Social Media : The Another Realm

Rise and boom of social media:

2020 the 3rd decade of 21st century. We have accomplished quite a lot of amazing feats that Humans at one time never anticipated. If we look back at earlier 2 decades we can see that a new dimension came in human life which is called "social media". Smart phones along with social media became a part and parcel of human life. Truly social media came to life with the rise of SmartPhones. It seems that the journey from email to various messenger apps was covered within a blink of an eye. Social media catched a grip in our lives during the years from 2003 to 2009 and the rise of social media platforms led to an increase of social outreach of people and a decline in “Actual Human Interactions and Compassions”. In the post globalized world, social media not only emerged as means of communication but also a free tool of marketing, spreading information and a very legal form of dopamine hit.

Social media became an integral part from personal hobbies, skills to business expansion and a free tool of psycho-analysis. Social media platforms enabled the exchange of various ideas,  Various informative content started to get posted on social media, social media thus proved to be an alternative source of information other than google or wikipedia and or various information providers.

Before the boom of SmartPhone all over the world, just as People, technology was also at the same level of what people could comprehend. Of course there were some technological fields in which the technology was far more advanced than what people could understand, but that technology was and is used for something of greater good and to discover and help the Human kind. But things started to just avalanche when the same technology combined with Human Psychology were unleashed into the common human, and that's where things started to get bad.

Various organizations and personalities took the opportunity to use social media to influence the minds, and opinions of people, thus replacing mass media. The domain of social media created new job opportunities, social media handlers, digital marketers and the term was coined - Digital Influencers.

Digital Influencers took a very amazing vantage point in Social Media, influencing people, and the followers also started to get influenced with tips on how to stay healthy to tips till on how to look gorgeous without even spending money on expensive products. Everything was going great until... 

The very same technology took control and started to evolve at a much faster pace than what humans could comprehend and understand and realize that it was very late. There were small but ghastly incidences before 2020 that had Social Media and Information propaganda written all over, but the year 2020 saw the peak of Human decline.

Covid and Social Media:

During the COVID-19 Pandemic, life as we speak just came to Halt. Social Interactions between Humans halted with the measures of social distancing and lockdowns all over the world. Even though Social Media Addiction had been an ongoing issue before the 2020 World Lockdowns, Social Media became a staple in the life of Humans all over the world. Social media became the center of life, due to hyper fast information sharing and one click forwarding. But this center of attention that Social media received came at a price. 

Social media platforms quickly became the main source of fake news and misinformation. This fake news and misinformation included various conspiracy theories related to covid, half baked and bogus cures to treat covid, distorting the information regarding lockdowns, govt guidelines, fake news related to production of vaccines and much more. Thus along with pandemic which severely affected our physical & psychological health, this fake news and misinformation created infodemic which created confusion and panic among people.

Social media, Psychology & bummer machine: 

Algorithms are trained to find similarities in human behavior on social media. Social Media workflows are basically designed to keep humans hooked on to social media platforms and are not completely designed to filter out wrong, fake and misinformation. Hence social media platforms just look at the rate at which the posts are being forwarded and thus adding more fuel to the fire that has already burnt halfway... 

No doubt Social Media has helped a lot of business ventures, and e-stores in marketing and spreading the information at a faster rate. But Social Media Platforms have also given a chance to make scammers rich. Instagram has been proven to have a lot of scammer profiles, which try to get you on board of Ambassador Programs to promote some products and have been also quite ignorant to a lot of illegal “dating” profiles. Due to ever more spammers and scammers, people have been experiencing Mental Degradation and Monetary Losses. 

The Algorithms of these Social Media Platforms constantly evaluate human behavior with respect to the usage of the apps. The algorithms then make sure to feed in and stack up relevant content once you start to scroll and surf, making sure that you are engaged for a longer period of time.

Surfing through social media is like "Busy doing nothing". We people just go through the photos, videos or any written post and give our likes & comments, but the main question still remains ? What is the productive output from social media ? Does Social Media help educate people and masses or does Social Media help in enriching your lives by recommending you to do something creative and something in which you will not be involved and engrossed in scrolling the never ending feeds.

The use of social media and social media influencers has started an unending race of trend, and it has convinced the majority of the users that "if you are not part of “the trend” then you don't Exists". This has created a sense of inferiority complex, or feeling of inadequacy or high levels of anxiety and panic attacks in generations which are schoolers and generations who need more productive and brain enriching environment rather than dopamine hit and behavior modifications addictions which is and can be very dangerous in long terms.

The Algorithms that have been implemented at the backend of the Social Media apps have been designed to keep you hooked on to the app as long as possible. Just as Humans give a treat to their pets when the dog or the cat or any other pet performs well or does something, similarly these algorithms treat you with a like or a notification.

The infamous “Ding” of Notification has been craving the attention of almost all the generations who have Smartphones in their hands. The constant need of attention and external approval has been in the epitome of Behaviour Modification that we have seen in past years.

Psychologists have been observing a high rise in Anxiety Issues and issues where people are feeling inadequate and inferior just because people are so obsessed with the likes & comments to their posts. It has been observed that many individuals are having panic attacks and anxiety related mental issues, if they don't get the number of likes views and comments as they expect. 

In plainly, your mood, your state of mind totally depends on external approvals. It is quite incomprehensive and difficult to understand why people require external validation for their personal things. This has made people restless and even many of them are suffering from depression.

Just to fit in the Social Media Ecosystem and to make sure individuals are not left out, majority of people are developing a false identity for themselves. Individuals who use social media always try to compare their own life with the perfect pictures that are getting posted on social media so his /her life would be so happening and he/she is really enjoying life, but a research conducted tells that people continuously post on social media to divert themselves from loneliness or to show how perfect their life is going on. 

