Digital Jinx

Among the many monsters created by humans, social media happens to be the most lethal.

Social media, the youngest child of Daddy Communication and Mummy Internet is proving to be the naughtiest and most difficult to foster, especially after it started dating the sensuous Ms Artificial Intelligence while having a fling with macho Mr Corporate on the side.

The debate whether technology is good or bad is as old as technology itself and remains inconclusive just like the argument if the fire is good or bad.

Though most offshoots of technology are adding value to human life, one offshoot, which started as the most beneficial one has slowly but surely started showing dramatic downside, especially among young adults.

It is not the addiction that is harmful. Most products of communication technology have had addiction phases when they appeared on the scene like the telephone, television, etc but the fascination eventually declined. It is the subtle change in the behaviour of a child when it comes to choices of life and the essence of life itself which are a matter of concern.

Children and young adult are influenced by the trends in social media. Peer pressure has now come to include the extended social media family. Yes, people address their contacts on Twitter and Instagram as my Twitter family or Insta family, respectively, sometimes living a parallel life on social media, at the expense of real life.

Children and young adults much before they are exposed to the wonders of the real world are exposed to the fantasyland of the virtual world and begin to believe that this is the real world.

As they grow up and are required to step out in the real world, people discover to their horror that they don't possess the necessary social skills to survive in the real world because when they should have been honing the social skills, they were busy learning the social media etiquettes, which are as different from the real world nuances as chalk and cheese.

By the time they are adults, it is too late to learn the ropes of life and the mirage of social media had also been demolished. These kids, now young adults find themselves on the battlefield of life, without the appropriate weapons, which they should have mastered as children if they were not too busy exploring the virtual world.

Living in the virtual world doesn't require much skill and promote friend/ unfriend and follow/ unfollow kind of relationship, which takes the beauty and magic out of human relationships. Unlike the real world, the emphasis is on quantity rather than quality, the number of followers/ contacts versus the depth of connection or the longevity of the relationship.

Social media is inflicting tremendous pain in young adults without their realization.