With time, social media seems to have become more of a place for haters to gang up and rip a person apart, rather than a portal to voice out opinions. From regular people to celebrities, nobody is spared — so much so that King Khan who has been a subject of Internet trolls for a while now, was asked his opinion of social media. “It’s a different world today. Speak your mind in the bathroom,” said the brutally honest Shah Rukh Khan. Though it is quite handy at times, social media really seems to weigh people down because of the Internet trolls who make it their aim to bring people down with their unnecessarily harsh words.
While Shah Rukh Khan has vowed to not share opinions online, other industry influentials like Ranbir Kapoor and Kareena Kapoor Khan rather not be a part of social media at all. “If you don’t have freedom of speech, then how can you use a medium like Twitter,” the Tamasha star said in an interview, when asked why he wasn’t on Twitter. More recently, a case was filed against a woman in Bengaluru for posting about Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, as the post depicted him in ‘poor light’.
Are we at such a stage where we can’t share our personal views on our timelines out of fear that we might disrespect somebody? “As humans, it is in our nature to bring people down. Speaking from a social perspective, before social media people would voice out their opinions very openly, but with the advent of social media, people have found ways to hide behind technology and bring people down. It’s true, everybody does have an opinion on things, but with time, the level of respect for anybody else has diminished. We find ways to criticise everything, just for the sake of it, not because we don’t agree with it. It has become part of human nature now,” opines sociologist, V. Shivaramakrishnan.
While Internet trolls try to bring people down, the feelings are manifested through jealousy and people with lower self esteem, according to popular psychologist Nisha Khanna. “Most of these people who want to bring people down usually don’t lead very happy lives themselves and hence don’t know how and where to channel that negativity. And because the Internet is so vast, they resort to channellising that negativity from behind their screens, as they think it’s a safe option. Consistent negative comments can also sprout from jealousy and a sort of attention seeking disorder. Demeaning people or causing inconvenience to their lives is a way for these trolls to highlight themselves, and make their presence felt,” says the psychologist.
