E-Paper
Spice of Life | Oh, for the glorious days of simple yet robust living
Maybe folks will wake up before it’s too late and realise how intrusive and invasive social media is. For most of us, it started as a ‘free for all’, a place where information and entertainment was available for the asking
Sometimes on a cloudless bright morning with the musical notes of chirping birds falling on my ears and the heavenly fragrance of jasmine floating in the balmy air, I step onto the lush, damp grass and give in to a ‘not too familiar’ surge of optimism, hoping that we will surely if slowly go back in time, to the old, glorious days of simple yet robust living.
When net meant a gauzy veil or fisherman’s accessory, when roaching, ghosting and bread crumbing had nothing to do with the dating world of youngsters but made one think immediately of pests, scary apparitions and Hansel and Gretel, when ‘photobomb’ had no meaning and would get you a rap from the English teacher, when ‘hangry’ did not mean one is hungry and angry at the same time, when camping meant roughing it out in the open and no one had heard of ‘glamping, when the word ‘manspread’ did not exist and men still sat about, hogging too much space in public places!
Maybe folks will wake up before it’s too late and realise how intrusive and invasive social media is. For most of us, it started as a ‘free for all’, a place where information and entertainment was available for the asking. Little did we know that we would be pulled into this dangerous vortex of addiction and obsession to the detriment of our entire social fabric.
Putting all our private information out there, transferring money via phones, using plastic cards as currency, we are inviting trouble without realising it. Reams and reams of personal data of billions of people worldwide is up for sale to the highest bidder, for a price. Our choices are made for us the minute we open the internet because some anonymous Ivy League graduate, earning a six-figure salary, has created algorithms based on what you and I have been previously surfing.
I search for international airline tickets and the next time online, I am continuously bombarded with advertisements of apartments, hotels, car rentals and local guides of that particular place. Every media platform requires our detailed personal data and then like puppets we adhere to their paid information, toe the line and do their bidding.
Isn’t it time we started using our brains and stopped being mere pawns in the hands of these behemoth conglomerates and realise that we are becoming a world of narcissist, selfish and vacuous people? Our social skills are wanting, our relationships are fragile, our tolerance levels have become abysmal and the collective mental and physical health of our children and generations to come is at stake.
I am actually waiting for the day when it is going to be trendy and hip to not be on any social media platform.
My husband, typically old-fashioned, prefers to go personally to the bank and interact with the manager there for any business. Recently, he received an SMS informing him of a transaction that he was sure he hadn’t approved of. We obviously got worried and tried calling the helpline. After an interminable wait, he managed to get through and then followed the long questions and verifications. “Sir, do you use a debit card, do internet banking or any form of online transaction?” the call centre employee asked eventually. When my husband replied in the negative, he almost swallowed a laugh and said, “Rest assured sir, then no harm can come your way. Your bank account is quite secure and safe.”
pallavisingh358@gmail.com
The writer is a Jalandhar-based freelance contributor
