24 Hour Availability Syndrome

The advent of Internet has led to the rise of social media. Social media has emerged as a platform to connect and express views and opinions. People have found a new lease of life in the form of social media. It offers a lot of convenience and ready availability makes it really popular. The most interesting aspect of social media is that it is an outcome of internet and today internet in each and every person’s palm. The main reason for the significant rise of social media.

Google, Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter, Instagram, etc are no longer new to us. They have unknowingly become a part of our daily lives. ‘Google’ being the first of them offered a lot more than information and mailing ability, what is noteworthy is it’s thrive to update and get better. ‘Facebook’ revolutionized the social media circuit, in no time everyone was hooked on to it as it offered unique and different features like sharing pictures and events in daily life. ‘Twitter’ is a trend which has got followers right from celebrities to parliamentarians. However it was the emergence of ‘Whatsapp’ which changed a lot of things for the common man as one could communicate daily across distances simply at the touch of one’s phone. It changed the means of communication by adding much more too daily conversations.

However today we are so involved in these various tools of social media that sometimes we tend to ignore real life scenarios. The beep of the phone and we are anxious to grab it and see the message and reply to it to such an extent that we forget eating, drinking or whichever activity we are doing. There is such a strong urge to update every life event on Facebook whether it’s a set of pictures, a feeling or emotion we want to put across, a recent holiday or picnic we’ve had, etc. Sometimes it’s really funny that we have our entire life account on social media. I think social media has very smartly caught the right nerve of human beings that of attention seeking. The more the people like our pictures and status the better we feel. We love boasting things on social media as we are sure that most of the people on our list would notice it.

We are so busy in updating across several platforms of social media and strive to always be online that we get engrossed in this process and I believe get addicted to what I feel is the 24 hour availability syndrome. It is a disease according to me for reasons like if there is no network availability we get restless for not getting access to Whatsapp/Facebook/Twitter, the first thing we check on reaching a new place is the availability of wifi, etc. We want to know everything and also feel the need to express our opinion on each and everything.

I can’t blame you for being hooked on since most of us are in the same boat. But we need to use the social media responsibly and be aware of it ills and effects. We should be very careful and also enjoy the platform it gives us to connect with people. Btw did you’ll see my new picture on Whatsapp and my status update of Facebook? :p

–         Anjani M Nautiyal