HOW TRULY EDUCATED AND SOCIAL ARE WE IN THE ERA OF SOCIAL MEDIA?

Learn more and earn more” I feel, is the sole principle by which the children grow
up today in the times of gizmos, gadgets, internet, social media and smartphones.
With children as well as parents being glued more on to the internet, their handphones, tabs and televisions than personal interaction and life itself, emotional
bondage, care for one another and social values are being eroded and being
subconsciously pushed to the back-seat, while competition, spite and hate are
taking the front-seat and control of the way we and our children consciously or
subconsciously think or act.

Education of the present times, I feel, has narrowed down to merely a means to a
goal of getting into the most lucrative professions and more about money. Education
of the present times, I feel has narrowed down to where people have become more
selfish than selfless. People do not seem to care about others anymore. It has
become the norm nowadays to hear about violence amongst religions, caste, colour
and creed and even amongst blood relations, spouses against spouses, parents
against children and vice-versa and siblings against one another and the sad fact
is that people seem to have become growingly insensitive to such violence. The
desire or urge to help others has sadly become increasingly low.

A person, neighbour hood or society can be called social only when people interact
with one another, help one another and are able to co-exist harmoniously without
any form of discrimination. Nowadays, we hear people hype about their glorious
pasts and heritage, their great religions and overt patriotism. But are these of any
real meaning in the present-tense, if we are bereft of humane values or feelings?
Is this true education? Is this how we should be? Is this how we would want our
children to be? Is this what we would want our society to be? After all, the child
is the father of the man and it is us the current working generation that would be
shaping the next generation and in turn, the society we live in and our children
would live in. I feel, that in the times of the social media, contradictorily we are
hardly getting anywhere near being social. It is high time that we as responsible
citizens, parents and individuals got a hold of the reality and set things right for
our sake and our children’s sake. Now, why has this erosion in values occurred?

Having been educated in the pre-internet era and now living with all the benefits of the internet,I have been able to fathom the issues easily. I personally feel it is because of two key reasons.First is the growing addiction for the inter-‘net’ and being trapped in it and second is
the ease at which misinformation has been deliberately fed and propagated in
the media to corrupt young and otherwise good minds, create hate and divide
erstwhile peaceful societies and neighbour hoods, for whatever selfish reasons or
vested interests.

The smartphones and the availability of the world on our finger-tips have led to
an addiction and a resultant overdose of the internet and the social media in
our lives and our children’s. The internet and social media are certainly the most
revolutionary discoveries which have actually made the world significantly smaller
and have connected people, friends and families from several thousands of miles
away in a way so unimaginable and in as much as in the wink of an eye. But the
social media has made the world smaller has it really made our social outlook
broader? I believe not. It has only become narrower and I am certain majority
would agree to this.

Today’s education is an extreme length away from the education of my times. Gone
are the days when one had to go to big libraries and check for the availability of
books or articles and then had to refer them to seek information or to do projects.
Gone are the days when one had to go to music shops and spend hours to find
out songs they wanted to listen to. Gone are the days when school children waited
for the interval bells to chime to go out and play with each other and make merry.
Children now look forward more to spend time on their tabs and computers or
their parents’ smartphones to play games than finding the joy in playing with one
another. This has led to a real and dangerous emotional disconnect. ‘Enter the
internet and it is exit the reality.’ Almost everything is virtual. I still remember
my days at Loyola school in the 70s and 80s, where we had a curriculum which
was heavily concentrated on academics but one which also gave huge importance
to physical activity, games, music, reading and moral-sciences. Our weekly time
table included periods for music, where we all sat and sang together or played
musical instruments, periods for physical-training and games where we had to
without choice, go to the ground and play games like football, basketball, cricket,
kabbadi, police and robber and what not or even just climb trees. But then, these
were moments each one of us yearned to, looked forward to and enjoyed in the
non-virtual and real world, which in turn nurtured friendship and camaraderie,
moments of bonding and a sense of caring for one another. To top it all there was
a period for moral-sciences where nothing religious was taught except that religion
was only a way of life and dwelled more on humane values, care for others and the
lesser privileged, discipline, good civic behaviour and about a superior force called

God who taught us all to love and forgive. In short, there was always personal
interaction going around which helped to build and create and enhance values and
emotions like friendship, affection and most importantly the feeling of empathy,
sympathy and care for one another.

