Social media networks fulfill many purposes, including "watching people." Almost everyone has a facebook or a twitter account. All you do there is share what you are doing and follow what other people are doing. Everyone is watching everyone. People, somehow, have become more interested in what other people are doing, and less interested in the people themselves at the same time. However, we are updated about tens of friends' lives, not to mention non friends, at the same time.
There is a famous Arabic saying which means: "He who watches people, dies from worry." I looked it up, but I couldn't find whether it means that the person who watches people dies from worrying about them or worrying that he is not like them. Either ways, we understand from that saying that it is not a good thing to watch people and follow what they do.
Does that mean that social media networks are bad? Will diseases increase because people know more about people's failures and difficulties, and thus worrying about them; or because people know more about people's successes and happiness, and thus worrying that they are not like them?
Food for thought.
Interesting post, Sana. I think social networking is neither good nor bad; it is really all about the use we make of it. For me, living outside my home country it is a great low overheads way of seeing what my family members are up to (even distant ones that I would hardly ever see if I was in UK). It is also good as a teacher to know what kind of things interest our students. On the negative side, I think people can become obsessed with online social networking, just as we can with anything.
ReplyDeleteBtw, I drop in to read your blog from time to time, and I like the way you write, and the topics you choose. Keep up the good work!