A mental health condition which needs immediate attention and addressing in this heavily connected yet sadly disconnected world of social networks. There used to be a time when people stayed away from matters that doesn't really matter to them. Before the age of smartphones, everybody's world was confined to just friends and family. People rarely paid attention to others people's opinion. A feedback or response that we provided to someone we didn't know was subtle and polite. The most common way to disagree with someone was to say nothing at all. Arguments were never intended to belittle someone or attack them personally. We cared about staying to the point and not deviating from it. I believe the main reason that kept people in their limits when it came to commenting on someone's opinion was 'identity'. Anonymous commenting rarely reached the ears of the speaker.
How much I wish the comments section on a person's social networking profile was accessible to just a closed group of people associated with the person. That will reduce the number of threats, hatred messages, bullyings in the form of anonymous comments from random people. Imagine if one day we start hearing all the comments from social media in the actual voices of people who posted them. Am pretty sure the noise would deafen every single living being on earth and beyond. Comments have become more of a noise than a voice.
The habit of voicing out our opinion to every other social media post that comes our way is the real cause of these unwanted noise. While the fact is nobody really looks forward to our opinion, but are just posting their opinion on something they came across. A person need not agree with everyone, but that is no reason enough to personally attack the author of a content. Social media has become a breeding ground of stereotyping and hypocrisy. Something that was designed to bring hearts closer is actually making them drift far apart. Taking it easy and moving on is the need of the hour. The sooner we realize this, the better.
While we cannot expect local laws to think through every possible way to end cyberbullying and intensify punishments, what we can really do is be a responsible netizen and treat others with respect. After all behaving ourselves when no one else is watching defines the real "I".
How much I wish the comments section on a person's social networking profile was accessible to just a closed group of people associated with the person. That will reduce the number of threats, hatred messages, bullyings in the form of anonymous comments from random people. Imagine if one day we start hearing all the comments from social media in the actual voices of people who posted them. Am pretty sure the noise would deafen every single living being on earth and beyond. Comments have become more of a noise than a voice.
The habit of voicing out our opinion to every other social media post that comes our way is the real cause of these unwanted noise. While the fact is nobody really looks forward to our opinion, but are just posting their opinion on something they came across. A person need not agree with everyone, but that is no reason enough to personally attack the author of a content. Social media has become a breeding ground of stereotyping and hypocrisy. Something that was designed to bring hearts closer is actually making them drift far apart. Taking it easy and moving on is the need of the hour. The sooner we realize this, the better.
While we cannot expect local laws to think through every possible way to end cyberbullying and intensify punishments, what we can really do is be a responsible netizen and treat others with respect. After all behaving ourselves when no one else is watching defines the real "I".
1 comment:
Oh so true ramu, agree with every word of yours. Especially there are so many people who belittle another through comments which they wouldnt dare to do in real time. This has provoked people to poke nose on others business. And yes they have an opinion about anything and everything. Inspite of any privacy setting that we keep there are perverts which protrude it too. Apart from that the culture of memes started as a lighthearted way to spoof people. This has turned into a nightmare. The way people seek out for attention through these random comments, abusive comments and unwanted memes makes my blood boil too.
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