Communities embrace live interactions over social media
The first decade of the 21st century belonged to social media platforms which brought a revolution in the field of communication. The way it has transformed our way of channelizing ideas to millions of people altogether is simply out of the world. If we go 15 years back there were a few online communicating tools like Gmail, Orkut, Hotmail, etc. loaded with many complications. These were sought to be useful for business communities only. Ordinary people did not find it much appealing. But the IT revolution has made it possible for even a common man to interact with his distant relative, friend, or colleague. This can be done with a single click of a button or key on his cell phone by means of many social media platforms. A decade back it was not very affordable due to high data rates. One had to afford a deep hole in the pocket to avail internet services in order to communicate via social media. Interacting on social media was considered a luxury then. People had to satiate with phone calls. But now the way we used to communicate has simply changed. Even the rural class has easy access to the data services henceforth making it a child’s play to communicate.
But social media has its own set of limitations. One and very common among them is the fake information or data spreading like a fire in the forest by unknown sources. Quite often we get to see some fake posts being viral on social media which harms the authenticity of these sites. Adding to the chaos are countless fake accounts that tend to enrage different communities. Earlier many global market leaders and entrepreneurs used to rely on these social platforms but now after its authenticity is at stake they have started embracing live interactions.
Live interactions come with many benefits. First of all, it helps in building constructive and positive relationships. It makes us share our emotions on a real-time basis which can be felt physically or mentally in the presence of that person. As per a report, live interactions enhance mental functioning as our mind keeps occupied with real thoughts. Solutions to many problems can be found on a real-time basis with the instant dialogue mechanism. Anxiety and stress can be reduced to a great extent. Many times we see people writing every aspect of his lifestyle on social media very confidently. But when these people are made to communicate in communities they feel shy and emasculated. This is due to the reducing inter-personal touch. This can be enhanced by the live interactions meeting with different kinds of persons. We can get to learn many attributes of their life. We can learn the elegance with which one talks or unleash his idea. According to some research live interaction helps in the fight against age-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. Live interactions give us physical, emotional, and spiritual support.
Social media platforms are playing the role of catalyst for communication. But apart from playing the role of catalyst, there are certain limitations aforementioned already. We need to adopt proactive means of communication which will be an amalgamation of the real-world and virtual world. The virtual world should have its own space which should not collapse with real world. We need not be so much engrossed in a virtual world that costs us our real world.
