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It takes seconds to share something through a WhatsApp forward. We should be very concerned about what's going out from our hands into the real world!
In today’s times, every member of the family is connected to each other using various social media apps. Even the older generation which was never accepting the transformation to the tech era are busy on WhatsApp or YouTube. Every household has a family group with weird names like ‘The Best Family’, ‘Hum Saath Saath Hai’, ‘The “Surnames”, etc.
These WhatsApp groups are mostly engaged in ‘Good morning’ or ‘Good Night’ messages where mostly the elders take the initiative of keeping it active. However a few times you do see political messages popping up on the screen. These messages sometimes come from authentic sources and sometimes are fake, making their way into our daily discussions and communications.
The first thing is that whether it be an elder person or a younger one, whatever you are sharing or forwarding must pass through these 3 questions:
Many a times we have seen so much hatred being spread about each other and without any checks, as these messages are being forwarded to a big chunk of the audience!
People who have been so apprehensive about computers and technology in the past are believing in these and this is creating a chaos of misinformation.
Someone rightly said, “Stay on the right path, even when you have to stand alone.” We know that technology is a new tool in the hands of elders and they are still in the process of understanding the same. The younger generation that knows the reality of web and how the information is manipulated without any traceback can lead the role of teaching the elders the reality of these circulated messages and how to ‘fact-check’ them.
However, in India, explaining this to elders is considered rude even if you are trying to do good and make them understand the actual web in which they are getting stuck. Mostly, these discussions become arguments and the younger of the two is made to feel bad and blamed by the rest of the members for being indecent.
This will either lead to more frictions between the two members or would make them stop discussing these topics again. But still the misinformation is being spread and many a times these have even led to riots and loss of property and life.
While debating, you must put your point without disgracing or insulting someone. This will help bring more listeners and readers to the argument. Even if you get these messages in the group, you may discuss this, but the tone must be polite.
Lastly, even if the person is not convinced, you may report that message to the concerned app and if valid, the company will automatically remove it.
In this, the important thing is that when you point out the propaganda behind a message, even if you are alone in this battle of righteousness, there will be few who silently will understand the issue and will not get stuck into this ‘web of lies’.
In a nutshell, technology has brought us closer. It has given us an environment where everything can be shared in a fraction of seconds, even our thoughts and ideas.
However, this also asks us to be more responsible and more concerned about what is going out from our hands into the real world!
Mother of a toddler, she finds time to write what her heart believes and wishes to convey to the world through simple articles and stories. An engineer who switched her career to environmental conservation, also read more...
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