Why're We So Rude and Crude On Social Platforms?
By Sumit Paul, New Age
Islam
24 July
2024
Have you
ever thought, what makes us so toxic, splenetic, threatening and abusive on
social platforms?
Whichever
platform it may be, even a dignified forum of New Age Islam also becomes a medium for certain individuals to
verbalize their anger and frustration on someone.
The
faceless intangibility of today's communication mode has made it amply clear
that we all can stoop to unthinkably low levels of communication. The smug
assurance that the other person is unable to see you and vice versa, emboldens
us and unleashes our vindictive as well as abusive selves. It's so
spontaneously volcanic that even we are not aware of this latent aspect of our
personality. Faceless existence brings out our true essence, which is often not
so pleasant. Culture, sophistication, decency, language, refinement and
pedigree are all fake and fancy words. We are all capable of doing and speaking
utterly obnoxious things in the secrecy of four walls. The key-hole morality,
suggesting that we are what we are when nobody's watching, is eternally
relevant in judging all people without an exception.
While
interacting on various social platforms with people whom we've never met in
life, we often forget that we're degrading ourselves to the extent of feeling
utterly ashamed afterwards and at the same time, demeaning the other person as
well. Why do we do this? Can we call it just fun or harmless frustration? NO.
Sociologists have begun to believe that abusive nature or verbal indiscretion
(to put it euphemistically) is a trait human beings are born with. Some can
suppress it, but most of us cannot. We try to find a corner to express the
crude sides of our persona. That's the reason, we love dark corners and keep
deceiving ourselves as 'enlightened ones.' We are perpetual self-deceivers, too
lowly to call ourselves even truly 'educated,' let alone enlightened. We are
all deviants, hitherto unmasked and unpeeled. At the same time, the assurance
that we're not face to face with the person, makes us rudely bold.
Faceless
communication is always masked and 'safer' in the sense that an individual's
identity is forever concealed and encrypted. That makes us so audaciously and
outrageously 'bold' and 'candid' on social media. Today, we're living with two
selves: Real self vis-a-vis Cyber self which is no less than self-delusion and
sort of a Hamletian Dilemma because we don't know which one is true and which
one is fake!
-----
A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in
comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed
articles to the world's premier publications in several languages including
Persian.
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/rude-crude-social-platforms/d/132771
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