Sadaf Khursheed
SRINAGAR: Sitting is new smoking, warn heath experts apparently for the reason that it’s the root cause of many health issues nowadays. And sitting may be linked to using Social media for some hours or may be hours together without realizing the ill effects on an individual or the society.
According to Childmind.org (United states based organization that deals with the mental problems of children) “teenagers are constantly engaging in cell phone use throughout the day ,users are even texting, sharing, trolling and scrolling while studying or completing homework or even eating. It also states that teens are now spending more time participating in cyber communications rather than sharing and experiencing in person interactions with others”.
While many people may argue that social media has helped us to get closer to everyone including our next door neighbor to our college friend living at North Pole, get the latest news even from Mars however this is little good than the more harm Social Media is doing to our society.
It may appear that social media brings people together across continents but in reality it’s creating more isolation among the users. In a study published in 2016 by Swansea University (Public Research University at Wales, UK) “people experienced the psychological symptoms of withdrawal when removed from social media.
As people spend increasing amounts of time on social media, they experience less face to face interaction which makes them more dependent on devices”. And it can lead to physical, mental, psychological problems like depression, anxiety, somatic complaints and many others.
Besides isolation people get caught in the delusion that social media will help them to cope up and fight their problems which is not although true. And even after that they keep coming back to social media taking as a remedy to their issues.
“Many patients who come with various psychological problems have agreed using more apps than others to chat with people and make social media friends which doesn’t even help them a bit instead makes their problems more aggravated”, said Dr Asif Iqbal.
Many more negative effects of social media may be:
• Encouraging poor grammar and spelling.
• Allowing the spread of misinformation: fake news.
• Online predators.
• Cyber bullying.
• Decreasing productivity at office places as workers keep on checking their accounts.
• Can lead to jealousy as people sometimes post the stories of their success and achievements.
• People start comparing their lives with others.
It’s the responsibility of the individuals to use social media carefully and the duty of parents to monitor their children.
Comments are closed.