The Social Network that broke the society! -Guest Post

Radhika Maira Tabrez

About the Author : Radhika lives in Unchahar (UP) with her husband, son and at last count 67 pairs of shoes. In another life, she was an MBA (HR) from SIBMwith over twelve years of experience in L&D, a movie buff and a Latin dance enthusiast. Now, living under the sovereignty of her kindergartner son and moonlighting as a writer, that life is all but a distant memory.She has won many writing contests and her work has featured in two of Readomania’s anthologies, a chapbook called Sankarak – A Literary Fusion and UnBound (an e-Magazine). She loves to read and write fiction and non-fiction alike. Ayn Rand, Virginia Woolf and Jhumpa Lahiri are her all time favorite writers and inspirations. Her debut novel will be out this summer.

She currently blogs at : https://radhikamairatabrez.wordpress.com/

The Social Network that broke the society! 

At the very outset, we should absolve Mark Zuckerberg of any blame here. I think his intentions were noble.He just wanted to do something nice - make a lot of money too in the process, but that is not the point here - by creating what he did. A platform, where we can travel through a metaphoric wormhole and be reunited with people across the fabric of space and time. Magic, pure magic! I could, for example, just search for the name of the girl I shared my desk with in fifth grade, and had lost touch with thereafter. And voila!... Be reunited just like that. A few hours spent on each other’s timelines would bring us up to speed on all that we had missed out; higher education, career, marriage, kids. It would be like we never even separated! It is a beautiful gift to have. A gift people from before our time did not have. A gift, unfortunately, the people in times to come wouldn’t ever realize the true value of, because they would have always had it. It is a privileged vantage point to be at, indeed.

Having said that, it would be unreasonable to expect that a phenomenon which has permeated our daily lives as deeply as social networking has, will not change our behavior significantly along the way. In good ways, and in bad.'

On the use-abuse continuum for any technology,we humans seldom know where to stop. That’s always been our problem. Hence, the lines demarcating a boon from a bane often, eventually, get blurred.What’s happening with social networking isn’t very different.

We had a few good years, no doubt. But once we had reconnected with whoever we wanted to, and made enough new friends along the way, and ‘liked’ a hundred odd pages on a variety of topics, and joined a dozen groups with common interests, and announced every ‘check-in’, and attained dizzying high levels in solving murder mysteries; I guess, the charm of it all just wore off. No amount of sharing photos of last night’s dinner, posting our ‘thinking out loud’ moments of wisdom, re-quoting overused platitudes and famous words from famous people; seemed to fill the void inside us (or the void on our Facebook walls!).

We needed more.

At least some people,thankfully, took to filling that void positively. Which is why it became a fantastic knowledge sharing tool. Thanks to Facebook, I now know how to re-purpose 80% of my trash like plastic bottles, broken ceramic and even spent up toilet paper rolls. I know enough survival tricks to give Bear Grylls a run for his money (only theoretically, though, because I obviously don’t have his exemplary courage). I know a zillion life hacks which has made me look at everyday items like rubber bands, duct tapes and binder clips with a renewed sense of respect. I have tried dozens of new recipes my friends recommended. Etc., etc., etc.

But unfortunately, not everyone wanted to contribute in that constructive manner.And that’s where I believe, things took a rather unwanted turn. Don’t believe me? Just try and recall your Facebook newsfeed over the last few months. Every single day there is some or the other heated debate going on (rarely purposeful, mostly pointless)

Is Deepika Padukone’s Vogue video feminist or a farce. Should Aamir Khan be exiled to Pakistan or not. Is the damn dress blue and black or white and gold! All that animated and articulate discussion makes for good entertainment, no doubt. I should know. I managed six months without satellite T.V., because I barely missed thoseT.V. dramas amidst all the remarkably better ones being played out in the social media. By real life people, no less!

But, once the laughs all this draws fade away and the eyebrows it raises settle down, you come to realize thedamage it carries in its wake.

Some of those discussions are very welcome, even necessary. Besides, there is nothing new in our need to poke our noses into every one’s business and give our unsolicited opinion/advice. We Indians, especially, are pretty immune to that kind of intrusive behavior and have dished out the same to others. But there is a hell lot of a difference in assertively stating one’s point and making a irrelevant wisecrack about every little thing you lay your eyes on. The former is something I respect and even look forward to. Good conversations and for that matter, good societies thrive on it. But somewhere in this virtual society, the nature of that behavior has gotten worse. It has become more abrasive. More intolerant. (Gosh! I am so wary of using that word these days, my fingers involuntarily moved to ‘Backspace’ after typing it)

I have a senior from college, who once posted a very bigoted and communally inciting message. He and I were on decent terms in college; one might even call them friendly. So I told him what he said was in bad taste. While I understand the basic sentiment it comes from; he should nevertheless delete it because it has the potential to hurt many people. In all earnest, I expected him to agree. Because I thought that is all it was, a silly comment, made during a bored working day afternoon.Perhaps while he was involuntarily enduring a mind-numbing meeting at the office? Perhaps he was pissed at someone for making him attend that boring meeting and found venting it all out somewhere else cathartic. I didn’t know. I also didn’t know that he was quite determined to follow through. He responded to my comment with a language and ‘so-called’ facts which were both uncalled for and needlessly harsh. I responded that an argument can be made both ways. But in making that argument we would both be required to say things which needn’t be uttered on a platform like this. That didn’t stop him. In fact, he dialed it up a notch.

