HOW SOCIAL MEDIA IS AFFECTING OUR SOCIAL LIFE
Social media has spread like a wildfire into every house and every hand, mind.
There are more people that use the internet than a toothbrush, This is funny and alarming both at the same time.
There has been continuous evolution of the internet. How we use it, I remember there was a time I used to watch Youtube videos with the 2G internet connection and 20kbps speed and now we know I need not tell what’s the scenario.
The social media has made our life easier there is no doubt about it, but at the same time, it has made our mind dull.
Nowadays, we don’t want to invest our mind even 0.1%. We just want to google search everything and get over with it.
If for a moment we don’t think it as a ideas and community sharing program.
It’s a business and depending on how many clicks you give, there is a person paid and another is behind we that knows how to get those clicks.
With so many people promoting themselves there is very much quantity and very less quality.
There is no harm in Using the social media mindfully.
“When we start to include it in our every activity, we get depended on it and lose our self in the process.”
Here is the list of things that we need to be aware of social media is doing to us.
1. Sleepwalking- We take a moment and look around us, it’s evident what’s happening with us.
Being busy is the new free nowadays. We all are busy somewhere either posting something or going mindlessly through some photos.
On the streets and while eating it’s evident we are physically there but mentally we are somewhere else.
We tend to forget it’s the present moment that we have, everything else is in the mind, that wants us to escape the present moment.
In the present moment, there is nothing no expectations and reactions that threatens the ego mind.
In that very moment, the mind wants to engage our consciousness and want us to see if we missed out on something in social media.
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” — Carl Jung
2. Comparison- Earlier, there was no compulsion to share our life we did enjoy it and lived life fully not in photographs.
It’s not at all bad to share some pictures here and there, but the guys out there wanting to get our clicks, make a sure that every post of ours stays active in our mind even if we don’t open the app or page.
In that process, we unwillingly compare our life with other people in our circle.
We all know from outside everyone’s life seems to be just fine its when we get inside the house we see the real mess.
“Comparison is the thief of joy.” — Theodore Roosevelt
3. Restlessness- Our mind is either in the past or in the future.
The moment we see something and interpret it we have already made it a thing of the past and can’t get more of it.
When we think about the future we create an illusion in which everything is perfect and there is no suffering, but these two states are itself suffering.
The hope of getting new like, post or request creates a restlessness within us and we continuously want to come back for that.
Doesn’t matter how much free time we have, even if it’s for 2 minutes we get to social media and for our daily dose and continue with our lives not knowing it’s controlling our mind.
Take a step back and witness when you have a compulsion of going online.
“The trouble is, you think you have time.”
— Buddha
4. Need to Enjoy — There is a certain pressure among our generation to enjoy our life and post it even if we are going through some really hard times.
The peer pressure has been around some time now but it was not that hard, now it has become something else, we all are part of the process, we need the anxiety to drive us.
We all are battling something either it’s adopting a new habit or just making our relationship strong.
Enjoy life in moments, not in storage.
“Just be fucking honest about how you feel about people while you’re alive.” — John Maye
5. Social Interaction- It’s easy nowadays to ignore someone, we just need to have our headphones on and we can’t talk to the person next to us.
It’s a good thing if we think the world is a bad place full of mean and possessive people, but not every fish in the ocean wants to eat you some can be our life, long friends or companions.
We all have probably gone through some hard relationships that we want to forget and our memory is not doing a great job in doing so.
While in this world we need to interact with people make friends, we can’t figure out everything on our own, just like we need parents to give us birth we need people, friends to give birth to our likes and dislikes, it can be about the food or about the work we do, but it’s needed.
“You never really learn much from hearing yourself speak”
- George Clooney
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