Interacting in the age of social media
By: Dhruvi Modi
Tags: Mental Health, Online, Social Media, Media Criticism, Anxiety

Photo by dole777 on Unsplash

We have spent the better part of a year online. From classes and jobs to just streaming a good movie online, we all did essentially consume data from the internet at one point or another in the past year. We could say that 2020, in a way, was the year of social media. Pandemic or not, our dependence on online platforms for even basic day-to-day activities gives me an illusion that the internet has essentially enslaved us into becoming addicted and dependent on it.

As a writer using an online medium to talk about the disadvantages of being online all day, yes, I get the irony of it all.

That’s why I want to talk about the way we have evolved into interacting more on social media than having a meaningful conversation with someone face-to-face. An omnipresent phenomenon of our collective lives, social media platforms are, indeed, a boon as well as a bane.

The list of pros and cons of our beloved online media is an endless one, and everybody, of course, has a different manner in which social media or social networking has impacted their lives. Sites like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, WhatsApp and Twitter are probably the biggest players in the world of social media.

The ability to reach out to anybody in any corner of the world has enabled us all to keep in touch with the people far away from us, and I’m sure we’re all very, very grateful for it. The same ability has also helped us make new relations through the magic of social networking. Every person’s opinion may differ about its impact, but the underlying truth is still that communication has never been this easy and accessible.

The concept of social networking has worked as a blessing in disguise for all us introverts out there, wherein communicating freely and without any social anxiety that comes with being put on the stop with a ‘traditional’ conversation; however, extroverts are still doing the actual networking thing, while also balancing their social networking presence. Sounds like a dream, right? Nevertheless, that does not nullify the fact that social media interaction is at its peak right now, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon.

To give you a textbook description, social networking, as defined by the Cambridge dictionary, is “The activity of sharing information and communicating with groups of people using the internet, especially through websites that are specially designed for the same purpose.”

Sounds quite humane, right?

Social scientists believe that with the rise of the popularity of social networking, the younger generation does not necessarily ‘interact socially’. I believe this can work in two ways. When compared to the older generations, everyday life was not as fast paced as it is today; people had the luxury to take the time out of their routines to spend time and socially interact with the people in their lives. Most of the current generation’s dependence on social networking can be correlated with the lack of leisure time to do the same.

I also agree that the growing force of social networking has impacted the ability of people to communicate and interact with each other without the barrier of a screen. It has made people, especially of the younger generation, prone to ignorance to a certain extent. In some cases, a person may be so accustomed to interacting only through social media that they end up despising actual human interaction; and that has serious psychological effects as well. The glorification of being ‘asocial’ or ‘anti-social’ is a phenomenon that became popular only after the rise of social media and social networking.

Everybody has an ‘online personality’ and ‘offline personality’ which can even lead to severe mental and psychological problems like personality disorders, social anxiety, and more. The effect of this, especially on teenagers, can be long term — they may never come out of the phenomenon of social media presence and its importance in their lives.

In my opinion, social media and networking has become such an important aspect of one’s life that everything that happens revolves around it. Our dependency on it has turned even the basic, everyday activities into apps and websites. Earlier something as menial as grocery shopping, eating a meal outside, watching movies, and other such activities were considered a group activity, or an opportunity to go out and interact with people. With the digitisation and convergence of everything, our dependence on social media has creeped its way into such basic actions as well. It is what an ideal lifestyle looks like today. Changing times require us to keep up, but one must also know where the line marking the shift between virtual and actual reality is.

In terms of intra-personal relations, it gives a person the safe space to be whoever they want to be without being worried about what people might say to him/her. A person can pretend to be the kind of person they may aspire to become one day, in terms of socializing and communicating. It gives one the freedom to explore the boundaries of their personalities. Inter-personal relations might actually improve because social media acts as a platform that brings people together and helps them stay in touch, irrespective of geographical and social boundaries, while also not completely taking over the traditional way of interacting — in person.

Lastly, mass communication has definitely adapted to the trend of convergence from traditional to social media — advertising and marketing campaigns are predominantly done on social media; media is accessible to almost all persons everywhere and everything can be customised based on the specific needs of the people.

The conversation about social media interaction, convergence and dissemination of information online is truly an endless one. Until a certain point, there is no right or wrong when it comes to social media and the internet, and let’s face it, humanity is sort of doomed now, isn’t it? We still have debates and arguments about this, even though we all know the end result — human evolution, technological advancements and change is indeed, constant.