Social Media Boom and Its Impact
Social Media has changed the way we talk to people, meet people, learn about people, even though it has increased the quantity of people with whom we are able to stay connected and interact with. On the flipside, it has also led to a reduction in the quality of those interactions.
Public defaming, unresolved misunderstandings have become commonplace nowadays. Every idea and emotion is glorified and amplified, though to different degrees. Selfies are popular among us. On facebook, pages on virtually any random topic have popped up and they are followed ardently by many teenagers.
Long distance relationships survive, even thrive using these websites, but unhealthy obsessions also get fed and, as a result, encouraged.
The public uses these platforms to educate themselves on various issues, ranging from Indian politics, international conflicts, to new movie launches, family functions or any event to even birthdays. But this has also widely disseminated ignorance.
The advent of social media platforms and mobile applications has also given rise to concepts such as geo-location. With the number of phones being sold daily being greater than the number of births, check-ins have become the norm.
Click a picture, and then localize the place where it’s been taken with Flickr, Facebook, Pintrest, or Instagram, which Facebook bought for a billion dollars. Instagram, with 150 million users, allows us to share your pictures and use tags to comment. Synchronize your Instagram account with Facebook, Twitter and then relay your picture on these platforms too!
Just one month after acquiring Instagram, Facebook acquired Glancee, an ambient location-based service, on 7 May. This mobile application uses the location of the user to connect with other people near him, who share similar interests and hobbies, and then explore their profiles and receive notifications.
Path, meanwhile, is a personal network that allows one to capture moments of his life. One can tag whoever he is with, where he is at, his thoughts at that particular moment.
Another tool, Pinterest can be regarded as a mood board where people can pin their pictures, comment on them and add the location.
Geo-locating and many other innovative trends have gone viral in the wake of the social networking boom. Let’s not forget memes, tweets etc.
The Great Indian Political Tamasha and Social Media
India is the third most socially active country, according to the GlobalWebIndex. But, unlike youngsters in many other countries, Indians are politically active on the web as well. Most of them from urban areas, youngsters connect on social media to discuss politics and other vital issues.
Social media is now playing a vital role in the Indian politics as ministers have started realizing its power and influence over the Indian youth. From Modi to Kejriwal, every self-respecting and ambitious politician today acknowledges the power this platform holds and embraces it to further his own causes and advertise himself instead of remaining ignorant and getting defamed through judicious use of trolls, memes and what not. Some have even gone as far as creating teams to handle the social media. Be it twitter or facebook, politics has integrated itself and will continue to do so in the future.
Why has social media become so attractive to the politicians? On this platform, free speech is unhindered. It is like a virtual megaphone with a global reach, as the numbers indicate too. Facebook has more than 65 million active users in India, the country being among the top five of the world’s users. Twitter, which has 200 million active users globally, is reported to have around 18 million Twitter accounts in India, placing it sixth among the biggest Twitter nations.
The networking tool — A weapon for the masses
Finance minister P Chidambaram once tried to sum up the phenomenon of social media-driven snap protests by comparing them to flash-mobs. “Flash mob is a new phenomenon… sometimes they gather to dance and sing. But sometimes they gather to protest… I don’t think we are fully prepared to deal with it.”
Let’s take the case of the 2012 Nirbhaya protests. “Illegally being held here at Parliament St Police Station Delhi w/ 15 other women. Terrified, pls RT” This was tweeted by Sambhavi Saxena, 19.
She was holding a peaceful procession at Jantar Mantar on Dec 25 to protest against the brutal rape when police swooped down. What followed was a live broadcast of the events, even as the protestors were horded up and sent to the police station, using rapid fire tweets by Sambhavi. 1700 people retweeted her message. Social media analytics later reported that over two lack people read the SOS.
Going by this case, when the government fumbled around trying to deal with the seemingly unprecedented emergence of widespread protests over Nirbhaya, the minister’s admission was an understatement. Let alone being “fully prepared”, they didn’t have a clue.
Every coin has a flipside.
The ugly side of social networking was highlighted when this channel of unfettered, unfiltered flow of information and messages was utilized to harass people belonging to the northeast from Bangalore, Pune, Chennai and Hyderabad in the wake of the Assam riots. MMSs, trolls, memes, text messages and even tweets were utilized to trigger the exodus.
Be it for good or bad, social media is here to stay. We’ve yet to see its full implementation but with so much active focus being put on it, especially for the elections, both the number of users and the networks will see a steady rise in the coming future.