Social media plays a significant role in our lives, especially in today’s scenario, but it can sometimes really get on our nerves. In the wake of unfortunate times and busy lives adults are already arrested in the web of this virtual world which feeds their craving for networking and which definitely has replaced the importance of physical presence in each other’s lives. In defense of my ability to employ criticism, I stand with the present day concept of ‘keeping in touch’ but let’s say social media has somehow delivered an oxymoronic upshot with not really meaning to isolate the whole generation of its followers yet eventually doing the same.
Coming back to the point, social media obviously comes with its perks of entertainment, enjoyment and education yet obliviousness to human psychology is becoming common. Probability reports you possess some fundamental common sense if you’re using these upcoming mounting social websites to show off your day-to-day activities in order to retain your importance in a pseudo world but while that may call for a discussion rather than an absolute line of attack, reality is, a great part of the population is still ignorant about the importance of privacy; the lack of which has turned lives upside-down.
Lately we have witnessed some of the weirdest stalking cases, one among them being the case of a Snapdeal employee, Deepti Sarna, being fanatically stalked by a psychopath, Devendra, for over a year and then finally being whisked away in an auto observing her at knifepoint. While this was a stalker-led-abduction-incident, another pathetically cynical case of cyber-stalking came into the limelight when a Mumbai court recently set a landmark by convicting an executive of a private company, Yogesh Prabhu, to jail for deliberately stalking and harassing a woman colleague who had earlier rejected his proposal. This is not the first case and it shall not be. Since the commencement of Information Technology Act of 2000, the numbers of online harassment cases that are unreported weigh more than the dozens that have found its place in the book of law. Truth is that these vindictive ways of using social media which make victims feel defenseless is far more common than assumed. All stalkers are psychologically indicted with a mental disorder that consumes them on the relationship they build up with the victim in their imaginations. And very much analogous to other offenders they feel the need to justify their behavior towards the victims by being indifferent to the effects they have on them. So while such practices can lead to personal attacks on social networking sites or even rapes and acid attacks, here are some ways to deny online predators their share of nastiness.
- Do not add random public to your friend-list. Even if situation demands so, do it only after cross-checking with your mutual friends. It is best to avoid keeping people in your list who have no mutual friends with you.
- Post your pictures but keep them open to customized audience rather than making it public. You must know by now that pictures with good resolution can be downloaded from networking sites. Also for extra caution it is advisable that you upload pictures with very low resolution so that it is difficult to even zoom in.
- Block any account that makes you feel threatened or suspicious. Infact it is best if you collectively with more support report against the same account.
- Password changing is must. If it’s difficult to remember then note it somewhere which is easily accessible to you but not to others. This leads to less chances of your profile getting hacked.
- Refrain from posting too much about your locations and places you check-in. That could easily land you in trouble as stalkers are very expert observant and they leave no chance in getting at you anyhow.
- Remove yourself from any sort of search results. Hide your date of birth, email address and phone numbers and do not refrain from using the help desk on social networking sites in case of any untoward incident.
Hence it is not that you stop using something completely when it has disadvantages along with merits. Everything has two sides to its story. Rather, stop being ignorant and start spreading what you know and learn eventually. Its high time we stop being foolish and let the immoral get the worst of us.
