Daily Times

Sir: The 21st century is an era run by social media and applications. Applications such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter seem to dominate everyday conversations.

The youth seems to be positively addicted to these platforms and prefers to not even go a day without them.

But this addiction is not as harmless as it seems. The harsh reality is; social media platforms have raised the level of unhappiness in people. Social comparison is a slow poison that effects the youth at a majority.

The younger generation thrives on social media. This is the same social media on which unrealistic standards of life are promoted. The images are constructed for the maximum amount of likes and views. But for a layman, it is the general standard he must hold himself up to. This comparison heightens self-complexity.

Depicting the ‘perfect life’ on social media forces us to overtly critical of ourselves and our surroundings. This lessens the sense of gratitude at what we already have.

The number of ‘likes’ on a picture do not determine our self-worth. Social interaction is judged through the number of followers, which has ruins the point of interaction.

In the words of Ferris Bueller, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

ZOHA FATIMA

Islamabad

Published in Daily Times, September 26^th 2018.