Social Media Rules the World

It is an undeniable fact that this tumultuous time has been metamorphosed into a digital world where those traditional rituals seem to have been lost somewhere. Today’s world has developed to an extent that is absolutely a figment of imagination for the ancestors. Had anyone of us even dared to imagine a world where we can communicate with our friends living in America or Japan without going there? No is the only terminology for this pressing question. However, the topic ‘Social Media Rules the World’ is an exact depiction of today’s sophisticated, digitized and advanced epoch. Basically, one can purely expostulate that social media has an absolute dominance in today’s world by dint of which a plethora of unanticipated works is now easily be generated. Social media is a highly wanted weapon to stay abreast of the latest updates. A battery of informative studies and plenty of articles have been composed on this theme and this piece will highlight its advantages, disadvantages and fruitful suggestions regarding the issue.

No one can gainsay the fact that social media plays a very pivotal role in shaping one’s life and helping people to enjoy their lives in a meaningful way. If we look back on the childhood memories, the ripples of utter amazement coupled with uncertainties would really pass through our bodies to just gallop the reality that there was not a smartphone. People used to spend their precious time listening to the cooked-up stories and playing hopscotch. Most of the middle-aged families possessed a simple phone which just allowed them to make a call, play snake xenia and exchange pleasantries through text messages. This phase was at least quite good as there was a time when there was not a single mobile phone available and people had to walk just to make acquaintance with their relatives or do some pilgrimages. Whenever the discourses are made on the halcyon days of childhood, everyone just cannot stop reminiscing those recollections of entering a neighbour’s home and staying there for a popular show or serial. There were some special channels that broadcast some Bollywood movies weekly like StraGold and Zee Cinema to mention a few. Even children are highly motivated by this digital world as they prefer to shop via online modes. The world has been given a stir due to the growing popularity and soaring acceptance of social media as we can see people have stopped even going to the market and buying vegetables, edibles and other necessities from digital platforms such as Amazon, Flipkart, Walmart, Alibaba and Myntra. In ancient periods, people had to roam and cover a long distance just to buy the things they needed but now they just require extrapolating what they need to buy and then click on the ‘HOME DELIVERY’ services facilitated by different companies.

Ostensibly, those bygone days are over and the inception of social media has forced every individual to cudgel their brains on what can happen that was believed to be impossible. There is a range of social media tools that we enjoy using them. There are a set of parents who always complained about their children over the high access to social media. But, at the same time, they finally realised how tremendously it was needed during the pandemic and still continues to dominate the whole world. There are countless advantages of social media which are being delineated below:

Maintenance of Excellent Correlation

This is one of the most imperative advantages contributed by social media to its users. One may raise an eyebrow citing how social media can synergise the ties between two individuals, but this is the truth. Social media has the power to maintain good relationships and even increase the value and honour of an individual in the eyes of others. Thanks to the conversations they make, the gossips they enjoy together and the laughter they do on the screen while sitting in different locations. For instance, one of your pals just left for Berlin and you eagerly wait for him to return and then both of you will have the camaraderie you had earlier in the days. Interestingly, social media abolishes all the barriers of waiting and facilitates all the possibilities dispelling the worries and tensions of waiting for more than one year or so. With the help of social media, one just needs to create an account on any of his preferred social media platforms and then start conversing with friends, relatives and companions living in any foreign country easily. This will absolutely strengthen their bond and the surges of love will also get tightened. This is a psychological fact that if someone frequently meets us physically or virtually, then we also feel for him and our heart cannot stop in making a special place for him. Thus, the recurrent confabulations and successive video calls will categorically magnify the attachment between them and that connection is a social phenomenon that must be relished thoroughly.

Reaching Out Public Arena Easily

This is another beneficial element donated by social media. Just suppose when your boss asks you to be present urgently for a meeting and you are sure that you cannot get there by virtue of some reasons. At this juncture, social media will be a very useful factor to save you from getting sacked or axed. You just need to coordinate with all the members and instruct them to be available on any of the apps or tools that run a meeting smoothly without any hiatus, hesitation and procrastination. Moreover, your contributions can easily be disseminated by dint of social media. If you post some informative content, a video, vlog, story or a caption, it will definitely grey the eyeballs and there will be people who might have reacted or showered their love. Your content will reach out to a greater audience than imagined. We can simply understand the attitudes of our leaders through social media as they become the first ones to express their solidarities on a serious issue or their condolences on the demise of a high-rated personality and the snippets get published in various newspapers. If we use social media, we will receive the latest updates and information than a newspaper reader.

Opportunities for Jobs

It is unknown that every individual wills to get hired and salaried. Social media arguably brings glory to a poor family. Through social media, one can easily get hired by any company than asking for help to get employed by their relatives, friends or bosses. Advertisements are flooded on social media highlighted “Wanted” with a brief note regarding the vacancy. In the initial days, job seeking was contemplated to be a herculean task, but due to the presence of social media, it has become like having a hot cup of espresso. One just needs to visit the asked link or site and complete all the formalities and fulfil all the procedures; you are hired and salaried at the stroke of a pen.

