Impact of social media or social networking sites in our life

Today in this world, when there is the era of IT industry growing at its extreme throughout the world, there has been a vast change that is changing about all the parts, industries, career options and streams. Although, this vast change is very much necessary on developmental prospects. Some decades before a network protocol on the computer system emerged, which was named as internet (intra- networking i.e., internal networking throughout the world by computer systems from satellites and telephone). This internet worked on the www basis i.e., ‘World Wide Web’. This started from the late 1980s and was then extensively adopted by companies and universities. The reason for its extensive adaptation was the facilities which improved the communication medium or ‘media’. This internet later in the year 2000 with the emergence of ‘Microsoft Networks’ i.e., ‘msn’, emerged with its full fledged way and started various facilities which included sending and receiving of e-mails, video and audio conferencing, data transferring, information update-upgrade-download, etc. In fact, not just it, the internet of today is used for about all entertainment purposes. Direct listening, watching and downloading of songs, videos and movies, and not just it, the internet is also used for direct television and radio watching and listening. There are sites to download television programs and radio programs also. Downloading information, data, details, contents, images, books are all, the uses if internet. In fact, what I am telling is just in brief, but if we start talking about the real use of internet in its grave details, then that would be a content of enormous uses which will not be able to terminate in brief.

But today, a new use of internet has struck the globe at its full capability. The incoming of the ‘Social Networking Sites’ has become extremely popular in all clans of people of all ages, religion, sect, region, country, taste and nature. This has on the same hand has proliferated the use of internet throughout the globe. From kids till elderly, all are under the influence of these social networking sites. Sites such as; facebook, orkut, ibibo, big-adda, myspace, twitter, zapak, worldcat, rediff, cool hotmail, yahoo, etc. have proven themselves in the stream of extreme popularity on the internet. The situation is such that, if we ask an urban kid about the word ‘popularity’, he might not be able to answer it, but if we ask the same about ‘facebook’, ‘orkut’, ‘twitter’ or others, eight out of ten will surely give the answer.

The popularity of this can easily be identified when we come towards the urban cities of India. India is the country which according to the rating, is the country with the maximum number of internet users throughout the world. When we notice the basic middle-class family of a city, then we see that the children ask for internet from their parents, just because their friends are on some or the other social networking sites. This example clearly, exemplifies the extreme popular situation of these social networking sites. Actually the reason of such extreme popularity rate is the presence of attractiveness, ease, entertainment factor, clarity, and of course publicity. It is true that these social networking sites posses a great deal of merits which include; entertainment, easy messaging, communication (face-to-face, voice conferencing or simple chatting). With one social networking site, the person holding the account is able to access the whole lot of facilities, which with the changing era is now giving a mobile facility, i.e., the site will be accessible over the mobile phones. In fact, the new mobile generation is coming up with the direct one push-touch facility to the most popular social sites and is actually proliferating the publicity or popularity. But the thing which has actually made this medium of social networking successful is the presence of ‘social media’ (social-community communication; media-plural of medium… hence, social media-communicative medium).

But one thing which is in grave danger because of it, is the ‘real imaginative power’. Because of this, the children and at some places even the adults are going prone to the networking sites but far from the other parts of internet. This ‘social sites’ has become an addiction to the people and of course more for the children. When a kid gets a project work to do (in a general case in any city of India) he/she goes onto the internet and after taking out the information, takes out time for the social sites. And many a times because of this kids or adults skip the project or knowledgeable work and go for social networking. This in no matter is an addiction which is taking the world prone towards the virtual world and is undermining the real world and reality. The real writing skills, imagination and the habit of reading books has now changed over to the reading of e-books, taking out ready matter from the internet and of course imagining NOTHING.

I don’t say that social networking is a disaster to the society, but there should be something which can control the excessive usage of it. Many a times, kids who are below the required age to have a social networking profile, write ‘above age’ in the online form, and the best thing is that, there is no identity proof required to check the age and hence, small kids of a very tender age have the social networking profile. This in turn, increases the crime quotient in the minds of the kids. On the other hand the display of vulgarity at some places is also easily accessible by the kids. Even because of the easy creation of social sites profile, kids and adults create ‘fake profiles’, just for the sake of entertainment or revenge just to insult someone. These illegal deeds helped by the social sites unknowingly, drastically affects the human emotions inversely and creates a huge lot of problems, nuisance, etc. Although development is a necessary step and social networking is a fine ingenuity towards the society which is extremely necessary, but what is needed should be a control over it, being it a medium of ‘social media’ more than a medium of virtual entertainment…

By: Saurabh Agrawal