How do you start your day? By thanking God for waking you up to see another glorious day? By doing Surya Namaskar? Or by greeting elders and seeking their blessings ? The actual answer is by running towards mobile phone and checking WhatsApp messages!
How do you end your day? By thanking God for another day fruitfully spent? By doing meditation to get over the day’s fatigue? By pressing the aching and tired feet of our elders? The actual answer is again WhatsApp!
In flight, train or bus all passengers are busy either reading or sending WhatsApp messages? On roads, in lifts and all other possible places of existence, no one is concerned about anything except WhatsApp!
I start receiving WhatsApp messages from 5 am onwards while being still in slumber. These are good morning messages from a particular friend, who is an early riser. Little he cares whether others have woken up to imbibe his wishes and assimilate his heavy philosophical thoughts! Then starts a barrage that includes messages of all hues and colours- forwarded, re-forwarded, re-re-forwarded and many times re-forwarded messages! Then there are wild, wilder and wildest rumours! Tiring, more tiring and most tiring preachy messages! Cure all remedies claiming treatment of everything from commonest cold to most uncommon cancer! There are cheap porno material, dirty jokes and weird facts! It goes on and on till you drop dead on the bed after checking your last message to start the process all over again the next day!
Why forward if you can write original stuff? Why spread rumour if you can check the facts? Why untried cures? If you’re not sure of such stuff yourself? Why send objectionable materials when it’s known fact that all members of the family access the phone? Why preach that you don’t practice? Why forward blindly that you yourself have not cared to read or liked if read?
A study has shown that good morning messages choke all internet capacity in the morning and these messages are least read! Let’s channelise energies for a good cause rather than this bad curse ! Social media is to be used for betterment of the mankind and should be ensured accordingly by pleading and wielding stick if pleading doesn’t work!
Arvind Arya blog 