FB, Instagram, Whatsapp down for few minutes but what is the bigger concern ? Unhappy Indians !

Facebook Instagram and Whatsapp went down on Friday (19-03-2021) around 10:40 PM and it lasted for almost around 45 minutes. While the company addressed this issue as a technical glitch, netizens have reacted to it from all around the globe. From memes to criticisms, everyone was furious over the outage but the bigger problem is somewhere else. As per the recently published world happiness index, India ranks 139 out of 149 participating nations. Wondering how these two are related? Let's find out. 

• What's the Story? 

As per the recently published, World Happiness Index India ranks 139 out of 149 participating nations. Even Pakistan is happier than India, ranking at 105. Though there are many reasons behind this, the sudden surge in mobile and social media usage in India definitely is one of the many reasons. Researchers have already provided data that how badly social media impacts our mental health. 

As per reports "An average user in India has increased his consumption of smartphones by 4 times in the last year. An average person consumes close to 5 hours per day, more precisely 4.48 hours per day, on their devices. Even from today, we will grow 4 times more in terms of more content getting used". While as it was already worrisome, Covid 19 and lockdown have made it worse as the usage is expected to grow further 25% higher due to the lockdowns. 

Now coming to social media usage we have collected Bakclinko's reports, 

Time spent on social media by country:

Below, we have the average daily time spent on social media in hours and minutes from 46 countries; the data source is the Global Web Index 2020 report.

• India – 2 hours 36 minutes, up 8 minutes from 2019
• U.S.A. – 2 hours 8 minutes, up 7 minutes from 2019
• Canada – 1 hour 45 minutes, down 5 minutes from 2019
• Australia – 1 hour 47 minutes, up 1 minute from 2019
• U.K. – 1 hour 41 minutes, down 6 minutes from 2019

According to the Times of India on the 1st week of lockdown Indians were spending a much as 280 minutes a day almost 87% jump over the previous week. 

Age-wise Facebook User in India :

• What's the Issue? 

There are several reasons of concern why we are highlighting this issue. As per NCBI (The National Center for Biotechnology Information a part of the United States National Library of Medicine.)  "There are many potential reasons why a Facebook user may have a tendency to become depressed".

Take a minute and search over the internet "impact of social media on mental health" you will realize how dangerous it can be. There is a huge spike in the cases of suicide, depressions, Social anxiety, or even plastic surgery post the social media boom. 

• What's Next? 

There are several positive impacts of social media or mobile phones, we hope that we are able to make our readers aware of the dark side of these services. The worst impact it makes is on the youth and the teenagers of our society who is going to be the future of our human race. It is high time that we take responsibility and cut short our unnecessary daily mobile and social media usage and live real life. There are several help groups assisting in getting over internet addiction. We must nurture hobbies and try to get in touch with our inner selves. We need to remember that there is a much bigger and beautiful world outside the internet.