Social Media is a virtual interactive platform for sharing ideas, views and information. It has become an inseparable part of our lives as it keeps us aware of the daily happenings around the world. With social media, we are just a few clicks away to access the unknown things. Without a doubt, social media has revolutionised the process of communication and with every passing day, communication game is getting stronger. Social Media applications like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Skype and other such apps has made life way more easier than ever.

Like the two sides of a coin, Social Media too has two sides.

Positive side of Social Media

• Through social media, we can communicate with people even from far away places. We can broaden our friend circle through it by constantly interacting with unknown people and keeping in touch with our old friends.

• Social Media has become a globalised platform to showcase the talents of people. People with various skills share their talents in the form of videos and post it on social media. It provides them with an opportunity to receive appreciation for their talent that further boost their confidence to carry on with what they excel in.

• People can use Social Media platforms for business purposes. This is the most common thing that we witness nowadays. People start their business through social media applications like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube etc. YouTube is one such popular application that people use to earn money. People post videos on YouTube and gets paid if they fulfill the various criteria of getting paid, for example, crossing a certain number of views count, likes counts or subscribers count. A lot of businesses have flourished on Social Media and are still flourishing smoothly.

• Social Media helps students in education too. Teachers can make use of social media to teach their students out of classroom situation. Especially in the time of pandemic when attending classes is not possible, social media applications have taken the place of classroom. Teachers takes online classes through various online meeting applications and share reading materials through other social media applications. Moreover, students can get extra information from surfing through social media.

Although Social Media has connected a lot of people and is making life easy, yet it has its own drawbacks.

• Social Media makes people addicted to it when people constantly keeps on using social media. People are seen to spend quite a lot of time on social media ignoring other productive works. Social Media addiction keeps people aloof from real life situation that hampers their social life in the long run.

• Social Media takes a toll on human health, be it physical health or mental health. Because a person sticks his eyes to the screen of various gadgets he is exposed to various eye ailments, headaches and body aches. Even his sleep schedule is disturbed when social media use is more than what is required.

Social Media gives us an unrealistic expectations of life and when in real we fail to meet with what we expected we become disappointed. When this disappointment goes on for a long time, we push ourselves to the web of depression. This greatly disturb our mental health.

• Cyber bullying, hacking, catfishing etc are taking at a large scale in the present times. Social Media users are the easy targets of these online criminals. Because social media platforms has a thin layer of privacy, personal and private information of the users can be hacked. A person’s identity can be used in a derogatory manner by the criminals.

• Social Media can also promote unhealthy competition among its users. Almost everyone on social media races to show how exciting their life is. Even though they lead a simple life yet they fake their lifestyle. When the other users constantly witness a happy and happening life of others, they feel insecured and inferior. In such cases, a person might not appreciate his own life and keeps on complaining about everything.

It can be said that social media is both a boon and a bane. Social Media can be used in both positive and negative ways. It is a great tool if operated with good intentions.