Individuals are hence trying to live a “False Projection” of their virtual lives as a reality. And this is growing day by day to remain in the trend. Digital Marketing and Influencers with the help of Bummer Machine and Large Corporations start trending challenges and viral hashtags with which Social Media Users are rather more engaged in social media trying to complete the challenge so to stay in the trend and hope that one day their post will go viral due to the hashtags that they post. 

Individuals who have integrated themselves in the Virtual World follow the Influencers and Internet Brands who start some foolish trends like #somechallenge, #onedaychallenge, #drinkingchallenge or some challenge which makes people go do crazy stuff.

I am pretty sure that if people will advice a person to jump of the cliff by a non-virtual and in a non-challenging medium then he/she will not do it but if the same advice is posted on social media with a Social Media challenge that would look like #JumpofftheCliffChallenge then the Social Media Zombies would jump off without thinking for a second, just because they have to make sure that they are not obsolete on social media. At the same time the zombies don't realize they are in reality getting obsolete as humans.

Common Social Media users are never paid for any posts that they have posted nor the posts that they posted go viral every single day. Digital Marketing groups just to stay alive and in business have a unique chance to pay Digital Influencers to influence common society to buy products and to use social media, and in turn make money. At the end Common Society and Common Social Media users never get returns out of this. 

Struggle between Reel life vs Real life:

As per the laws of spirituality there is a realm of humans , there is a realm of souls, but social media ecosystem has created another dimension in human life. Social media has evolved as the new type of stock exchange which evaluates, decodes and describes each and every ounce of your life and then decides your virtual worth. It is pretty similar to the stock exchange which decides your monetary worth. So our virtual worth is decided by the number of followers, likes, comments , views , shares which we receive on our posted content.

But this social stock exchange runs on another principle. Everything is image and image is everything. Your worth and valuation is determined by how much time you are on social media, which types of posts, videos, photos do you prefer, which social media posts do you forward, how much time do you spend on one particular post, or how much time you spend viewing a video and many more such small tiny amounts of data. 

So it doesn't matter how you are as a person in real life. The Bummer machine does not care a whole lot about what you are like in real life, if you are younger or older, or if you own a company or you are a janitor... What really matters is what you post on social media, how much you post and for how long you are indulged in Social Media Platforms. And your worth depends upon how continuously you are following the trend, or how continuously you are posting something and receiving a lot of likes for what you have posted.

Similarly a single rumour a single negative news can totally destroy your image will affect your social media rating. So what happens in your virtual domain has a significant impact on your real life. Blessed are those who know the difference between real life and reel life. But a lot of People are falling victim to having blended their two lives into one.

Due to the exponential rise in Social Media Platforms and how the humans are evolving to react on Social Media Platforms, the World in recent past and present have experienced a Rapid turmoil in Civil Unrest, in Interpersonal Relationships and an increased propaganda schemes and Political shifts.

Towards the path of getting misunderstood:

The basic interpersonal emotions were and are not taken into consideration when it comes to Virtual Ecosystem and Social Media Platforms. So for example - an individual might be posting a constructive criticism, but due to the lack of emotions that are automatically involved when a human speaks, the Constructive Criticism might be just taken and interpreted as Criticism and the individual who would be reading might find it either rude and offensive rather than anything else.

Due to the lack of Emotional backup to the “Typed Words”, it is quite common to see the Ego playing a vicious part in this equation. Thus giving the whole scenario a very negative vibe and leading to an exchange of blasting comments and discussions.

Word of Caution:

As it is aptly said history repeats itself,  The First World War was started with just One Bullet, the Second World War started due to Humiliation and many more incidences where humans have just started fights due to one word ! And now as we see and experience, one single post and one single comment and one single person not liking something on Social Media has a power and a spark to ignite the most dangerous unrest in the parts of the World and disrupt the entire law, order and peace of the World. 

Rather than enriching our minds and helping this world to have a better future by using the Positive Powers of the Internet, we are undeniably and unconsciously destroying the present and future of the Human Race.

Final Destination:

We have been so much attached with the Social Media, and unconsciously these Social Media Systems have modified our Behaviour to constantly be in touch with the World virtually, it has been in our routines to have to check our cell phones here and there and to infinitely scroll the Social Media feeds, that it has been hard for Humans to realize how Life Is without a Smartphone and more specifically Social Media. 

It's human nature to always crave for external validation for the things we do, but ultimately while doing anything we just have to ask ourselves whatever i am doing makes me happy ? If the answer is yes then you don't need the external validation and if no then seems you are trapped in this unending cycle of  dependency. 

But even in this Era of Instagramification, where your Happiness and Peace of mind is controlled by the “Ding” on your smartphone, the moment you realize that you yourself are in charge of your happiness and not others then you will escape this unending cycle of you craving of External Validation and the feeling of inadequacy and the feeling of being left out and the feeling where your Happiness and Peace is controlled by the Likes, the comments and what you post and what your posts represent, and at that very moment of realization will mark the nirvana from being the false sense of yourself and a new journey of happiness, peace and satisfaction will be started. And this new Journey will not only enrich your life but will help you realize the True Self that you were designed by Life Forces to achieve something amazing in this World.

Note: This article is written in collaboration with dear friend and guest writer Rohan Valvekar. You can check his blogs at blog.rohanvalvekar.com and his photography works at rohanvalvekar.com 

Disclaimer: This article is written to spread awareness about the negative effects of social media platform & mental health of the humans. This blog space is not affiliated with anyone or any organization, nor has been sponsored for.