Dr Mandeep Singh Azad,
Dr Manmeet Motan
In 2019, it is estimated that there will be around 258.27 million social network users in India, up from close to 168 million in 2016. The most popular social networks in India were YouTube and Facebook, followed by social app whatsApp. Facebook is projected to reach close to 319 million users in India by 2021.But is social media connecting us more or isolating us .We sit with our friends not talking face to face and still chatting on phone with others. But the biggest drawback of social media is spread of religious and political hatred .You can easily engage into arguments and fights discussing politics and religion. So is it worth to lose your friends in the name of BJP and Congress- in the name of Narendra Modi and Manmohan Singh – in the name of Kashmiri and Dogra . So what happens if you have a friend or follower number greater than 150 on your social media networks? it’s a meaningless number. “We are fooling ourselves,”. “You can certainly sign up as many people as you like, but that doesn’t make them friends. All we are doing is signing up people that we would normally think of as acquaintances in the offline world.” People may feel compelled to express outrage online because they receive positive feedback for doing so. A single like or comment may be meant to affirm opinions, but they can also snowball and affect your offline relationships. Being on your smartphone can drain the energy that could’ve been spent engaging in real-life interactions with your friends or family.
Social media is never the prescription for staving off boredom, anxiety, or loneliness. At the end of the day, your favorite people are the people who are near you who are your real family and friend. Friends exist to provide us with shoulders to cry on when things fall apart. “No matter how sympathetic someone may be on Facebook or even Skype, in the end it is having a real shoulder to cry on that makes the difference to our being able to cope.” But you didn’t notice one thing! Your relationship with your friends was somehow getting affected on the Social Media (and hence outside that domain as well) without you having a clue about it.
If you’ve lost friends or developed contentious relationships over the course of recent election, you’re not alone. Steering clear of political conversations with loved ones and unfollowing or hiding those on social media with opposing views has become a common coping mechanism for getting through these elections. We need to find ways to empathize and understand each other, despite our differences, if we are going to solve the myriad of challenges we face. Has election season always been this rough on friendships? .Friendships and families are actually too precious to throw away for transient reasons. So many people I know are getting into Facebook fights, Twitter wars, Instagram arguments, and whatsapp squabbles. What begins as an ideological dispute ends in bitterness. People are provoking others, demanding those who do or don’t support their candidate leave their networks, cutting ties with friends and family, and all because of political differences. It’s a pity to cause permanent rifts, and so unnecessary. The people who rearrange their personal relationships for the election imagine that they are taking control of their lives. They don’t seem to realize that they are actually letting strangers control their lives, strangers who care nothing for them in a system that actually seeks to divide people so it can conquer them. To permit politics to fundamentally alter something so important as friendship is to give politicians more importance than they deserve.
So, everyone in India is talking about tolerance and intolerance now. In my opinion, many of the intolerance issues existed in India much before 60 years of Congress rule or 4 years of Modi government. It goes very well back into our history – before independence or for that matter even before the British invaded us, we had our issues. Our ancient ‘Varna’ system, several religions, 1000s of castes and 100s of languages and their numerous dialects were always the perfect recipe for intolerance. It’s just that many of the unfortunate incidents in the past didn’t get any visibility or viral coverage in the old generation media. Now, it’s the exact opposite situation wherein each and every incident – small or big – is spread, participated and reacted by millions of people in no time in the context of the new generation media. Unfortunately, you are being party to the whole commotion, sometimes, without even realizing it. So, who’s to blame here?.
Some Tips for not losing your friends on social media
Make sure that your posts are relevant and addressed to the right audience – i.e.Your friends, acquaintances, public etc.
Before submitting each post or comment, double-check your language – not only for grammatical errors but more to see if you are using strong or abusive words. Avoid forwarding unverified content and twisted facts. These days, the media and the social media campaign houses/publishers of political parties and religions are so damn good at twisting facts and projecting incomplete views. If possible, forward the original news than the fabricated versions of the same. Avoid forwarding spreading hate content in public forums (highly debatable topic) even if it may be deemed acceptable to most of your audience. If it hurts even one among hundred, it’s still objectionable. Topics such as politics, religion etc are best avoided on your School-College-Family groups on Facebook or WhatsApp, unless you have created the group to discuss only those topics. Keep the diversity of your audience in mind even within a single focused target group.In order to increase traffic to their sites, they will intentionally create controversial topics and sometimes lies. Further, there are so many paid commenters of various religious/political groups working on such sites.Use private messaging to deal with those who abuse. You don’t need to go down to their level to win an argument or a point. If he’s your real life friend, you may want to forgive him for a few times, others deserve to be blocked or banned. Do not stretch each argument beyond two replies. If you can’t convince or win over someone in two or three comments, you can’t win in even 20. Avoid following those who spread negativity or hatred even if they are your friends.You can still have ‘Social friends’ without following them.
The world is intense right now, even more so when you’re always online. Rather than reading one breaking headline at a time, an average feed will seek our attention with more than enough stories. Many of these are also written to trigger our emotions and keep us clicking and scrolling. But there’s no need to be part of it all the time. Modi may or may not become the best PM of India! Rahul may or may not quit politics! Khans may produce hits and flops! But lost friendships may not come back to you. Think about it. But above all keep in mind friends are more important and closer to you than any political party.
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