slaves to it. We are so badly affected and influenced by social media that we start checking our phones as soon as we wake up till the time we go to sleep.

Look around your area, do you see any children playing in the evening anymore? Teenagers are the ones who are the worst affected by social media, they have a growing mind and are easily influenced by social media. There was a time where childrens used to play  and now we can only see cricket and football in the television , played by respective country players. Not only physical fitness but also mental fitness is affected by social media  and this is not the worst thing. The worst part is Jealousy , hatred, envy, ill behaviour, etc all these by getting influenced from others. Getting a 'Cool' tag is what that matters for today's generation.

Think of a situation where a 8-9 year old child, wakes up in the morning, opens Instagram and checks the first post which is by one of his favourite influencer, shows a reel where a boy proposes a girl and she rejects it, then out of anger the boy throws acid on her OR a reel where a person where a person murders his friend only because he lied to him. For the influencer it is a 15 sec video through which he will make money but what do you think will be the influence in the child's mind?

We cannot put the entire blame on one individual. We have to realize that we are all collectively responsible for these structural changes in the norms of our society. For instance, when a child demands for a cell phone, there is no attempt made to make the child aware of all the content he can get access to. It is important that they must be aware of both the positive and negative impacts of the internet.

Social media is filled with fake people and influencers, everyone just pretend to be filthy rich and shows off as if they are living the euphoric life that everyone dreams about and the sad reality is that when people see others accomplishing more than us, it can breed low self-esteem or even lack of self worth. It is normal that jealousy kicks in after looking  at their life through filters in Instagram but in reality if you get to know about their real life, it can be worse than yours.

As Zuckerberg said that the whole concept of social media is sharing content from famous peoples. It is inevitable that the most famous personality have the most no. of followers like Cristiano Ronaldo or Kylie Jenner but this is where the problem arises - the average person thinks that their lives are normal and easily achievable. If is unfortunate that people are creating their basic goals and desires according to these famous people lifestyles. All these people need to understand that their lives are very normal and nothing to be ashamed of.

The 'real' version of yourself is not a photo of Kylie Jenner sunbathing in her mansion. It is okay to not have a big mansion or a sports car.  It is okay to have a 9-5 job and it is okay to not go out clubbing every week.

"Social media is training us to compare ourselves instead of appreciating everything that we are. No wonder why everyone is depressed" - Bill Murray

Our world is so much more than what our favourite celebrities post on their social media pages.

There are also great things which can be shared on social media which can help someone to grow as a person which in turn helps the society to grow. New entrepreneurs have great opportunities in social media  which can help their businesses to grow. It is our mindset that stops us from growing and learning but if we try we can make social media a better place by not promoting cringe content and if everyone tries  to share good content, social media may prove to become the greatest tool for the world to grow.

If we want to create a change in society, we will have to start from our own homes. We will have to make people understand the negative side of social media and use it with utmost responsibility.

Thank you for reading:-)

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