Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp provide multiple ways to connect and be closer to one another...
INTROSPECTION
It is important to acknowledge how deeply the virtual space is impacting our social capital, especially during the current pandemic and the social distancing and/or isolation it demands. Our friendships have grown instead of shrinking; platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp provide multiple ways to connect and be closer to one another.
Billions of people use Facebook’s family of apps to connect with like-minded people, to share ideas and lend support to each other in different capacities. The apps are customized to fulfill specific communication needs of people. While Facebook and Instagram are social apps, Whatsapp and Messenger are designed for private conversation between two or groups of friends.
It is customary for almost every educational and professional institution to have at least a page and closed group on Facebook where people can stay connected, cherish old memories and make new ones.
Facebook communities are also helping make new ones. Fast friends Ashar and Sarim are travel enthusiasts and skillful landscape photographers, who first met virtually through a popular travel Facebook group called ‘Karakoram Club’. The group features travelogues and photographs of beautiful tourism destinations to attract and motivate fellow travellers to explore the country’s tourism potential. Most of the people travelling together in groups find love and friendship on these tours.
Similarly, there are thousands of Facebook groups promoting reading, writing, painting, singing, dancing, swimming, mountaineering and other hobbies.
Moreover, social media is undeniably one of the most effective platforms to raise social awareness and advocate for causes you believe in and hence become a powerful influencer of social and behavioral change. Facebook and Instagram provide spaces for discussing pressing issues, like mental illness, gender issues, underage marriages, harassment, rape, minority rights and more that hitherto did not find spaces for discourse or tolerance in the society.
Private groups like ‘Khamoshi Ab Nahi’ provide safe and inclusive spaces for dialogue for everyone irrespective of their gender, religion or other identities. ‘Shepreneur’ aims to bring together and empower women for entrepreneurial success. Transgender, people with mental illness, survivors of rape, and even pregnant women find solace in merely knowing there is a whole lot of people who have similar life experiences and who can empathise with them as well.
I believe these groups in particular and social media in general is making genuine and meaningful contribution for societal wellbeing by standing up for the weak, protecting victims from self-harm or suicide and by turning them into useful and responsible citizens.
