"Lack of digital literacy together with unregulated growth of social media is posing serious threats to the stability of the society."Substantiate.

Government is actively pursuing the dream of Digital India. This is giving impetus to the social media. But the lack of digital literacy has caused serious challenges to the stability of the society.
Fake news
Social media has empowered every user to be news broadcaster rather than a mere recipient as with conventional media. This has given impetus to fake news. Lack of digital literacy has led to fake news actively pursuing the vested interests.
Harassment
Social media provides opportunities for impersonification and masked identity. This has led to utilising of social media for harassment. Lack of digital literacy is resulting in increased number of victims falling prey to online fraudsters.
Fundamentalism
Social media has no well defined mechanism to monitor the content. As a result the religious fundamentalist groups are using the tool of social media to spread their propaganda. ISIS is using the tool of social media to recruit people from India.
Data privacy
India lacks a comprehensive law on data privacy. Coupled with lack of digital literacy the Indian social media users are more vulnerable now. This has led to the private companies exploiting the personal data of users for narrow gains. There are reports of abusing personal data for satisfying vested interests like manipulating electoral process.
Reducing we feeling
We feeling is an important characteristic of a healthy and stable society. Social media has become an addiction and has resulted in replacement of we feeling with me feeling threatening stability of the society. Lack of digital literacy has resulted in inability of the people to nuances of social media.
Post truth
There is an increasing tendency to appeal more to emotions and building a narrative around it rather than putting facts and figures. Social media has become a catalyst to this propagation of post truth phenomenon. Lack of digital literacy has resulted in people falling prey to the post truth phenomenon.
Social media which was supposed to be tool to enhance social networking has become an addiction. Lack of digital literacy compounds this problem and is threatening the societal stability. Increased awareness is a key to address the challenge to societal stability.

Topics: 


Leave a Reply