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Our lives have been taken over by too much of social media where we go about the business of living in between bouts of whichever platform we're on.
Our lives have been taken over by too much of social media where we go about the business of living in between bouts of whichever platform we’re on.
Does this look like the prescription that you have written out for yourself and have been devotedly following for the last few years?
We in the modern world cure our boredom, loneliness, emptiness and entertainment needs by popping the pills called FB, Whatsapp, Twitter, and more, until we get completely out of control. They may be easy pills to swallow, but often difficult to digest if had in large doses. But what happens when we overdo it?
Here are 9 signs that you are hopelessly suffering from an overuse of social media.
You have a maddening affinity for red dots of the Facebook kind- you know those little red dots which come up, signalling a friend’s request or a notification or a message. Yup, the more red dots the better. You develop an insatiable appetite, for a red dot, every time you open FB. This is a classic sign of overdose of FB. Sometimes you even dream of red dots in your sleep…Aaah the blissful feeling. But when you wake up and grab that wretched phone, there is a blank. Yes, double-checked….nothing. That is when you know you suffer from Red-dot–ophilia. Face it!
This is a common sign. C’mon we are human. Who does not like to be liked? The more likes you get, the more you are liked, correct? But when this thirst for ‘likes’ goes out of control, it is called Likomania.
Yup, you will do anything to get a few more likes. Repost, reshare, ‘like’ it yourself, get some attention by adding a comment. Still not enough ‘likes’? Okay, put up some more posts, some more quotes… that should do it. Okay tag some friends with the quote. That should wake them up and give those much sought after ‘likes’. Phew! Likomania is tough to combat.
This sign is typical to Whatsapp. Every morning, even before you switch the alarm off, you gaze through half closed eyed at the medu vada –sambhar your friend from Bangalore forwarded you or the samosa-chutney that your friend from Jhumri Telaiya sent you. You may not have met these pals for 20 odd years but they feed you well. So what if it is make-believe, it fills you up at the start of the day. So much so that you forget to have your real breakfast. You are too busy replying to your pals and thanking them. Pseudobreakfastitis is a dangerous sign.
This makes you spend several minutes thinking of a witty, clever, original comment on FB. You think, you write, you edit, you delete. You think some more, you look at other people’s comments, you write, you edit, you delete. You go back to the first comment and write it. Fingers crossed. Now just wait for the ‘like’!!
This is a classic sign of overdose of Whatsapp; the more chat groups you belong to, the more likely you are to suffer.Here you are madly, excitedly trying to multitask, multichat, multi-thumbsup, multi-namaskar- your poor thumb cannot keep up with the hyperactivity of your brain. Forefinger tries to help, but fails miserably and you only find out when you end up sending an inappropriate joke to your in-laws; who, instead of sending you an appreciative emoji, send back silence lasting a few minutes. Oops.Eeks! The immediate treatment of this is of course, the ‘namaskar’- a very handy treatment for Senttowrongchatosis.
(emoji= that cute/ evil/ stupid face that apparently conveys emotion. Emesis= vomiting)
Most Whatsapp users are sufferers of this incorrigible urge to vomit a multitude of emojis for every occasion. When emotions are overwhelming and you just cannot articulate your feelings in words, you start vomiting out emoji after emoji, sometimes hundreds in a matter of minutes- you know you suffer from Hyperemojiemesis. So here come some bouquets of flowers, here are some virtual gifts, some cake, some music notes.Bring it on. Hyperemojiemesis can be cathartic too. The emoji with a mask, the emoji with gritted teeth, the emoji with tears running down its face-all multiple little faces but so much meaning.
Interestingly this sign is common to FB and Whatsapp overdose. This sign means you make error after error in your typing, so much so that after a while you don’t bother apologizing and start blaming your spelling mistakes on Autocorrect. In fact, you do not even bother to correct Autocorrect. You start getting sadistic pleasure from inflicting your bizarre spellings on your other overdosed pals and the world at large. Your overdosed pals on the other hand enjoy your typos and send you emoticons such as ‘hands clapping’ for coming up with such bloopers.In those severely overdosed, the typos become part of life. You soon speak like you type. Grammar, punctuations be damned.
Again, this sign is common to FB and Whatsapp overdosers. (Iatros= caused by person giving treatment. In this case, YOU. Anaesthesia= numbness, no sensation).
It pertains to the mind getting numb after reading page after page of mindless, meaningless, irrelevant information put up by your pals and taking the pain to ‘like’/ ‘comment’ on inane stuff that has no bearing on your life and never will. Heavy duty quotes, long winded ‘funny’ videos, narcissistic selfies with food/drink… your brain can only take so much of information. Then you have to keep tabs on who is online, at what time they were on last time, have they checked your last message (remember the double blue ticks?) Yes, your brain has so much to process. No wonder it goes numb after a while and the minute it recovers, you feed it some more useless fodder, you make it absorb a bit more. You decide to go to so-and-so’s profile and check out their latest posts. Every minute of your FB/Whatsapp time should be accounted for. Not a dull moment. Nimble fingers, sharp brain, fast darting eyes all act in quick succession and there you have it- a very numb and dumb brain- all completely self inflicted.
(Hyperhydrosis= excessive sweating)
This pertains to excessive sweating with reduced access/absence of FB and Whatsapp.
Picture this: You are in a movie theatre and they ask you to shut down your mobile phone. What! No FB and Whatsapp for 2 hours? You start sweating thinking of what you are going to miss- imagine all the status updates and new photos that your pals will put up! So instead of thinking about the popcorn and coke that you can buy in the interval, you long for the interval so you can switch on your phone again. This can also be accompanied by small twinges of pain in the chest when you hear other people’s mobile ringing and to cure this pain you have to sneakily pop into FB or Whatsapp for a few seconds.
FBWhatsappopenic Hyperhydrosis is also experienced in areas of no WiFi. You may start to feel like you are going to collapse when you realise there is no internet connectivity. Imagine the feeling when WiFi is restored. You almost have a mini heart attack with the sheer pleasure of seeing 112 new messages and 3 red dots! Bliss!
Please leave a comment to let people know of any signs that you may have suffered or are happily suffering because of your social media overuse. Insta and Twitter, here we come.
If you have read this and actually laughed at least once, you know you suffer and enjoy the suffering with pleasure.
I love writing about anything that makes me laugh, cry, salivate, roll my eyes or pull my hair out. My book 'The Campbell Gardens Ladies' Swimming Class' published by Epigram books is now available online read more...
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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