April 09, 2012
A critic of social networking sites like Facebook, for all these years I had my reasons to feel it is bringing the evil side of human behavioural disorder. Uncontrolled nature of the medium often incites people to use the virtual world as a punching bag, something that many of us need in the real world to vent out anger and frustration. As a result, I often come across cuss words, half-baked perspective and ignorant rant that can spoil the taste of any decent society. More often than not I end up meeting fake faces with a holier-than-thou persona where pseudo identity gets exposed immediately after a meet up in real world.
No wonder, my initial euphoria of networking with old forgotten acquaintances and newly found like-minded people soon turned out to be taste spoiler. It is not that I stopped adding more friends; rather it remained an on-going process in order to understand the behavioural disorder of the society at large from a psychological perspective. Of course, in this social networking spree, many exposed and not-up-to-the-class crowd got deleted and blocked on a regular basis. Nevertheless I carried on with the necessary evil in social media, though with a critical approach.
However, the writer in me and more importantly the critic in me often had this introspection about the cost-benefit factor of social networking. After all, sharing of literary taste and socio-political concerns was less and internet hooliganism was more on offer. Every other comment seemed to be coming out of a fit of rage. A subdued society that India has been, there has suddenly been a rush for activism and often “rebel without a cause” in the virtual world.
Added to the fact, I also found the other side of what I call misguided personality where people seemed to be exploring what they are surely of incapable of achieving in real life. Most conspicuous has been the quest for a political career by viciously abusing the governments and the powers-to-be. Many of such people seem to genuinely believe that it is a platform for transformation and social change.
All this left a very basic question that whether Facebook was proving to be an agent of lawless society. How to deal with an outlet of personality disorder? Whether there is a psychological side of the medium that needed to be thoroughly researched? Whether Facebook is making everyone a communicator for all the wrong reasons? What are the long terms social benefits and imbalances of the virtual world?
However, what made me question my own conviction now, if not change it completely, is some personal experiences where I was introspecting whether my own outburst on the Facebook was in sync with my belief and ideology. Of late, Facebook by default proved to be my alter ego as well where my subconscious mind was driving me to vent out my anger and frustration. But the critic in me was constantly questioning whether this impulsive urge to update my state of mind so bluntly could have been avoided?
Going through some crisis in life when I needed an avenue to vent my anger, with nobody around, Facebook was there. Of course, my frustration and anger never defied my intellect or literary taste. But then, I ended up doing something of which I have been critic over the years. So, now I have come to realise that in the fast lane of loneliness that the life in a metro offers, Facebook and many other virtual-social platforms are also acting like stress busters.
In an honest observation, I had bottled up emotion for months that was asking to be released. And before I could regain my intellectual self, the anger, frustration and depression in me got an outlet with Facebook updates. And I must admit here that this release of bottled up emotion had its therapeutic effect as well. Have I ended up doing the same of which I had been a bitter critic?
I am trying to delve much deeper to understand this dichotomy of social media and shaping up of personality. Hopefully, I come out with some more conclusive results. If not, at least I have initiated a debate which many psychologists would love to discuss—whether Facebook is an outlet for personality disorders or releasing bottled up emotions. Well, till the time more conclusive results are found, Facebook seems to continue as an alter ego for many like me.
