I was just grasping today over something which I felt was worth making a mention of especially considering the fact that today, it influences both our personal and professional lives a lot. It is nothing but social media.
Social media which for us started off as a way of connecting with our close friends and family members today has had a really profound impact on our day to day lives. It has really influenced us a lot in the way we think, our opinions we have on various matters of interest be it either social, or political or in most cases to do with our own personal and professional lives.
Having been on social media for the past four years, I have gone through all the ups and downs of what it really takes to be an active user, first on Facebook and now on Instagram. The one thing that I would really like to make a mention of, especially for those who are hardcore Instagram users is that, that there is one thing in common that really affects us all on this platform and that is mainly the followers and the likes, as that is what really brings us back to the platform every time and keep using it extensively.
The reason why I have titled this post as 'Social Media- A Mind Game' is because I have reached that point where I personally feel that social media is nothing but an exposition of people's mindsets or their ways of thinking on various platforms, be it either on WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and for that matter even Twitter. This ranges right from all the popular quotes we come across specially on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram to even the memes which depict how we react as example in a particular situation depicted by way of pictures and text and when we feel it resonates with us a lot, we feel like sharing it on the platforms. The whole point here is that all of us do not realize that we give our friends or even someone whom we've just come across, a peak into our personal lives a lot which could actually be exploited in the long run.
Taking advantage of the engagement that these platforms today provide to all those active users out there, a lot of opportunity has been provided to many of the influencers, to be more specific the YouTubers, as by analysing on the various issues that affect people's personal lives, they are able to attract larger audiences as the content they produce on their pages is able to touch upon the various aspects of people's lives and in this way garner a lot of followers and subscribers. More importantly, they even earn their money with the content they produce specially on platforms such as YouTube and Facebook. So if one can actually look at it from a broader perspective, they're actually playing up a lot with people's minds in order to gain a lot of followers and subscribers.
Apart from that, a lot of digital marketers have used these platforms to place in advertisements of their businesses based on people's interests and likes which can be gauged through the Instagram or Facebook pages that people interact with the most and it has been a real success as they have been able to target the right audiences once again because they have been able to play up with people's minds very well. Not to forget, the incident that had taken place early this year of 'Cambridge Analytica' where Facebook was accused of mishandling people's user data was once again a play with people's minds as the main people behind the now unpopular 'Cambridge Analytica' Facebook app had designed it in such a way so as to gather people's opinions on their choice of candidates for the 2016 US Presidential Election and through their presence on Facebook, they actually worked on producing content that would influence people into eventually voting for Donald Trump and getting him elected as the President of the US.
So these are all the aspects that we need to take into consideration when using any of the social media platforms in our day to day lives. Apart from that, I would also like to highlight the fact that we really need to be careful especially with regards to what we share of our lives on social media as one can never say when this information may be used for purposes which are intended to cause division or destruction of unity in any society!!!
Having been on social media for the past four years, I have gone through all the ups and downs of what it really takes to be an active user, first on Facebook and now on Instagram. The one thing that I would really like to make a mention of, especially for those who are hardcore Instagram users is that, that there is one thing in common that really affects us all on this platform and that is mainly the followers and the likes, as that is what really brings us back to the platform every time and keep using it extensively.
The reason why I have titled this post as 'Social Media- A Mind Game' is because I have reached that point where I personally feel that social media is nothing but an exposition of people's mindsets or their ways of thinking on various platforms, be it either on WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and for that matter even Twitter. This ranges right from all the popular quotes we come across specially on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram to even the memes which depict how we react as example in a particular situation depicted by way of pictures and text and when we feel it resonates with us a lot, we feel like sharing it on the platforms. The whole point here is that all of us do not realize that we give our friends or even someone whom we've just come across, a peak into our personal lives a lot which could actually be exploited in the long run.
Taking advantage of the engagement that these platforms today provide to all those active users out there, a lot of opportunity has been provided to many of the influencers, to be more specific the YouTubers, as by analysing on the various issues that affect people's personal lives, they are able to attract larger audiences as the content they produce on their pages is able to touch upon the various aspects of people's lives and in this way garner a lot of followers and subscribers. More importantly, they even earn their money with the content they produce specially on platforms such as YouTube and Facebook. So if one can actually look at it from a broader perspective, they're actually playing up a lot with people's minds in order to gain a lot of followers and subscribers.
Apart from that, a lot of digital marketers have used these platforms to place in advertisements of their businesses based on people's interests and likes which can be gauged through the Instagram or Facebook pages that people interact with the most and it has been a real success as they have been able to target the right audiences once again because they have been able to play up with people's minds very well. Not to forget, the incident that had taken place early this year of 'Cambridge Analytica' where Facebook was accused of mishandling people's user data was once again a play with people's minds as the main people behind the now unpopular 'Cambridge Analytica' Facebook app had designed it in such a way so as to gather people's opinions on their choice of candidates for the 2016 US Presidential Election and through their presence on Facebook, they actually worked on producing content that would influence people into eventually voting for Donald Trump and getting him elected as the President of the US.
So these are all the aspects that we need to take into consideration when using any of the social media platforms in our day to day lives. Apart from that, I would also like to highlight the fact that we really need to be careful especially with regards to what we share of our lives on social media as one can never say when this information may be used for purposes which are intended to cause division or destruction of unity in any society!!!
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Published in Herald Goa on 6 January 2020 (People's Edit) as well as edited and modified for Halcyon 2019-20 Annual Magazine of St. Xavier's College, Mapusa, Goa-India.
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