My mother recently joined Facebook and WhatsApp. It’s a joy for me and my siblings; we can have moments together virtually despite being located in different parts of the country.

This is the boon of social media. Social media helped connect families, friends and relatives from far and near. People no longer run for errands in the villages. The rate at which social media helps in disseminating information is manifold more efficient and quicker than any traditional means could ever aspire to. Social capital that functions as glue keeping our communities together, such as mutual and reciprocal support, collective efforts to build and maintain shared monuments, and help during distress has come even in the virtual space.

It is heartwarming to see people — known and unknown — donate money for medical treatments from across the country and abroad. Decent social media influencers bring changes in the society with advocacy in various platforms. Increasing government agencies and hospitals are using social media to communicate with the public and encourage public participation in better service delivery.

Observations from our everyday experience to research evidence all show social media is a powerful platform — a platform with immense potential to change lives for good or for worse. We see social media users becoming celebrities by showcasing their talent, creativity and content creation. There are Bhutanese TikTokers earning money by going live in TikTok. YouTubers and other social media users monetise their contents and add to their sources of income. In fact, I am myself a beneficiary of social media: when I had completed my first book I was still a student and short of funds to publish it.

It was the early pioneers of our social media community who came to my help by thinking up the idea of crow-sourcing funds for publication. That scheme born of collective ideas essentially mobilized by then popular social media, blog, has helped not just me but many young Bhutanese writers to release their books.

Darker side of social media

However, everything is not going well on social media. On 13 July, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued a notification calling for decency in the use of popular social media platforms — TikTok. It is a nuisance to see people using offensive, derogatory and hateful language on social media, that has the potential to cause social disharmony in the community. For example, recently a clip of two girls losing their cool through highly indecent language made rounds in the social media, pushed ever forward by social media features that have brought sharing, redistributing and reacting on such ‘viral’ posts on the fingertips.

There are some social media users who shout venomous, derogatory and racial remarks. Such contents get recycled in many iterations of sound bites, memes, stills and such paraphernalia of the digital world, each with its own life force of sensationalism and long lifespan.

The recycling is done to gain some more followers and more money. But at what price? The price we pay for creating wounds in the social psyche will trouble us for a very long time.

As much as social media helped me connect with my mom, she is vulnerable to fall victim to scams and pyramid schemes. People lost their hard earned money to hackers. Earlier urban dwellers were targeted, and as social media sipped into rural communities, now villagers are targeted.

Despite repeated reminders and advocacy, many villagers continue to be victims of scams and learn lessons only when irredeemable losses are incurred. Recently, the Puth Scheme looted the Bhutanese, including the literate lot. The incident shows the pitiable state of social media literacy in Bhutan.

We don’t engage in decent deliberation and constructive criticism. Even when people start a good discussion on social media, people hurl personal or defamatory comments, fetching a massive spate of reactions. What’s more shocking is that it’s often the first comment in the post that almost always sways the whole audience who support the claims as canonical truth, and most of them would have no idea what they are doing. They just do it because somebody did it. For example, a recent story in Kuensel about a child who died of mushroom poisoning sparked flakes of criticism on healthcare professionals, but nobody talked about advocacy on mushroom poisoning.

There are also random accusations in social media about civil servants using social media during duty hours to the extent of disrupting the service delivery. It is equally concerning to see people staying overnight live on TikTok. Studies show that avid social media users often have low self-esteem in real life because they don’t appear as fair as they appear in filtered social media contents. Such things come at the cost of physical, mental and social health of the person.

And of course, anonymity has given a free reign to our baser instincts, and a lot of incognito accounts hurl sinister slenders at recognisable individuals and cook up specious conspiracy theories which a good many of us subscribe to. Little can be done to curb this category of people. It’s upon us to become careful consumers of social media content. Is the content coming from credible sources? Is the new story ‘viral’ on social media too good to be true? Some fundamental questions must always be between us and the social media content we are about to consume.

Way forward

For all the ills of social media I have highlighted, I do not call for a blanket ban of social media. In some countries in the neighborhood, the failure of traditional mainstream media, by being co-opted by political elites and through their own failures, gave rise to social media as an alternative media channel, provoking a pre-emotive gag by their government, lest media continue to do its democratic function in any of its iteration. Such extreme measures must be scoffed at without a second thought. Censorship and government control are dangerous tools, and I don’t endorse any of those.

What I am calling for is, the social media users to apply restraint and respect the time honoured social mores and ways of conduct. We must learn to engage in decent deliberations to help generate new ideas. We must get inspired by the decent social media users who exercise decency, creativity and talents to not only entertain but also educate their followers. Even if we cannot inspire or entertain, we definitely shouldn’t engage in any activities that threaten social harmony and stability. The price we pay in terms of strained relations, social disharmony and emotional toll will far outweigh the small monetary gains we make and additional followers we attract.

Nonetheless, if there is obvious evidence of violation of social conducts, concerned authorities must watch and be responsive when consumers have issues and respond as per the existing laws.

Contributed by

Monu Tamang

Central Regional Referral Hospital, Gelephu