Human mindset is controlled by what we see, what we hear, and what we listen to. The present generation’s thinking is steered by social media. Indulgence in social media is directly or indirectly the reason for most of the sorrow, loneliness, whim, desolation, and all of that. People post mostly about their happy moments, flaunting the best parts of their lives. Looking at them, we feel so left out, and there’s the start. We don’t even know the other half, yet we believe that they have it all, and we start questioning our place in the world, whereas perhaps it’s all a deception.
In fact, before the lockdown, before this boom of social media, most of us didn’t even know that terms like depression existed. Nowadays, it has become such a common term that we use it without even knowing what it means. Terms like anxiety, stress, paranoia, and “delulu” have been used like they’re some normal, cool words, and all of it because of social media hyping them up.
Nowadays, we can’t even go and enjoy a place without looking at our phones, without taking pictures, or without posting about it on social media. Statistics show that suicide rates and depression have escalated after the rise of social media. Then come ”filters”, what you see in pictures versus what you see in reality can be so different. And if we are using filters to enhance our looks, why do we need that? Because we can’t accept ourselves the way we are, and eventually, by doing this, our mindset is not accepting our true selves.
Maybe our screentime on these is more than we spend with our family and friends. They, who really are going to be with us throughout, not the followers on our accounts. In fact, considering the number of followers and likes on posts as a metric of happiness and comparison of superiority or capability is transitory. People taking pictures of nature and saying “nature love”, when they don’t even know how to nurture nature. People write ”astrophile” in their bio, saying that “black hole is cool” without knowing the theory of the Einstein-Rosen bridge.
I’m not against social media or posting. I’m just saying things should be more genuine and decent. There’s a difference between ”showcasing” your talents, skills, or fashion styles and “showing off”. But that’s human psychology, we have a tendency of doing things despite knowing it’s not in our best interests. There is obviously the good stuff, reading, knowing, and learning, but then there’s the other side of the coin.
All of these are just my opinions as a teenager. I don’t mean to disrespect anyone or their feelings and ideologies. If this opens up a new perspective for you, then I’m glad because that’s what literature is for.
Swastika Biswal is a student of B.Tech-IT at International Institute of Information Technology, Bhubaneswar. Views are personal.
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