There is no doubt that the intelligence of today’s children are far superior to what
was when their parents were of the same age. But today, in the virtual inter-net
world, the people and children are highly connected, yet detached! There is hardly
any time spent anymore with one another, be it amongst friends at school in games
and sports or even at homes amongst family members. Parents are stuck to their
hand-phones and children to their tabs or televisions. ‘Phubbing’ is obvious and
common in every home even in living and dining rooms with all family members
hooked on to their phones with hardly any eye-contact. The high in intelligence
that has been acquired from the ‘at your finger-tips’ knowledge has actually led to
a low in emotional bonding, sensitivity and attachment, the values which form the
crux of a great family and a good society. This has to change and the responsibility
for this change inexcusably lies with the parents, the teachers and the educated.
Children should not be allowed to find entertainment in sedentary activities and
on gadgets alone. They should be educated on the harms and health hazards that
arise from sedentary activities and the risks of turning into couch potatoes. They
should be encouraged to find happiness, thrill and relaxation in outdoor activities,
playing with friends, discovering one another, caring for one another and thus
nurturing humane feelings and values.

The second reason why I feel the world has become more and uncaring and selfish
place is that people have fallen gullible and prey to loads of misinformation passed
on effortlessly in the social media with vested interests and ill-found motives.
Social media with Orkut, Facebook Whatsapp, etc, started initially as a uniting
force. It is nothing less than a seeming miracle that we are now astonishingly able
to connect with childhood friends even several thousand miles away, friends with
whom we thought we would never again be able to even talk to, lest meet, when we
wrote on autograph books with heavy hearts in our last emotional days at school
and college. Now lo and behold, we are able to get the entire class back for school
and college reunions rather effortlessly and as if time stood still from when we
parted. But I feel that the cohesive force and urge to meet everyone that still draws
us together for such reunions of celebration are the seeds of friendship which were
sown young, which then grew into deep-rooted trees which blossomed flowers with
lovely scents of camaraderie, and bore fruits of memorable experiences over the
years at school and college. It was purely because of the actual physical personal
interaction and the rich experiences of life we shared together in classrooms,
playgrounds, hostels, dining rooms, gymnasiums or when we roamed the parks,
beaches or cities together, dining out or watching movies in an era when we were not

prisoners of our ‘cell’- phones, that kept us bonded even when we parted ways,
many hundreds or thousands of miles away and for many years or decades. But
what started as a medium for connecting people is now being used purposefully
as a medium not even shrouded anymore, but impregnated with blatant shades
of dark, hate, evil and lies. I have found that even the so-called educated falling
a victim to such propagated falsities, let alone the illiterate and young innocent
minds. Reaction to such information is now often at the spinal level with lesser
use of the brain to process the truth or lies in the information that one has
received. This has actually taken a toll even on established good friendships and
relationships, which brings us to the glaring question: “How truly educated and
social are we in the era of the social media?” This has all got to change for the
better and this can happen only if we the so-called educated people become aware
of our own gullibility, the misuse of the social media to build chasms between us
and only if we start thinking and let ourselves not be manipulated and also teach
our innocent children the same.

Human beings are social and that is what differentiates us people from animals. I
believe true education doesn’t signify the number of degrees we add to our names
or the amount of wealth we amass. We can call ourselves truly educated and social
only when we are able to have humane values in our thoughts and deeds, respect
and care for one another and live as a society beyond religion, caste, colour, creed
and wealth. If not we would be mere hypocrites, dishonouring the very God’s we
pray to and desecrating the very teachings of the religions we so vociferously claim
to follow. I ‘try’ to practice this in my daily life and if we all remember to do this
and teach our children to do the same, the world would be a more harmonious,
beautiful and seamless place to live in, bereft of borders or boundaries.

God bless

About the author

Dr Binoy John is a nationally and internationally renowned cardiologist,
highly experienced in complex interventions. He is academically acclaimed with numerous
publications and has authored nine chapters in cardiology. He has also authored several
health awareness articles for the public and done television health awareness shows