It was then I realized, that it wasn’t just a random comment he made. It was all a part of his performance. One which he was putting up for the 500 + people on his friends list. This was his five minutes of fame. His chance to trend on his friends and acquaintances’ Newsfeed for a few hours. And that motive fueled his aggression. As a result, that one distasteful conversation became the decisive moment for an 5 year old acquaintance.

Our platforms I believe, have come to shape our interaction. Had we had this conversation in person, alone, or even with a few people around, I don’t think it would have ended this badly.There is a sense of comfort, of false courage, in the distance and anonymity this virtual world provides. To say all that in a face-to-face discussion takes a lot more than just keying in the first thing that comes to your mind. I noticed he had displayed similar bullying tendencies with a lot of people earlier as well. So I ‘unfollowed’ him to avoid seeing his pointlessly caustic comments. But then I started noticing similar behavior quite often,in a lot of other people. Perhaps I too did it to someone, sometime and got ‘unfollowed/unfreinded’ in the process. I wouldn’t know.

Makes me wonder, if this has anything to do with the quantum of the audience we all are playing for. For practically everything we post - even if it is as inane as what our cat ate for breakfast this morning - we have hundreds of eyes on it in a matter of minutes. It is the kind of grand stage, everyonedesires, but very few can handle with dignity and grace. Most of us get fazed by all the limelight and start acting goofy. Start posting clichéd quotes and platitudeswe don’t follow ourselves, endorsing ideas we can’t in all earnestness get behind, and opposing others’ point of views with a belligerence we don’t really feel.

And believe me, these aren’t even the worst things, this easy availablityof an audience makes us do.I remember, when Nepal got hit by the catastrophic earthquake, the entire world rushed forward to help.But pretty soon, that spirit of compassion and aid got overtaken by the urge to create propaganda. It then became a brazen contest of which religion is doing more to help the victims or even (outrageously!) the followers of which religion were the least affected by the tragedy. A gentleman I’m friends with had the maturity and guts to rap his own religionfor getting involved in such nonsense. But unfortunately, he is a rare specimen.

Then there are other subtle damages being caused to our social etiquette; none of them as grave as the ones mentioned above, but meriting concern, nevertheless.

One that particularly gets my goat, is seeing people wish someone ‘HBD’. I mean, if we are too busy to wish a “Happy Birthday J” to our friends, then maybe, we needn’t bother at all.But then, what’s to be said about the people who respond to all of their birthday wishes in a generic status message “Touched to have so many of your wishes and blessings.” Maybe the bugger deserves an “HBD” after all!

Our generation, sadly and painfully, still remembers the time when we couldn’t afford to buy an Archies greeting card ever so often and hence had to count on the Picasso inside us to draw up a Birthday/ Diwali/ New Years’ card. The beauty of the whole process was, the recipient of that mangle of colors didn’t quite care whether we were a Picasso reincarnate or not. He or she cherished it for the time and effort we put into it.

Ah! Time and effort.

Isn’t that the point of it all. We don’t want to spare neither of it,now, to nurture our relationships. It is not even nurturing really, strictly speaking. The operative word now is ‘maintenance’. More like ‘the minimum required maintenance’. So handmade cards led to e-cards and then to generic season’s greetings on Facebook and Twitter. Calls on special holidays and festivals turned to downloading the relevant images from the net and bulk forwarding them to friends and family on Whatsapp. 

The other day I saw someone’s status message, lamenting the fact that before Facebook he used to write and receive letters and postcards from his friends. After I was past the momentary nostalgia and pseudo-sadness that post was meant  generate, I wondered how was Facebook responsible for him not writing those letters anymore?

We may blame the world for becoming a colder and darker place, all we want. But, deep down inside, we must know, that it is only happening because we are letting it.

Because we want to make curt arguments and sound like know-alls at the cost of old friendships.Because we want to save 3 seconds of our time, by typing an “HBD” instead of “Happy Birthday”.Because we do not care to send letters and postcards to our friends anymore..Because when catastrophes strike, we are more concerned about who’s getting more propaganda rather than whether or not the victims are getting food and necessities.

So there it is, a social network which was meant to bring us all closer, now being a catalyst for further segregation and estrangement.

What is it that they say, you always get what you deserve, eh?

TL,DR; Just read the phrases in bold.