Is Social Media Making Us More Unsocial?

INTRODUCTION

What comes to your mind when I say the word social media? Maybe some social networking apps, people chatting, reading stories, watching videos and stuff like that, right? But social media is more than all this. Social media refers to the interactions between people where they connect with the world through networks. Social media has changed rapidly since 2010. If we talk about the current world, then social media has had a great impact on our lives. People spend an average of 2.5 hours on social media. We depend on social media for even the smallest of tasks. If social media is so useful to us and makes us social towards the world, how is it possible that instead of being social, it makes us more antisocial?

THE TRUTH

Social media has undoubtedly brought many benefits, including greater social interaction, but it has also been associated with feelings of increased loneliness and isolation. The problem with social media is that it can create an illusion of social connectedness that is not necessarily accurate. In today's world anyone can create a fake identity using social media. This affects other innocent people who think they are real people. People compare themselves with big personalities on social media who flaunt their luxurious life, which is fake in most of the cases. If you befriend someone through social media then it is different than meeting that person face to face. Meeting face-to-face is essential for building and maintaining close relationships. Many people may feel that they are part of a larger community online, but this may hide the fact that they do not have close, personal relationships in their offline lives. It has been observed that people who spend more time on social media have less close relationships in real life than those who spend less time on social media. We feel that everyone else is living a more exciting, fulfilling life than us, which can lead to feelings of loneliness. Social media can create a sense of social comparison that is difficult to avoid, and this can be harmful to our mental health.

WHAT WE CAN DO

To reduce social media loneliness we need to recognize that social media is not a substitute for real life social interaction. It should not be our only means of social interaction. In fact, we should use social media for good purposes and maintain a balance for both online and offline life. Books are, in my opinion, the best solution.