Don't crowdsource happiness

Social media has so many platforms these days, from the now defunct Orkut to the Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, twitter, YouTube, Tictok and some I don’t know the name of also. All these platforms survive on the aspirations of the people to be popular and recognized and deals with a social currency called likes and comments. Youngsters want to be famous overnight getting them.

The young generation is completely obsessed with it and are hanging on to it like dear life. First it starts with curiosity and experimentation, and then it progresses to become a habit and then an obsession. This virtual world has become a part and parcel of life. First we devote time to it then slowly without us knowing it, we lose the sense of time we are start devoting to it at the expense of other productive things in life.

It is here that we have developed the habit of getting social validation, as if our value is decided by these platforms. Every day we spend time on these places with the hope that others will like us and leave behind positive comments. It makes us happy when we get and the vice versa also. The more likes we get the valuable we feel and we feel rich by accumulating this social currency.

In this virtual world we don’t know even 99% of the followers but it is as if this unknown lot is the most important decider of our social virtual life. It gives a sort of confidence when we are appreciated here. It is like we are crowd sourcing our confidence and happiness.

It becomes a dangerous precedence when we make ourselves dependent of such sites.  In the growing age of the teens when the society is such that it values only those having some social value, these youth get sucked into it. Without it they are even looked down by their friends and considered backward. It has reached such proportions now that children are now even ready to go against their parents if they are stopped from doing so.

I have seen in the cities that children have forgotten playing in the fields and are hooked to these sites in their free time. Games like PUBG have catapulted children from the real world to the virtual world. In India there have been cases of suicide by children when parents resisted their children from using these social media sites and games sites. No wonder now these are billion dollar businesses.

Here no one is interested in your degree and diploma and education, all that is of interest is your picture and your profile. A good picture or video passed through various filters with a glam dress and sunglasses and a good pose is what matters here. It is not always his own picture but pictures of the place he visited, or even picture of his pet dog.

As long as the likes and comments are coming it is all hunky dory and it creates a sense of value and confidence in the youth. The unknown person who presses the like button is actually least interested in it because he wants the same reciprocal validation. It becomes a mutual social etiquette. Just like what used to happen here in this platform also. It is all fake.

But the tides turn when these likes start drying up or thumbs down start increasing.. Then it creates a sense of unworthiness and insecurity. It makes one lose confidence in him and makes him unhappy. It has another angle also. It is the world of trolling and the celebrities are the main target. In this anonymous cyber world there are people who will deliberately post negative comments, body shaming, character shaming to blatant vulgarity. It may be done out of envy, jealousy or for fun but there are a group of people who derive fun from it. So someone’s fun will be the cause of pain and suffering for you.

Knowingly or unknowingly, whether in social platform or real life, we all expect validation of our work. It gives us a feeling of worth when someone say good job or well done. In most cases we know ourselves whether we have done a good job or done well, but still we expect those words from others. In most cases we even know whether it is being said genuinely or as a matter of formality but still we expect it and enjoy it. Now this has spilled over to the social media. A genuine praise is always welcome but the expectation of praise every time whatever is the case makes us dependent on it.

It is the same in our relations also particularly younger ones.  When your new hair cut goes unnoticed, when your new dress is not noticed you get uncomfortable. It is as if we have we demand that someone should notice each small thing in us and always praise us. The difficult thing is that no one really cares. This not only screws up the immature relationship but yourself also. It is like others are waiting for your next move and you are waiting eagerly to listen ‘you did awesome or look awesome’.

It is necessary to change our perspective. We should do what we want to do and enjoy doing it, not in a selfish way and stop worrying about the validation from others. That way we are handing over our happiness and peace of mind in others hand. If you are trying to achieve something and you are successful others will automatically acknowledge it in a genuine way. If someone wants to make a career doing these things there is no harm in it but the failures far outnumber the success stories. At the unripe age of teenagers they are not mentally prepared to handle failure.

People can recognize an attentions seeker and believe me no one likes them, so don’t be a part of them. Instead develop self confidence and be among like minded people. This will genuinely enrich our lives. Once we stop crowd sourcing our confidence and happiness then we shift our focus to actually what matters. Time is the most important thing in our life and we are wasting it in the most unproductive way possible in these social media sites.