“Social media is not a media. The key is to listen, engage, and build relationships.”- David Alston.
Everyone has forgotten the fact that social media was brought into existence so that everyone can be connected and share messages to talk. Since in the beginning of 20’s Orkut was the first most used social media platform that was introduced. Orkut was great during the early 20’s back before Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. But during those days Internet wasn’t available to all so many people didnt used the way people use today’s social platforms. And orkut was pretty basic and was not much about privacy so it couldn’t grow much like today’s social media sites such as Snapchat, Instagram, Whatsapp etc.
If anyone asks us what social media is then all of us would answer the same that these are websites designed to keep in touch with friends/family, to be aware of what’s happening in the world. To create connections and make friends apart from our own city, culture and country. Even if we define this in broder terms it is used to promote company brands, Social media enables you to foster interactions and people will be more engaged with you. It’s the perfect way for you to build good relationships. But now this definition doesn’t pretty sums up of what social media has actually become from a time where it was just used to be in touch with ur family members who are far away from you.
Now, the world of these sites has completely changed. Back in times when internet was not easily available people used it for genuine reasons to stay in touch and be connected but now since Internet is easily access able everyone use one of the social media platforms mentioned above or the other sites not mentioned since there are number of sites unlike Orkut or few more back then. But today people are not using these platforms to be social or to be connected but they are using it just for their fun which is not even important in particular. Social media than from being connected has become more of a marketing site, promotion of brands, creating their pages for fashion, travel, food. Nowadays, Social media marketing is used by brands for connecting with their audience for various purposes such as brand building, sales increment, and website driven traffic.Social Media Marketing is one of the most cost-efficient digital marketing methods used to syndicate content and increases your business’ visibility by engaging you with a broad audience of consumers. Social media gives you a networking and communication platform using which you can know your customer reviews and suggestions and can interact with them in a personalized way. Customers also appreciate such an attentive approach by you and build trust with your brand.Every blog, image, video, or comment by you can bring viewers to your company’s website and increase traffic. With this increased visibility of your business, you gain more opportunities to influence visitors and turn them into your customers.
More than this Social media platforms like Instagram provide career options from the contents that u make, Instagram are creating social media influencers from the content they make. Their are different ways to make money from Instagram working as an influencer to post content sponsored by brands, or by being an affiliate marketer selling other people’s brand or by earning money for the contents u make and the tips u provide to your followers. After reaching a number of followers we can charge money from Instagram.
In today’s time we won’t find a single person who doesn’t own a account on Instagram, Snapchat or other sites. Every other person is engaged in these sites and try to be an influencer. But now the question is will everyone will make up to it or some are just wasting their time. If someone would ever ask me how I feel about social media, the only thing that comes to mind is that its a fake world where everyone is trying to impress other people, where everyone is addicted with a thing called showing off everything they have even if they are not happy. We can only find fake smiling pictures and happy videos and meaningless reels or posts which actually doesn’t talk about the actual person he or she is. Do we all show out true self on such platforms or we show the way we can be accepted in such fake world.
The pros of social media is already discussed that how it helps us to stand out in that world by our contents which also helps us and give is career options and also how it holds the marketing and promoting value. But by these is that it doesn’t have any negative side. If u see it has more of negative side than that if the positive sides like it do helps us to be connected but it lacks emotional connection people just use it to impress people by showing off their cars, dresses and stuff but never actually try to get emotionally connected, it gives People a License to be Hurtful by it has gotten to an extreme point where you can say things you can’t say or get away with in person.Decreases Face-to-Face Communication Skills.I believe that people are spending so much time online that they don’t always understand the feeling, emotion and/or character of the person they are talking to. When you talk to someone through a message or even a voice, you can’t always fully understand them. New socially active era causes laziness because instead of running to your friends you can message them. Most importantly it causes distraction every one has a smart phone and other than this have a account on these so they enjoy much more here by counting their likes, reading comments , watching and scrolling through memes rather than doing what they exactly should be doing.
The other thing that has been increased because of this is cyber bullying. The age of social media has completely brought this new problem up. Writing destructive messages, sending vulgar pictures and videos just to bully and hurt other’s emotions . people find this easy to just go over these sites where they can easily take revenge and damage someone’s image or sentiments. It can become a source of trauma for children and young adults and remain with them their whole lives, often leading to mental distress and depression, and in extreme situations, even suicide.
Everything has its pro’s and Con’s. “Social Media is not a threat but it do can become one”. And that depends how we use this and for what we use it. With the growing technology and modernization we cannot completely stop the root of social media but at least we can limit the use and teach the and guide the new generation how to use and for what to use especially when to use. Its our responsibility to not provide our younger generation with smart phones at a very early age out of love and affection and even if we are we limit their use and guide on the usages of social media and Internet. Evwry parent should make sure that they don’t regret after handing their young ones with smart phones and accessibility of Internet.
Aishwarya Says:
I have always been against Glorifying Over Work and therefore, in the year 2021, I have decided to launch this campaign “Balancing Life”and talk about this wrong practice, that we have been following since last few years. I will be talking to and interviewing around 1 lakh people in the coming 2021 and publish their interview regarding their opinion on glamourising Over Work.
If you are interested in participating in the same, do let me know.
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We are also running a series Inspirational Women from January 2021 to March 31,2021, featuring around 1000 stories about Indian Women, who changed the world. #choosetochallenge