Social media: A blessing or a curse?

COMING back from school and going out to play games with friends, watching cartoons on TV, drawing pictures during leisure time at home ? are expected to be some of the regular activities of a child of class VI. But of late the scenario has been completely changed due to rapid change of technology. Children today have smart phones, Tabs, iPads, internet, etc., which are swallowing their time and becoming nightmares for parents. Over the years the use of internet and social media expanded dramatically. In the year 2000 the number of internet users in Bangladesh was only a hundred thousand. But it reached a staggering figure of 75 millions by the middle of 2017 according to Internet World Stats (IWS). Unsurprisingly facebook dominated the scenario with approximately 29 million registered users in Bangladesh by the middle of 2017. Recently Dhaka was ranked third in terms of facebook users among the cities worldwide with 16 million active users as per a report of 'Digital in 2017 Global Overview'. It is evident that facebook is impacting the lifestyle and culture of our future generation. Subconsciously or unconsciously these children are moving towards the darker side of digitalization which is going to impede our future growth. Therefore, concerns are being raised in different quarters and despite being beneficiaries of technology on different accounts questions are being asked if social media is a blessing or a curse.

Md. Rafsan Ahmed Ramim

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