Social media do have their share of fun elements very much, but at a certain point, indulgence levels stoops too far. I don’t understand the concept of “privacy” which many people demand. They would have made their Instagram account “private”, but grant permission to view their profile to any stranger without even having mutual contacts.

This ludicrously deepens in Snapchat. This was first introduced as a substitute to long texts, for people to convey messages in the form of pictures rather than typing. At present, Snapchat must accept responsibility to have got the rage of “story” into the masses. Almost all other social media platforms today carry a “story” column in their apps, Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp extensively. As a matter of fact, one’s Whatsapp’s “story” doesn’t carry much of the gibberish as many of the family members would have easy access to it, but I wish to stress on the point that there exists only a certain amount of fun elements in these. I also do not discard the point that some of them also use the feature to pass on information that actually is worth sharing.

It puzzles me when I see “stories” carrying pictures of one, alongside texts like “bored”, “jobless”, “hectic”, etc; the reason being- they are the same people who proudly fill their profile data with words like –“ dancing is my passion, reading is life or singing is bliss”. Come exam times, one hardly fails to notice posts by them that say, “I’m sick of studying” or “Engineering is tough” (as if posting would help them gain time or teach them valuable answers). The worst is a post that has them in front of a textbook, with a caption “Study Time” to go with it.

Facebook has this feature where in one can put up a post that says he or she has checked into a particular café or has reached the airport to travel to another city. My only question is- “Who cares”? It has become more like we go to different places, firstly to show people that we too know to hangout, and then to actually eat or do what we have set out to. Hard, but true.

I personally think that we, today, have forgotten how to make memories and are just thriving on how to click the best pictures. Pictures may seem very pretty but I feel there’s no point to remember that hangout when most of the time was lost in that activity. The pictures surely may interest a few, but whilst posing for the lens, we do not realise that we are missing out on opportunities to make alluring memories. Again, there exists some merry in doing so, but a merrier element lays untouched. And surely, just looking back at the memories would bring more joy than looking at the pictures. Few years down the lane, it would definitely not bring us the nostalgia what our parents and grandparents obtain by looking at their childhood pictures, solely because they had only a limited number to click.

Social media also has got in this trait in many people- being fake. Well, I do not mean to generalise it, but it is a very significant aspect of life at present, in many. People send out messages to their contacts (read friends) asking them to write a few honest words about them, and post it to their timeline on Facebook. First of all, which friend is honest enough to write critically about the person? Second and the most important question is that why a third person would be interested to know what one thinks about the other. There is definitely lack of honesty here.

There also exists these Instagram and Snapchat “stories” which carry the biggest of the gibberish. Such irony comes in when users demand for privacy but are ready to share their daily happenings with this feature, even much when the viewer is least interested and hardly knows the person.

A thought occurs that, it seems we are prisoners of the warden called ‘like’ in the real life. Even for a regular post, one needs to think more than twice before uploading, solely because the ‘like’ button needs to be clicked by the viewers. We are bound by the likings of others, rather than we doing what we actually like to. We fear that we may not be considered ‘cool’ enough, do we not follow the trend. This surely doesn’t seem a free life. This frenzy has even taken many to substance abuse. A picture of one smoking a pot or with bottles of alcohol gathers more prominence than a post on the on-going issues. We have become aloof to most of the happenings around the world. We carve out enough time out of our daily lives for social media, and later complain of not having leisure time.

It is inevitable in this era to stay away from the world of social media. There are quite a few people who have created marvel through these platforms. Social media was meant to provide this huge platform, but the purpose of it has certainly gone absurd.

Stressing on the fact that all the features provided by the developers surely gives us many a blissful moment, but we need to identify the point where a line needs to be drawn. It is high time we do so. This frenzy has almost reached its saturation point and the time is soon coming where these will take a dip. Well, it all boils down to this question at the end- Cometh the hour?