If you are one of those who has not posted a photo using the Prisma App, or not played Pokémon GO, or not taken up the ‘challenge’ of changing your profile photo to black and white on Facebook, welcome to the club. Do not worry. You are not alone.
Social media has truly conquered the world, and while it has united people across geographic, demographic, lingual and racial barriers, it has divided humanity into two groups – the online denizens and the offline outcasts.
And the outcasts have been singled out for ages. When Gmail took the world by storm, those who continued to use Yahoo Mail or Rediff Mail were spurned. When the global mobile community went ‘smart’ with smart phones, those still wielding the ‘basic’ handsets were mocked. And God forbid, you are one of those not on Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram; because society will not accept you.
Behavioural psychologist Nathaniel James helps me understand the deeper rationality in this phenomenon. “The underlying factor is simple human behaviour. The moment we do not do something everyone else is doing, we get the feeling of being ostracised. We like to fit in, blend with the crowd and never stand out for fear of being put to shame.”
Nursing student Magdalene Niveda David, who also studies psychology, believes this obsession went to an all-time high with the ‘selfie’ craze. “The saying ‘No man is an island’ is very true. People generally sway towards mass behaviour. The tendency is ‘my friends are doing it, so I must do it too’. They get teased, picked out from the crowd, singled out and pushed away. Over a period of time, they succumb to the mounting pressure.”
Meanwhile, there are still some things in life I don’t understand. Like the purpose of using Snapchat, or filtering my perfectly good face through a range of photo editing apps, or being obsessed with how many ‘likes’, ‘shares’ and ‘re-tweets’ my posts and my uploads get. I’ve come to understand that there is a balance in life. And it’s alright to be offline, not give you the pleasure of two blue ticks, never comment on your relationship status or location tag myself every restaurant I go or every movie I watch. It’s also fine if I don’t share a Pinterest post or emotional video every single time something good, bad or ugly happens to me and specially not put you through the chore of ‘challenging’ you to put a black and white version of the same profile photo you have. Like that’s a challenge. .
I’ve learnt that there is bravery in defying these odds. There are survivors. There are those who choose to never buy a smartphone, use an app or create an account. And they have learnt to help those around them understand that it’s ok to be a social media outcast. There is more to life than digital solace. It’s ok to write letters to friends, send postcards to relatives in other cities, own a Blackberry, send long text messages with vowels and consonants, take your dog for a walk instead of catching Pokémon, keep clippings of newspapers and play a game of cricket with kids in the neighbourhood. Sometimes, these may be the sanest and most honest things to do when compared to the virtual lies we all live online.
For the rest of you out there reading this, make sure to ‘like’ and ‘re-tweet’ this article.