Learning Enhancement

Learning is an eminent or necessary branch of education. One can simply enhance e his learning skills through social media. There is an army of tips and tricks on social media on how to deepen your knowledge and how to hone your proficiency. There might be a round of competitions for the learners such as article, essay, poem, feature, photography, graphic designing etc to gain the attention of the users and honour them with accolades if they win. These are just a mode of encouraging students digitally to be well-lettered with the contents. Social media will make them curious about the upcoming online events, sessions and competitions. Due to the availability of social media, people find it too simple to learn multiple things in a very short span of time for free. Obviously, if someone wants to learn Spanish, German, French or Turkish, then it is very hard for him to learn as he might not be financially stable because learning a foreign language requires astronomical amounts. Thus, on account of financial woes, he quits and his passion somehow gets sapped. But social media helps such people to materialize their dreams at the earliest and cheapest. One needs to recharge his phone and then necessarily enjoy the lectures in his chosen area. There are gazillions of handles that provide foreign language learning classes for free. The ongoing condition bears the testimony that social media is far-or-more than a boon as during the pandemic, the colleges, varsities, schools and hostels were shut, the professors and teachers who had banished several students on the pretext of mobile phone usage were the first to ask for a smartphone for the smooth running of classes via different social media.

Scholarships and Internships

Remarkably, there are multiple universities and institutions that provide various scholarships and internships for meritorious researchers and brilliant students. Social media unquestionably makes it easy peasy for individuals to avail scholarships and internships. Though some institutions make it mandatory for the applicants to fill the form through offline mode, most of such institutions prefer to have a digital platform as it will be honestly done and those who fail to produce some necessary documents, just give a buzz to the authorities of their localities and get the dilemma solved as there already some key snippets given on the site on how to reach to the authorities. It is needless to articulate that most of the companies that need action as well as meticulous members, conduct an online interview or arrange questions for the applicants to avoid a crammed scene despite having spacious halls. Social media makes it very simple for the authorities to have such facilities which can no fear be thought.

After bringing to light some apparent advantages of social media, it is time for its disadvantages to be clearly stated. The following that is being delineated are some of the major disadvantages of social media:

Cyberbullying

Despite its humongous popularity and acceptance among the masses, there are groups of people who prefer to keep themselves away from social media due to the periods of cyberbullying. Not a single day passes till our ears are being apprised of some shameful and gut-wrenching snippets regarding cyberbullying. Though social media has so developed, as far as cyberbullying is concerned, it fails to take necessary steps to ensure its users the absence of cyberbullying.

Harassment and Abuses

Harassment and abuses are other dangerous factor of social media that has sowed seeds of fear and anxiety among its users. There are countless incidents that daily transpire in the nook and cranny of the world. Truth be told, every individual has a right to articulate his own opinions, but there are some users, who do not comply with the views expressed by some users and then start crying foul for that reason. The issue becomes so viral that people begin to lambaste and pillory him. Online harassment and abuses in the world of social media are frequent and quite normal. Whenever someone tries to convey a message, then there are a set of users who brutally troll him and mercilessly abuse him and this sometimes results in the death of the person being fulminated.

Loss of Privacy

The most hazardous disadvantage of social media is privacy. Once you are associated with social media, your privacy becomes at risk or sometimes lost. It would be out of exaggeration to purport to having a social media account creates a path fraught with grim tribulations. Though there are options on social media to have a private account, when it comes to privacy, it does not work. So, one requires to be very cautious while using social media. One must avoid uploading videos that do not go their way or should not post an inflammatory image that may instigate violence and provoke a specific community. There are hackers who exploit their expertise in the wrong way by hacking some accounts and then threatening them for a ransom otherwise they will upload some provoking content through their accounts. Basically, we can argue that there is no privacy in social media. Anything can happen at any fulcrum of time. There may be some sexual contents being circulated through your handle and you may be oblivious thinking ‘I have a private account’.

Rumour and Spurious Contents

Rumours are one of the perilous tools for the destruction of a society, a relationship and for almost everything. Rumours and fabricated versions of truth are far more dangerous than the language of social media. One may have observed a link depicting ‘Click on the link and get a chance to be a MILLIONAIRE’ but if you visit the link, nothing appears you are easily fooled. The rumours being circulated on social media literally have dire consequences. There are countless examples of social media having misinformation and being flooded with rumours. It leaves one greatly poleaxed and perplexed that you have not done or said something, but there will be lines depicting your name and associating with a false piece of information.

To conclude, we can say social media has both: advantages and disadvantages. It depends on the users whether they want to be associated with advantages or prefer disadvantages. The mindset will decide. If you ruminate social media is good, then it is going to be good for you as you be infatuated with the content you want. On the contrary, if you think that social media is absolutely for the bad, then you will be deprived of its shimmering advantages. As a corollary, you will not get the glories generated by social media as others do. Lastly, one can expostulate that this advanced world is being ruled by social media.