Social madness
Social media gives everyone a chance to express their feelings. While many are vocal about their feelings, there are quite a few others who find it difficult to express themselves in words. They are shy, rigid to some extent while expressing their real inner feelings. It need not be physical fighting anymore, these days most people have taken to social networking sites to vent out their frustrations. However, what’s worrying is the impulsiveness of these vents; it just takes a few seconds for people to voice themselves on this platform. Here’s how this platform has lately generated a marathon of impulsive outbursts and why.
Salman Khan’s tweets on Yakub Memon’s death penalty recently did not go down well with the public. A few hours later, he was forced to delete them. Why are some people so impulsive to tweet?
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has seen many surprises. In July, even as the topic of immigration heated up between candidates, Trump re tweeted an offensive comment about the former Florida Governor Jeb Bush that said, “JebBush has to like the Mexican Illegal’s because of his wife.” Neither Trump nor his campaign commented on the decision to delete the tweet.
The point is tweeting or face book is a simple process. It’s the easier way to vent out your feelings, you can write as much and whatever you wish to, without mentioning who it is for. With new age connectivity, your outbreak will be in public in a fraction of seconds. It’s become so simple to connect with the world. One need not sulk in a cocoon. The person can have a good experience; so many people want to rush to the sender’s aid. Social networking has a wide reach. Everyone from your close friends to acquaintances to friends of friends as well as others across the globe can see your post and get a fair idea about the state of your mind. Many of these contacts want to rescue you, do well to you. Why not take a chance?
But, while the response can be gratifying: the response to your outburst can be so flattering that you feel triumphant about the situation. You’ve been empathised and sympathised with as well as garnered a lot of praise for being so courageous. This encourages you to rage an online war anytime. But on the flip side: once posted, the world is given something to gossip about what you are going through. That’s not all, this being an impulsive outburst, is obviously not backed with reason and thought. The words that come to your mind immediately after a argument might change later on. After you are cooled down, you might have a different angle to look at your problem. However, the damage is already done; in spite of the ‘delete post’ option, the post still remains in the database of the people who responded over it, in their inboxes and notifications at times. Finally, although an outburst of a temporary state of mind, this action causes a permanent damage, if the person is of concern to you.
Friends, social networking is alike a match stick in hand: if you use it properly its fine else it burns your goodwill. We tend to take our digital personas lightly at times, than we present ourselves in reality. We can mask our personas on social media but in reality.
Individuals who are more impulsive and get distracted easily may be drawn to social media for anything and everything. For some time they do get solace; their experience with these media then encourages them to jump quickly from one event to the next, further developing their tendency to respond impulsively can be reduced if only they decide firmly. Let’s not treat the social media as garbage box. Stop for a moment before you want to wash your dirty linen in public.
