Our country presently has a population of more than 1.36 billion people, and out of that, 70 percent of people (a whopping 230 million!) are active social media users. What we find even more interesting in this scenario is the age distribution of the entire population that is actively using different social media platforms. While 28.4 percent of social media conversations come from Gen Z, over 97 million users are in their late teens.
However, what we, at Delhi Public School, Sushant Lok, one of the Top 10 CBSE Schools in Delhi NCR, have noticed is that regardless of the differences in the way different age groups approach the social media platforms, a question that keeps coming forth is the utility of social media in the current scenario.
We understand that the constant pressure to showcase your best self with the incessant pictures and updates, painting the picture of a perfect life, can get a bit exhaustive. Right? But on the other hand, the sense of contentment you get while scrolling through social media and staying in touch with friends, near and far, is also undeniable.
So, is social media all about stress or contentment? Join us in seeking the answers in this article today!
Contentment or stress, or a bit of both
At DPS Sushant Lok, we believe that social media can be a source of contentment and stress, depending on how we approach it. To be perfectly honest, social networks are not inherently stressful, and something good can truly come out of it, provided it is used carefully. After all, we can approach the same situation in two completely separate manners, and that makes all the difference.
For instance, there is no denying that social media can spread information faster than any other media outlet at present. In fact, there have been several instances like the Paris attack and the Ebola outbreak in Nigeria that were reported by social media users before the traditional media channels. Moreover, the former president of the USA, President Donald Trump had admitted that he prefers Twitter because of the immediacy of the platform’s public reach, where press releases and press conferences take a little too long to reach the people.
If you look at the other side of this same scenario, social media has been notorious for spreading false and unreliable information that does nothing but add to your stress. 64 percent of Twitter users say that they have come across something that they later discovered to be false, and 16 percent of Twitter users claim to have retweeted something that they later found out to be wrong.
So, what we are saying is that there is no unidirectional way to look at social media and tag it as something harmful or hail it as useful. It all depends on our perception of things and the way we use the platforms.
The conscious move from stress to contentment
As we have already discussed how social media can be a bit of both those aspects, it is also important to mention that we can move away from the stress of it all and use the platforms to derive more contentment in life. Let’s elucidate this fact further by taking up the example we have already outlined above.
We discussed the impact of spreading the news on social media and the authenticity of it. As such, the simple solution to stay safe from the trap of fake news is to verify the facts we hear before panicking and spreading the news any further. Another viable solution to control social media stress is to control the amount of time we spend on it. After all, is it really that difficult to turn off your phones at the dinner table, at vacations, or during family time? As a matter of fact, a bit of social media detox from time to time can actually do us a world of good.
All in all, we, at DPS Sushant Lok, positioned among the top 10 CBSE schools in Delhi NCR, strongly believe that social media, like almost everything else in our lives, is good only in moderation. Thus, the less of a heavy social network user you are, the more contentment you can derive from the use of these platforms.