While social media has made communication super easy, one cannot deny that it has created gaps and empathy seems to be lost. If we look at all of the social media platforms, it’s all about getting the most number of followers, likes, retweets, favourites and other reactions that Facebook introduced. All in all, it’s one big competition of leaving everyone behind and reaching to a point of nothingness which sadly the digital generation believes to be a huge achievement.
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I belong to the late 80’s generation and I still find someone conveying their wishes or condolence verbally, being physically present or on a phone call rather than liking a status of mine and thinking they have done their part. They have shown their support. Even though I am a part of the digital world that revolves around hashtags, likes, retweets, etc. I still prefer the old school method because I can still see genuine emotions. To me, someone verbally wishing me or giving me a handwritten note means far more than a wish on my Facebook wall or a tweet sent out to me.
With increasing number of social media platforms, people faking ‘how perfect their lives are’ has increased as well. In pursuit of making their virtual presence livelier, people have made their personal lives dull and mundane. Imagine going out to a family dinner and everyone is busy on their phones. Some checking-in on Facebook, while others are making Snapchat and Instagram stories. It’s a family dinner, what everyone should be doing is talking to each other. Getting to know what they have been all day long but rather doing that, taking pictures with parents, posting it with hashtags #MyLovelyMother #MyMomMyLife #MyDadBestDad and so on, and so forth.
Amidst all the hashtags and other drama, Facebook released a feature called ‘Mark yourself save’ on the occurrence of a natural disaster. Now it seems like a good feature that helps people on your friends’ list know that you were safe on so and so natural disaster, but if we analyze it from a global perspective then it doesn’t seem to be much practical.
Now, I would like to shed some light on what makes me lose faith in humanity. Every time some tragedy hits any part of the world, we see a flood of tweets, Facebook status updates showing how heartbreaking the incident is but few days down, many of these people don’t even remember what happened.
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The point I am trying to make is that social media has made the digital generation so self-obsessed that they don’t find it alarming that they have lost empathy which is worrisome. People facing a disaster or tragedy would rather prefer support in physical form or maybe monetary form if the disaster has deprived them of their personal property rather than a like or status showing support.
