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The world is a dichotomy at its best right now. Where it’s getting easier to connect, it’s as hard as well. You would wonder how tough it could be, but you’re one of the few with such a mindset.
The vast majority worldwide have trouble connecting to others at this moment. With this increasing age of digitally transforming communications, we find it difficult to answer why humans feel so lonely when they can reach out to anyone at any time.
Nilakshi Garg, a well-known Indian author, poet, copywriter, and screenwriter, has a few answers. Thus, we approached her to give her opinion on whatever is happening worldwide as per her perspective of the same.
It’s Easy To Be Not You And Lie On Social Media:
Nilakshi Garg comments about social media behavior nowadays briefly below.
“Suffering and pain have become selling points for people to connect on the surface. If not that, everyone is selling one thing or another. You will find them everywhere. Plus, it’s easier to lie on the social media world today. You can go on pretending to be someone who you’re not in real life for days or years. Hardly, anyone ever will notice that you’re not being you until and unless they hear something tragic about you from their resources.”
What Impact Does This Duplicate Or Pseudo-Personality Have On Us?
Nilakshi Garg has written Mirage and published it worldwide in 2020. Without expectations, this novel has bagged so much success in the last 2 years. This novel covered a lot of mental and social issues infused in its protagonist, Bethany Carlson, a fictional character with really relatable emotions.
“From Mirage I took the first step in the writing world to venture out my opinion about mental and social health. When I launched it in January 2020, I didn’t think that my readers would be needing such a book to counter their loneliness and boredom in the midst of pandemic and global lockdown situations.”
She further added:
“While writing this book, I had to research and retrospect a lot of things in my life. It was the sum of the experiences I had including regrets, hopes, grudges, and my core pain points. Initially, I was a very introverted person who never had a voice or capability to defend herself against bullying. I guess from there I could sharpen my observation to acknowledge how duplicate or pseud-personalities we live in today’s highly or hyper-connected digital world.”
When we asked further about the impacts of this behavior, she had a lot to say. She commented:
“When we do not keep ourselves in check, that’s when we fall into behavioural traps. We don’t know what’s best for us and others who we love and care for. And when we end up making bad decisions, something or other thing or person around gets messed up too. That is not how you contribute to the clan or a community as an active member. I would say, we all have to start being aware of ourselves before we can begin respecting others in my tribe.”
It looks legitimate when Nilakshi puts it that way. We, too, agree that having a fake personality loses your touch or connection with the ground reality. If it continues, you end up losing your most precious people around you.
If there are limited people to support you in life, you tend to feel miserable and lose trust in yourself and your core talent or capabilities.
“I am not saying we need validation from others. But if you’re a part of a tribe like your friend circle or family, you need to stay true to your words, beliefs, and values. Accordingly, then you will walk ahead in life and start making better friends or attract people that will elevate your soul and mind’s energy.”
The author herself commented on this further to take the narrative about personalities and their impact on our personal and social networks.
What Does Self-Awareness In The Hyper-Digital World Mean?
Nilakshi believes that today we all are highly dependent on the internet for consuming content on various social media platforms.
This is a more frequent and mature situation in the Indian continent as compared to other western regions of the world. That could also be because of the increased production, manufacturing, and circulation of mobile-operated devices here.
The Indian female author, Nilakshi, herself adds:
“Life is a mess for everyone of us every single day. It’s up to us how we make it meaningful and more beautiful. But beauty isn’t always outside. It’s how we make use of our hours we are left on this planet Earth. And social media being the most dominant part of our mundane lives today, I’d say, being in check of our online behaviour is very important.”
“I know that social media platforms let us join groups, like posts, and follow other people. But here, we have to be conscious and precarious. Each of our likes and comments is a feed to the algorithm. We have to be conscious about what we comment on and where.
Because then the feed or the home page of our social media gets bombarded with similar posts. It could be traumatic for many people out there who keep bullying others for fun-time. But it is not fun at all.”
She further stated that self-awareness is the key to binding yourself to certain hard and soft limits to exercise with your social network and circle. Without these limits, people will make use of your meek nature. They will know that you’re submissive and are most likely to agree with everything they ask of you.
This behavior could be a dangerous territory because we do not know whom we are talking to from this side of the screen.
There are already many movies made and are currently available on similar issues and teaching youngsters to be more careful about the choices they make online because no one is responsible except themselves for what they feed into the system and algorithm and how they draw fake people to their profiles and DMs.
It is our duty to remain alert and not entertain uncomfortable messages. Whereas, we have to be more informed on which toll-free or govt. agency to reach in case of cyber-bullying.
How Do You Find Your Tribe And Value It For Life?
Lastly, Nilakshi, the famous Indian author of Mirage and Twenty Eight Plus One, commented on valuing your tribe for life.
“We cannot ignore the impact of the digital world. But as we practice being more authentic, in our element, not bullying or making fun of others unnecessarily (online), we can also practice the act of detoxifying our mind from electronic devices and the world of online media. Now, we start that by staying away from phones and switching off the internet for about 5-15 minutes every day. Then, we extend it up to 1-2 hours each day. This is the time when you start realizing what you really want to in life and how lonely you’re at present.”
She adds:
“This could be the time you would’ve otherwise invested in your people like real-life friends, family, community members, building neighbours, and more. When we start reconnecting with those people, we understand how lonely the internet is making us day-by-day. I don’t want to comment only on the negatives of social media because today I am earning myself from the internet itself. But I have been extremely cautious on how to leverage this freedom.”
“Similarly, I urge every netizen, irrespective of their generation, to take time out and off the internet world. Experience the nature around you. Explore sounds, smells, and unique touches of things around you. Take time off to read, cook, and dine together with your friends. Catch-up on weekends with your childhood friends and neighbours. Find them on social media and drop a sweet message and see if they want to meet up too. Make people your investments, not bills. Then see how you grow your wealth with a valuable tribe and support system to count onto.”
