Alaul Alam :
In this era of technology, social media has been one of the most popular platforms playing a very influential role to every sphere of life. All the members in a family are somehow directly or indirectly influenced with the ongoing modern trend of socialization. Therefore, a question has raised whether the impact of social media on family relationship is positive or negative. There has been a long debate with the controversial impact of social media in our life. The findings of the studies reveal that social media has more negative impacts on family ties than those of positive.
According to the psychologists, family bondage and family communication are greatly interrupted due to the online obsession of the people. Social norms and values along with the way of our traditional socialization are declining gradually. In these days, family members love to share their many things virtually rather than being attached to real family issues, even they love to hear from their virtual friends but have little priority to the statements of the family members.
People love to share their emotions and feelings on virtual stands leaving the true relation ship at stake. It is really astonishing that the young people of this time are more intended to make a virtual bondage than that of the real. Consequently, their communicative competence in the real circumstances is greatly hampered and in many cases the young generation dare not face the reality living amid the fantasy and fascination.
Parents in this time have little time to talk over many important family decisions, rather they are found involved in social media disregarding sharing, caring and responsibilities towards the family. The obsession of the parents to stay online influences their children to be the second-hand addict to social media as the children imitate their parents and their surrounding society.
Studies reveal that many parents are very indifferent to giving quality time to their children and family which may mislead the teens to the path of devastation. On top of that, watching aggressive movie and playing aggressive video games are making the children more prone to be aggressive. Studies also find that children who spend more time using technology, have the lack in understanding emotion, developing relationships, and may be more dependent on others.
Due to heavy obsession to online, family disputes and dissatisfaction have been on the rise. The tendency of the parents towards divorce or permanent separation has increased manifolds in the so called trend of modernization. Once it was thought that people of western countries cannot continue their marital relation for long but in the present days, breaking up marriage is a common phenomenon in many countries. Bangladesh is not the exception as people are enduring the declination in their relation every day.
Surprisingly, many claim that they spend the quality time on social media leaving the monotony of the real life. According to sociologists, these are not the good signs when people find pleasure in virtual relation leaving the real life connectivity and corporation. It is no denial that addiction to social media brings negative interaction among siblings, couples and parents and children which destroy interpersonal relationship skills, communication skills, and bonding.
Not only that, think how the societal and family relation are affected. In the name of modern entertainment unhealthy competition prevails on social media these days. Entertainment through social media not only promotes the decline in mental health for many teens, but it can also negatively impact existing relationships with their peers and family members. Studies claim that the addiction to social media can impair physical, emotional, and psychological ability of the users exposing depression, anxiety, somatic complaints and many others.
However, we cannot roughly say that the use of social media is always disastrous on developing family ties. Social media keeps everyone in the family connected when they are away from home and corresponds to making a good- term of the distant family members. Not only that, it reduces the stress of the modern life by allowing people and their dear ones on the same platform. Studies report that cell phones, email, and texting and many other ways to socialization cannot be obstacle to break family ties if they are used wisely away from heavy obsession.
Obviously, time management matters the most in this regard. If we are all aware of our individual responsibilities towards our family, the use of social media can never be the burden, rather may be a good platform in corresponding to family affinity. However, to ensure the good practice of social media parents and society cannot deny their responsibilities. If family bondages are on right track, the future generation will be enlightened with social values and norms and the society and above all the state will be benefited to have the prudent nation.
(Alaul Alam teaches at Prime University. Email: [email protected]).
