Skip to main content

Unsocial Media



Social media is one of the most entertaining places for people like me who don’t know how to deal with real societies. I love going through the comments appended to well-written articles whose links are given in Facebook and Twitter – the only two social medias I’m fairly active at. The comments massacre the very spirit of the article concerned. I wonder whether any of the commenters actually read the articles.
How many bhakts, devotees, pilgrims, retreat-goers, or the like, have actually read the scriptures for which they fight tooth and nail on real as well as virtual platforms?
Do people read anymore?
But, be sure, they write. And they write copiously. Social media is full of copious writers.
Does that make it an unsocial place really? I won’t answer that affirmatively. If you restrict your friends’ circles to a few, you get the kind of societies you like. I hope so. But I have accepted friendship requests indiscriminately just because it’s all virtual and I don’t mind the entertainment.
It doesn’t entertain really. It nauseates most of the time. But my entertainment is that nausea which is a constant reminder of the world’s standards. It is a good warning for me. A warning against stepping out into the real world.
In the real world, I stay put in my house and workplace. Shut off. Self-imposed imprisonment. The social media sustains that imprisonment.

PS. Written for Indispire Edition  301: Is social media making people more unsocial? #SocialMedia

Comments

  1. Kiran AcharyaDecember 4, 2019 at 4:30 PM

    I agree. It isn't entertaining at all. People write now because they can, and not because the they know anything.
    Like you, I don't discriminate requests, I accept anyone who calls themselves a writer. So, it used to bother me when my supposed friends started verbal (written) abuse. I don't mind extremist viewpoint, but the attitude if someone tries to contradict their POV.
    But I don't think it's just social media. These people are truly like they're on social media. I don't think social media corrupts people, it just at times, shows their true colours. Our society itself has become asocial. Social media is just a reflection.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalDecember 5, 2019 at 6:21 AM

      Indeed they are just what they are even when they enter public platforms. That's why I said social media is a virtual society. I also agree with your view on the nature of human societies. We need to change our definition as social beings.

      Delete
  2. Kiran AcharyaDecember 4, 2019 at 4:41 PM

    Kindly excuse my typos ��

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lopamudra BarmanMay 26, 2020 at 7:15 PM

    Well on point....be in Covid or not, self-isolation, perhaps, is the gateway of peace and retaining the sense in self...I envy my husband, who doesn't have any social media association, not even WhatsApp, except his writing platforms....people certainly don't care reading more than a complete sentence, think beyond a breath...it runs on likes without knowing what is likeable...reagrds

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 3

Street leading to St Francis Church, Fort Kochi There were Christians in Kerala long before the Brahmins, who came to be known as Namboothiris, landed in the state from North India some time after 6 th century CE. Tradition has it that Thomas, disciple of Jesus, brought Christianity to Kerala in the first century. That is quite possible, given the trade relationships that Kerala had with the Roman Empire in those days. Pliny the Elder, Roman author, chastised in his encyclopaedic work, Natural History (published around 77 CE), the Romans’ greed for pepper from India. He was displeased with his country spending “no less than fifty million sesterces” on a commodity which had no value other than its “certain pungency.” Did Thomas sail on one of the many ships that came to Kerala to purchase “pungency”? Possible.   Even if Thomas did not come, the advent of Christianity in Kerala precedes the arrival of the Namboothiris. The Persians established trade links with Kerala in 4 ...
10 comments
Read more

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 4

The footpath between Park Avenue and Subhash Bose Park The Park Avenue in Ernakulam is flanked by gigantic rain trees with their branches arching over the road like a cathedral of green. They were not so domineering four decades ago when I used to walk beneath their growing canopies. The Park Avenue with its charming, enormous trees has a history too. King Rama Varma of Kochi ordered trees to be planted on either side of the road and make it look like a European avenue. He also developed a park beside it. The park was named after him, though today it is divided into two parts, with one part named after Subhash Chandra Bose and the other after Indira Gandhi. We can never say how long Indira Gandhi’s name will remain there. Even Sardar Patel, whom the right wing apparently admires, was ousted from the world’s biggest cricket stadium which was renamed Narendra Modi Stadium by Narendra Modi.   Renaming places and roads and institutions is one of the favourite pastimes of the pres...
10 comments
Read more

Five Microtales

1.        Development             Chamar, Lohar, Mehtar and many others stood at a distance, along with their families, and watched their huts being pulled down by a bulldozer. They were asked to leave the place where they had been living for decades. “The government has taken over this land for development works,” an officer said. Chamar, Lohar, Mehtar and the others spread their bedsheets under a flyover over which flew opulent vehicles of development.   2.        Impersonation             The old woman went to the Women’s Welfare office. She wanted to register herself for the Prime Minister’s monthly welfare scheme for the old and unemployable women. She placed her thumb on the scanner for Aadhar authentication. “Not matching,” the officer said. She was arrested for trying to impersonate. Sitti...
8 comments
Read more

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 1

Inside St Francis Church, Fort Kochi Moraes Zogoiby (Moor), the narrator-protagonist of Salman Rushdie’s iconic novel The Moor’s Last Sigh , carries in his genes a richly variegated lineage. His mother, Aurora da Gama, belongs to the da Gama family of Kochi, who claim descent from none less than Vasco da Gama, the historical Portuguese Catholic explorer. Abraham Zogoiby, his father, is a Jew whose family originally belonged to Spain from where they were expelled by the Catholic Inquisition. Kochi welcomed all the Jews who arrived there in 1492 from Spain. Vasco da Gama landed on the Malabar coast of Kerala in 1498. Today’s Fort Kochi carries the history of all those arrivals and subsequent mingling of history and miscegenation of races. Kochi’s history is intertwined with that of the Portuguese, the Dutch, the British, the Arbas, the Jews, and the Chinese. No culture is a sacrosanct monolith that can remain untouched by other cultures that keep coming in from all over the world. ...
7 comments
Read more