Here’s the situation. Breakfast is all set, and all family members are about to plunge. But the youngest member of the family shouts loud, “wait – wait!! I need to take the picture and upload it to Facebook and Instagram!!”. All of sudden everyone starts taking photographs of the breakfast from different angles.
After 5 to 7 minutes when all are done with taking pictures, all get busy uploading & tagging them on their favourite social media platforms.
After 3 minutes, all get busy checking who has “liked” or “commented” on their just upload pictures.
We are all 10 minutes into breakfast, and no one has started eating yet. But, the good part is, everyone has started serving themselves.
But, now with spoon and fork in one hand and mobile in another, everyone is checking and talking about the “likes” and “comments” they are receiving. One of the family members has even started a live feed! And is bragging about the number of people viewing his feed.
One of the younger one is however upset. Not because of the taste of the food served in the breakfast but because so far the post had garner only 7 Facebook and 2 Instagram likes. “That is so very wrong, my friends are so insensitive, they are so self-centred, they are so selfish,” he thinks. And without breaking the bread, he gets up from the table and locks himself in the room. While this is happening, everyone is still busy checking and counting the “likes”.
The above narration/story may be exaggerated or dramatised, but I don’t think it is too far away from reality.
We are leaving in times when people are obsessed with the followership, likes and comments they get on their social media posts. The way to measure the success of a social media campaign by the corporates is also depended on how many likes and interactions their “paid” post has generated. And the quality of the content is decided based on it.
It’s not that dangerous for the corporates (it is although for the content creators) to rely so much on the likes and interactions but for individual becoming so obsessed and measuring the compassion and love that others have for him/her based on the likes is.
Becoming restless, anxious and meaning the success based on the likes and comments is eventually resulting in disorders like depressions & jealousy. One becomes judgmental due to this syndrome.
FOMO or the Fear of Missing Out is also causing folks to pay more attention to likes and comments. And the "you scratch my back, and I do your's" also needs to be eliminated.
One can go on and on! So, let’s not be over-obsessed with the business of likes and comments and instead enjoy the “real” life that we have at our disposal. Let not number of likes dictate the level of happiness in your life!
