Social Media- A Boon or a Bane

           The reach of social media has become enormous world wide. In today’s generation it is next to impossible to find a single youngster who is alienated from the social media. There are numerous social sites with a huge number of active users. When it comes to analyzing its aspects, we can find many negatives and positives to it. Nothing in the world is perfect as we can philosophically say, so is the case with social media.

            It cannot be favored by proving it to be a complete boon nor can we call it to be completely negative. It is a mixture of both i.e. it is a boon as well as a bane. There are millions of social media users today which is mainly covered by youngsters. Facebook being one of them with 600 million users has been ranked 2^nd by the Alexa toolbar. Its revenue is expected to be US $ 2 Billion. According to the official data global consumers spend more than 6 hours on social networking sites.

            As far as usage is concerned most of the sites are used for entertainment purpose like sharing videos, commenting on status and images, cross comments, joining communities and groups and discussing on topics, etc. We keep on adding more and more friends not being sure whether we’ll b e in further contact with them or not. Most of the friends list consists of users whom you hardly contact. There are just a few with whom you get regularly connected to. So again, its just a competition among users to have the largest friends list. Chatting constantly on social networking sites about not so important topics leads to nothing but wastage of time. Moreover, there are games and other applications that are added by users which is of no use and is there just for the sake of it.

            Coming to the positive part of the social media, life is nothing without socializing. Social life is the best life. Contacting friends and family members constantly helps us keep connected and inform us about the happenings. Socializing has also become an important part in the professional world. To maintain contacts we need to be in constant touch with people and the best option to go about it is the social media. Social media also includes important and serious discussions amongst the experts and other users having knowledge about the topic. The best part about this kind of discussion is that it is open to the public i.e. anyone can view it as well as put in their own views.

            Social media helps discuss, debate as well as have a simple conversation with anyone around the globe. Whether it is a boon or a bane depends on the way a user uses a social site.

                                                            Infidel

            There lived a girl named Emily who belonged to a non-orthodox family. Emily was an ambitious, hardworking and responsible girl by nature. She had a best friend named Ann who was her classmate too. They were students from 11th grade. Emily was quite active and could answer any question asked by the teacher and was famous in school for being the 1st ranker in class every year. Ann was an average student academically and always depended on Emily to learn her subjects. Emily being helpful and loyal, always helped her in the best ways possible. They used to go to school together by school bus.

            Next morning as usual they went to school and during the first lecture itself the teacher announced a surprise test. Emily was quite confident of scoring well but Ann felt panicky. After the test was over, as Ann was sitting on the first bench, the teacher asked her to collect all the test papers. Emily was the last one to give her paper as she was on the last bench. When Ann collected Emily's paper she noticed that she had forgotten to write her name on it. Ann instead of informing her made some negative plan in her head. She, without anyone noticing wrote her own name on Emily's paper and wrote Emily's name on her paper. After a couple of days the test results are announced and to everyone's surprise Emily fails and Ann scores the higest in class. Emily was unable to believe it and was upset but was also happy for Ann at the same time for scoring the highest. The teacher feels very strange about Emily's result and decides to call her parents to school to make sure that she doesn't fail again. She issues a notice for the same and asks Emily to give it to her parents without fail. Emily’s parents are quite surprised by the notice and decide to go to the school the very next day. When the discussion was going on between her parents and the teacher, Emily requests her teacher to show her the test paper so that she could analyze her mistakes and improve. After seeing the test paper, Emily realizes that the test paper wasn’t hers but it was Ann’s. Emily doesn’t reveal this to anyone, neither her parents nor the teacher and keeps it to herself.

            The next morning in the bus Emily couldn’t understand how she could bring up the matter with Ann. Finally after reaching school she confronts her and asks her why she had done such an act for no reason. Initially Ann refuses of doing any such thing but when Emily says that she had already seen the test paper, Ann accepts her deed. When asked for a reason, Ann says that she was always jealous of Emily being so famous amongst everyone and she did so to bring her down in everyone’s eyes. Emily when realizes the thoughts of her best friend for her, feels very upset and hurt. They avoid speaking with each other for the next couple of days. They no more shared the bus seat with each other and neither did they share their lunch during break time. A week passes by and Ann finds it quite difficult to deal with her studies without Emily. She finally decides to approach Emily and apologize for the injustice and thank her for not revealing it to anyone. Ann does so and Emily forgives her very easily thinking that the situation must have made her do so and she won’t repeat it. They become good friends again and no jealousy seemed to exist in Ann’s mind anymore.

             The days pass by and so does their school days. After 2 years they pass out from school with good grades. Ann scores exceptionally well because of Emily's help. With not much difference in their result they end up in the same college.

    They go to college together in Emily's car everyday. They have a lot of fun with many extra curricular activites available for them. Emily being active in all fields and also good academically becomes famous amongst the college mates as well. Everyone admires her knowledge and her willingness in all situations, may it be parties, exams, sports, debate, dance, etc. Ann not being as active and as famous as her, again develops a feeling of jealousy.

   Months pass by and Emily gets a crush on a guy in college who's a classmate named Andrew. She thinks of confessing her crush to him but then feels too shy to do so. Surprisingly after a few days Andrew approaches her and reveals his crush for her. She being very excited shares everything with Ann, and Ann acts as if she is happy for her too. Andrew again approaches Emily the next day and proposes her to become his girlfriend. Though she takes a couple of days to decide she accepts his proposal. She is very happy as she observes that Andrew is a very good and a caring guy by nature. She spends most of the time with Andrew and Ann doesn't feel very happy about it. Ann was already jealous of her and started  thinking of ways to let her down again. She thought of creating misunderstanding between them and break off their relation. Ann being the only girl in touch with Emily for so many years knew almost everything about her. She went to Andrew and started telling him fake stories about her relationship with a couple of guys in the past. Andrew found this a bit strange and started getting suspicious thoughts. Whenever Emily was with a guy in college who was nothing more than a friend, discussing something related to studies or activities, Ann would call Andrew and show him how Emily was going around with other guys as well. A few days passed by and by this time Ann had sown enough hatered for Emily in Andrews mind. Andrew thought that he was with the wrong girl and broke off with her.

   Emily being in disbelief kept on wondering what had went wrong and what exactly was her fault. There was another friend Roma who had been well noticing what was going on and also knew that the sole reason beind the break up was Ann and nobody else. Seeing Emily so depressed she decided to go to her and tell her everything that had happened. When Roma reveals everything, Emily didn't take much time to believe her as she had already experienced this side of Ann's nature.

   Later, she requests Roma to come along with her to Andrew to explain him and make him understand the wrong situation created by Ann. When Emily narrates the whole story including what had happened in the past and there also being Roma for support, Andrew realises his misunderstanding and apologizes to Emily for the same. Andrew makes Emily understand that she was being merely used by Ann and she no more needs to be  friends with such a cruel and cunning person. Emily gave it a thought and knew that she couldn't take a risk by continuing her friendship with Ann because there was a possibility of Ann doing something even more bad in future. She finally confronts Ann and breaks off her friendship for once and for all. Not only Andrew, Emily and Roma but everyone including the other students and proffesors become aware of Ann's true face and she is isolated by them. She does apologize and everyone does forgive her, but then no one is able to believe her the way they did earlier.

   Emily and Roma become even more good friends and Roma never being jealous is always happy of Emily's achievements. Later, Andrew and Emily grow into a more closer relationship and get married after 5 years after passing out from college.