Fake News and Authenticity in the Day and Age of Social Media

Fake News and Authenticity in the Day and Age of Social Media

Fortunately or unfortunately, social media has become a huge part of our lives. We all have our unique ways and reasons for using and consuming it. Some use it for promotion of their products. Some use it for promotion of themselves. Others use it to document their lives and share some memories. It's become a platform for sharing information, opinion and much more. All that is good but there is also a flip side to this tool.

Social media has also become a hub for fake news. Unfounded rumours and false news spark silly and unnecessary debates between people and end up dividing the society. 

Fake news however isn't the only problem. The authenticity of content on platforms like Youtube or Twitter cannot be validated and lack proof and evidence. Another example could be that when a person posts a picture about his trip to the beach, he/she might just be standing in front of a poster of a beach. This is not just dishonest but also makes us shallow and vain. Life becomes a series of friend requests. Likes brighten our day and dislikes plunge us into depression. This also brings out the insecure and attention seeking nature of a lot many people these days.

There is always a good side and bad side to everything. Every bright light has a shadow around it. Social media is revolutionary if used properly. Many elections are won and lost around the world just by the proper use of this medium. Sadly, people are also losing touch with reality due to improper and excessive use of it. 

Use it carefully and use it well - and it shall serve you.
Use it stupidly and unreasonably - and it will destroy you.

In the end it is all up to us. We are the masters of our destiny, we are the captains of our souls.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fidget and Spin

Shashwat loved going round and round in circles-if you ask him anything, he would just just keep going around instead of coming to the point.As he loved to talk, it wasn't too difficult for him to go around everything. Short and thin, he was big and fat on talk, talk and more talk. One day, he came to school with a fidget spinner. Finally, there was something that went round and round faster than Shashwat. The fidget spinner was the main topic of discussion that day. Shashwat and I got together after dispersal and were waiting for our mom's pick us up-while playing with the spinner.Suddenly, the spinner vanished from my hand and shot up into the sky and started spinning on its own. It kept going faster and faster and soon the entire sky was covered with that huge spinning wheel. It had become dark as the sun got blocked and I got really scared. I asked, Shashwat, where he got this strange and dangerous spinner from. But he was too scared himself! Suddenly, he remembered he h
Read more

The 5 Bullet Holes

It was the time of the great depression in 1920s. Most people in the world had lost their jobs and some rich went bankrupt. For years, people stayed alive on very little food. It felt like darkness and sadness everywhere It was a dark night in New York city, USA. All shops were closed and people barely came out of their houses. In the city center, there was a café that was lit up and bright. It was called “Phillies”. An eccentric millionaire named George had some money with him and was using it to have a shot of espresso coffee. Suddenly, he started hearing sounds like ‘Boom”, ‘BANG’ and ‘whiss’. A shooting seems to have taken place right outside the café. George got worried and rushed to the kitchen and closed the lights. Soon, the main door of the café crashed open and George heard some footsteps. Suddenly, he started hearing loud gunshots. He got scared and was also worried about the other customers in the café. And then the shooting stopped. He heard steps again – slowly gett
Read more

Biomimicry - Moving Towards A Sustainable Future

“ It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one most adaptable to change," said Charles Darwin. From the Galapagos islands came the idea of natural selection, the process through which populations of living organisms adapt and change and only the fittest survive. And from this hypothesis came the idea of biomimicry. Biomimicry is the science of applying nature-inspired designs in human engineering and invention to solve human problems. From pigeons inspiring the Wright brothers to create the airplane to the Kingfisher’s beak inspiring the design of the world’s fastest bullet train, biomimicry is responsible for many marvelous inventions in the history of our planet. However, there is something which fascinates me even more. In the capital of Zimbabwe, a building called Eastgate center holds nearly 350,000 square-feet of office space and shops. It uses 90 percent less energy than a similar sized building next door. Something like th
Read more