Pratiksha Rajopadhyaya
#SocialMediaBullying
Social media was created with the purpose of connecting people to one another, regardless of the physical distance between them. There’s a large horizon to which social media can be used to make the world a better place. It can be used to aware people about various social issues. It can be used to understand what’s going on around the world. It can be used to improve your personal network. But, alas, today’s “well-educated, technology savvy” generation use it a bit differently, oh I mean, negatively – to bully others from behind their computers and smartphones.
There’s this growing trend in the internet of putting up pictures of random people with an appeal to marry them. These posts are made with one clear intention of making fun of these people and insulting them on the basis of how they look. The sad part is that some of the most popular pages with a large number of youth follower’s base are posting these pictures in the name of humor and the so-called “open-minded” youths who campaign about how marijuana should be legalized in the country, share it, comment on it, and make fun of these people. Well, if you can use so much of your energy on campaigning for a drug to be legalized, it will be great if you use a little bit of that energy on caring about people’s feelings.
I have been seeing many of these posts since a few weeks back and I realized how this degrading, “so-to-be fun” thing had become a trend. I was ignoring it, un-following any page or any person that shared such memes or posts, until I came across a post where they had put up a picture of a boy with down-syndrome with the similar appeal for someone to marry him. The post was insensitive, but the comments in the post were so degrading, it made me angry, I felt heartbroken and I felt ashamed. I felt ashamed because I belong to the same generation as most of those commenters do, and I strongly believed that this generation was aware of what’s wrong in the society and has opinions and the courage to voice their opinions. Clearly, I was wrong!
We are all humans. We all have feelings and those feelings get hurt. What if it was picture that was put up like that and people made fun of you and how you looked? It is not all fun and games. We read about people going through major mental health issues and self-esteem issues, and in today’s context what happens in their social media account has a lot to play part in it. We live in a world where our self-esteem has sadly become extremely dependent on a few likes and comments we get in our social media accounts. We must understand that it’s a human being with feelings behind those computer screens and phones, just like you yourself, who will be reading the comments you make about them.
This type of social media bullying has to stop. This trend must be put to an end. For this, people have to understand that the world is so much more than just looks and petty comments. I request every aware and unaware person to un-follow any page or person who shares or promotes such posts. Together, let’s stop bullying!
No comments:
Post a Comment