Editorial Team
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Written By: Editorial Team | Published : April 16, 2018 5:45 PM IST
The Internet and Virtual Reality (VR) has become the basis of a paradigm shift in the way we connect to the world and reach out to each other. It has made distances redundant, giving a platform for the exchange of ideas; and in the process enabled gigantic and earlier implausible, leaps in technology. Social networking has empowered us to constantly stay connected and to reach out to new people. Digital 'avatars', photo editing tools, posts, tweets and messenger's help us become more expressive.
Too much involvement with social media can have its own repercussions, says Dr Kedar Tilwe, Consultant, Psychiatrist, Sexologist, Department Of Mental Health & Behavioural Sciences, Hiranandani Hospital, Vashi. So, as we use the platform to feel good and share our experiences, let's look at some of the drawbacks that we tend to ignore and forget:
- The need to present yourself in the best possible light to the world, forces us to edit, modify and sometimes even drastically alter our images, opinions and thoughts that we upload. In our endeavour to garner more appreciation we often forget that it is our little imperfections which make us unique and endearing.
- Self-esteem & self-worth which were your personal feelings are now measured by the number of likes, retweets and followers you generate
- Experiences and memories are often only as good as the total views and comments they generate. Even the family meal is now rated on the basis of chatter on social sites rather than the way they taste!
- Another area of concern is the altering of opinion on your own body-image as we try to imitate the perfect size figure or the most number of abs that is popular; often forgetting the limits of our body.
- The search for the perfect Selfie is fast becoming a public obsession and sometimes even a source of major accidents.
- Cyberbullying and Trolling are new demons which make people feel battered and punitive.
- Most importantly we tend to erroneously substitute actual human connect for the online one; leading to strain and misunderstanding in our relationships.
Image source: Shutterstock
