Log into Real Life

Is that profile picture of yours on social media the real one?

Or was the last check-in status genuinely the place you did visit?

Have you ever morphed the picture of yours to look much better?

Or was the last post of yours about gala time at the family get-together a real one?

These are the questions to simply churn your mind to an extent where it’s able to discriminate between the virtual you and the real you. You must not have realized (and you are not to be solely blamed for it) but our over-dependency on social media world has transformed us into unsociable ones in real.

Communication in this virtual world is like having a tête-à-tête session after adulterating our honest expressions with the smiley and Emojis. And all these fabricated efforts have limited our identity to being a virtual socialite who is deficient of trust, truth and commitment. We allow others to judge us not for whom we are, but for how we have posted ourselves on that limited screen size.

We don’t want our friends to see our loneliness, so we post a fun loving photo. We don’t want others to know our affordability scale, and so we post a smiling image with those expensive accessories we tried at a store. And all this is to have the number of likes and comments. But do you really feel the other person cares for all this you do? Or does he/she simply return the favour by clicking a LIKE button, because you liked their last post?

People are disengaged from their real life and detached from the genuine relationship. The real-life anti-social crowd is keener to scroll through the social media events than scrolling through their real-life memories. 

Tell me,

How many of you genuinely hug your parents on their birthdays and not simply wish them online?

Or

How many of you actually keep aside your mobiles when on a date with your partner or friend? 

If you do, then give yourself a pat on back, because you are one of the rarest species alive today. 

Constant updates on social media about the whereabouts and the activities of online friends have brought us to a situation where our level of expectation has unnecessarily increased and our real-life self-esteem is at mercy of illogical virtual comparisons. We fail to decipher the fact that what is present on social media platform is nothing the filtered version of the other’s story. And often, this story is far from the originalities of their real life. 

But let’s not blame technology or these social media accounts for all this. Because the technology was, is and will be there to make your life easier, to communicate and to connect. To exemplify, we can consider LinkedIn which has been a beneficial platform for all the professional citizens or Instagram and Facebook which are a splendid medium to exchange images and videos with friends and family.

Actually, it’s we who are abusing and misusing the trending technology, by concocting it to an extent that our real identities have been blurred. If you are the one who holds the same identity in real life and virtual life, and use these platforms to connect in virtual without disconnecting in real then I should applaud you, because you have unfolded the true reason why these social media platforms were built at once.

So, let’s decipher the true usage and benefits of the social media and LOG INTO REAL LIFE before it's too late. But how?

• Learn to enjoy life without posting it every time.  
• Don’t prove yourself on screen for what you are not in reality.
• When needed, have real conversations in the real world, not in virtual.
• Share with your online friends, what you really love doing for yourself.
• You need not always be perfect.
• Instead of counting the number of likes, count the number of beautiful memories in your life. 

All said I would appreciate if you could spare a moment of yours to reset your life with real people and real conversations. Social media is needed but its usage should be justifiable and should not affect us negatively. So, let’s logout for a day and instead, do what we love the most and be with the one who matters the most IN REAL. Feel the difference. Share the difference. As Jay Baer quoted, 

"Focus on how to be social, not on how to do social." 

Arjun Gaur