Author: Amita Raj
Recently a relative told me that his mother texted him on his facebook wall asking him to keep the kitchen clean after he finished preparing his favourite carrot halwa. “Mum is now giving me cleaning orders on social media. Why can’t she call me or tell me in person?” he complained.
Now that is one of the many examples of the increasing power of social media and how it has shifted person-to-person interraction even with our closest family!
Facebook, instagram, whatsapp, myspace, twitter are just the tip of the iceberg. The list goes on like a river flooding endlessly. Through these platforms, people chat with each other, read news clips, promote their talents, run businesses, order clothing, even find their future life partners.
With the click of a button, one can befriend someone and just as easily, get rid of a friend even without good reason. Life ebbs and flows nowadays in front of a computer screen displaying social media.
These days as I look at my published stories online, I’m delighted to see all the likes and praises of those who enjoy my written outpourings. How convenient it is to type stories at home and post them on an online site rather than deliver a typed copy at a newspaper office.
Such conveniences also extend to online shopping sites. Captivating one’s eyes with the deliciously colourful array of dresses and saris, these sites enable one to easily order online without a trip to a store. The order arrives at one’s door with ease, but also with a risk, since one discovers how the items actually turn out to be only when they arrive!
Yet, one can only smile at the generous face of social media as it offers us so many other comforts like access to running online businesses at home, online banking and the privilege of privacy.
Yes, social media runs our lives like a benevolent emperor. However hasn’t it also distanced us from the sound of a warm human voice, a courteous cup of refreshing tea offered by a sari vendor, a smile and handshake with a personal satisfaction and human
touch beyond a ‘like’ or an ’emoji’?
About the Author:
Amita Raj has always loved creating imaginatively rich stories through the melody and colours of language. Her writing talent was sparked off in her childhood at age eight in a classroom assignment where she wrote the autobiography of a pen. Since then, she has been enchanted with writing, also reading and enjoying the works of Rabindranath Tagore, Satyajit Ray, Shakespeare and Edgar Allan Poe. She has been a contributing writer to Deccan Herald, India Currents, Twist&Twain magazine, and of late regularly to Story Scrapers, ArtoonsInn Poetry Parlour and Soul Craft. She looks forward to her ongoing lyrical journey, writing and sharing with the world many more of her short stories, poems and novellas.