Shaheen Bhatt ponders over her social media usage, says it ‘rarely comes from positive feelings’

Shaheen Bhatt reflected on her use of social media after watching the new Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma, which explores the dangers of social networking. In a series of musings posted on her Instagram stories, she said that she came to the epiphany that her use of social media ‘rarely comes from positive feelings’. However, she expressed her desire to change that.

“Just like anyone who’s watched the Social Dilemma - I’ve been thinking a lot about how/why I use social media. I did some thinking and realised my use of social media rarely comes from positive feelings,” she wrote.

“On the contrary, my use of social media usually comes from an anxious, connection-hampering place,” Shaheen wrote. She also shared hand-written observations, in which she wrote that social media not only preys on but enhances her insecurity, suggestibility, boredom, loneliness and FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out).

Shaheen expressed her desire to ‘change all that’ and said that she would like to use social media for displaying work, sharing passions, getting ideas/inspiration, forging new connections and surprises.

Shaheen shared a graph of her weekly usage of Instagram, which showed that she spent an average of 53 minutes per day on the photo-sharing platform, in the last week. “I spent more time here than I should have this week,” she wrote, adding that the longest she spent was an hour and 40 minutes, which was before watching The Social Dilemma.

The least time Shaheen spent in a day scrolling through Instagram this week was 22 minutes, which she said was ‘more my idea of controlled social media use’.

In July, Shaheen shared screenshots of hate messages received by her in the aftermath of Sushant Singh Rajput’s death. She threatened to take legal actions against trolls sending her abusive messages.

Shaheen had written in her Instagram stories, “I speak now to those of you who think it’s okay to send me or anyone messages full of hate: If you send me a message with the sole hope (I say hope because I promise you -nothing you say is keeping me up at night) of humiliating, insulting, or bullying me, then the following things will happen: - The messages or comments will first be blocked and reported to Instagram directly. - You will forfeit the right to your privacy. I will NOT protect your identity. Every sh**ty message you send me will - should I choose to - go up for everyone to see. Abusers are emboldened by their anonymity. I will not help hide you. - I WILL use all legal recourse available to me to take action. If you think you can’t be located because your account is anonymous, please think again - IP addresses are easily trackable. You are not invisible. Harassment is a crime.”

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