Any topic that we touch now invariably gets a pandemic reference. It’s even truer in the case of using social media. It now envelops our lives. Social media has turned into the key to our existence, whether we are looking for entertainment, updates in the coronavirus picture, protection against the virus or even conspiracy theories. As is the case with everything else, this dependence is also not without its negatives.

With the outside world in its physical form remaining out of bounds, we are getting almost married to the screen. The information flow on social media is staggering, as is the access to entertainment. But if we are not careful, we may acquire habits that could be debilitating in many ways.

Let us look at the pros. Social media, properly used, gives us easy access to a wide spectrum of information and entertainment that had so far required some degree of physical connect. With the myriad ways this new age information basket is connecting us to our requirement at our convenience wherever we are 24x7. Something that could not even be dreamt of a decade back.

With this kind of access, cooped up at home, we are reading newspapers online that we otherwise wouldn’t have read, watching television channels that we didn’t know existed and learning to share our lives with celebrities and friends in a manner that under the normal circumstances wouldn’t have even been explored. We are getting intellectually enriched, learning new things and doing stuff with help from social media. And we are keeping in touch with our relatives more regularly.

But our new lifestyle is also bringing a new set of illnesses that we had not foreseen earlier. It’s turning out to be a debilitating addiction. Glued to various screens as we are, our first damage is to our eyes. Doctors are warning us against continuous and prolonged exposure to bright screens – whether of mobile phones or tablets or laptops or televisions.

Psychiatrists are reporting cases of patients with withdrawal symptoms. Denied access to social media, people are turning restless – a symptom that reflects the ills of an addiction. This is being referred to as FOMO – the fear of missing out. Then comes the much-required physical activity that is required in our forced captivity. With the screen taking us away from even that little movement of taking a book from its shelf or putting the DVD into the player, we are increasingly turning prone to lifestyle diseases in addition to what our previous mode of existence has burdened us with.

So, in these days of the coronavirus, I would say, stay social digitally – for we have no other ways of being so – but do so keeping in mind how we are doing it. Let’s not bring more afflictions while trying to stay safe from the coronavirus!