Social Media & The Way We Use It

I’ve been wanting to talk about this particular topic for a long time. Especially because I think social media is one of the reasons we all face mental health issues. More specific reason would be the way we use social media.

Everybody knows what’s social media. It’s where we interact with other people from all over the globe. Share ideas, talk about different topics in the society, jokes and memes to keep us laughing etc. Even a small kid can explain when he is asked the good and bad of using social media. Anyways, what I’m trying to focus here is the bad side. I am not a researcher or someone who has a degree or something in social media expertise. I am sharing my ideas and thoughts with you as a fellow human being who is using social media in my day-to-day life. Maybe you wouldn’t probably agree with everything I say, but I’d really appreciate if you would spend a few minutes to read my thoughts.

Age is not a matter at all when it comes to social media. Unless someone tells you or you ask them you will never know the age of the people you are interacting with. This makes it easier for anyone of any age to have conversations, share ideas and communicate with anybody else.

What & What Not To Talk In Social Media

Well we all say something wherever we want and when someone says “you can’t talk like this” our obvious answer would be “freedom of speech”. Freedom of speech doesn’t give you the right to bad mouth a person. Whoever they are it doesn’t give you the right to ruin their character publicly in social media when you are not perfect yourself and when you don’t really know what is happening in that person’s personal life.

We are not perfectionists nor saints right?

The most common topics you might see in trending will probably be something related to politics, religion or current affairs. Something you should definitely stay away from talking in Social Media. Everybody has their own political and religious views. Trying to “enlighten” them by pointing out their mistake in an online platform is useless. You are arguing with someone who doesn’t even know you, you think they will listen to your ideas and theories on his political interest, religious view or whatever the thing he has shared his view? Moreover if you say you have freedom of speech then so does he. Posts discussing any of the above topic can set off volatile emotional reactions that have the potential to end friendships — not just online ones.

Everyone gets to talk whatever they like in their social media profile, and you have the option of scrolling down ignoring what they have posted. Trying to bully or gang up on someone because of their personal view is a “should not do” in an online platform. I have seen different kind of cyber bullying in social media platforms. You may think you are standing up to your point when arguing with someone else trying to prove his idea is wrong, but actually it is also a kind of bullying.

Some people share there problems in their social media profiles, they just want others to be aware of some things that could happen to others just like it happened to them. For example a woman shares an abusive incident happened to her, it doesn’t mean she is seeking attention, she wants other girls to be aware and safe of such things. Don’t mock them, make jokes on them or scold them for sharing such a story. It takes her a large amount of courage to share it while there are some women who ends up taking the wrong decisions because she doesn’t have enough courage to seek help. Be someone who cares and supports other humans and make sure to appreciate women when they open up and talk about something.

Sharing funny memes, jokes and puns is totally okay but don’t post embarrassing photos or videos to social-media sites at any time. Once posted, they may be out of your control. Social media is supposed to be a fun place for a normal user, otherwise it should be a professional space for those who are using it for business purposes. The next place where we go wrong is, most of us have understood the wrong meaning of the word “fun”. Discriminating someone, posting weird comments, putting people down for what they’re doing are very disgusting things to do. Most of the people are living a lonely, depressed life behind the screen. Social media is the only place they find solace. They try to show themselves happy and interact happily with others. Ruining their little happiness by putting them down and cornering them is also considered bullying. Now start thinking — are you a bully too?

My idea is, as a person when you discriminate someone out of the same community or country as you, you are just giving a bad impression about yourself, your community and your country to the whole wide world. Is this what you are really expecting to do? Or else do you want to experience the real fun side of social media? Where you can forget all your stress and sadness, laugh out loud, enjoy happy conversations with online friends. That’s what real social networking is about.

“You are what you share”

It’s okay if you can’t share happy or positive things in your social media which will be good not only for yourself but also beneficial for your followers and friends, but don’t share negativity. People use social media to get rid of the stress in their personal life and spend some time in the online world exploring the good wonders of it. Because of all the negativity and useless fights in social media we not only lose our peace and happiness, our engagement with our family is also reduced. Our mind will always be running thinking about what to say next, how can I bash that guy who started that argument, how do I expose his bad side etc.

That is why I believe that social media should be used within it’s limits. if not we have to set a limit ourselves because no one knows ourselves better than us. At last all I can ask of you is, use social media for the betterment of your life. Ruining another person’s happiness is ruining your happiness too. Try to keep your mental health at a stable level. Too much of anything is a poison. Once in a while try to take a short break from social media and you’ll feel the difference. Also always make sure to check twice what you are sharing. Like I said at the beginning, there will be users of all age ranges following you. Don’t EVER be a bad example to anyone.

I am not sure everyone will agree with what I say, but what other method do I have to convey something like this to everyone? If you are reading this, I really appreciate you for taking your time and coming this far :)

“Don’t use social media to impress people, use it to impact people”