INTRODUCTION
According to the World Health Organisation, ‘Mental health is a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realize their abilities, learn well and work well, and contribute to their community. It has intrinsic and instrumental value and is integral to our well-being.’[1]
The Internet has become a vital and almost indispensable part of our daily lives. From checking our notifications tray as soon as our eyes open, to scrolling away until our eyes close at night, we all have come a long way. From its invention in the 1980s to now in the 2020s when our lives stop working for a moment when just a small pause in our network arises. We all are now totally dependent on the internet for our fast-paced lives to go on around the clock.
Just like a coin has two faces, similarly, everything else also has a positive and a negative side. The Internet since entering our lives has brought about so many new ideas to explore and things to implement in our lives that now almost everything runs on it. Be it a company, school, hospital or even me writing this blog here using so many different sources and ideas. This is just the tip of the iceberg called the internet which looks beautiful from the outside.
INFLUENCE OF INTERNET MEDIA ON PEOPLE
The speed of our current life is just increasing and seems almost impossible to stop even if it’s just for a small moment. And mostly in those small moments, the highest consumption of internet media occurs. Whether it be during a small work recess, during a meeting with friends, etc., the influence this small moment has on a person’s mind can surpass the influence of other things. This case mostly occurs with teenagers and young adults. They are the ones who are mostly highly influenced by internet trends, fashion, style and whatnot.
Teenagers would try to follow every trending thing that is on the internet even if it might be harmful or dangerous to them. Now that is the level of hold that the internet has on today’s generation. You could also imagine the level of people being influenced daily by the internet media that just pops up on our notification tray and guides us about so many things.
THE TOLL INTERNET MEDIA TAKES UPON ONE’S MIND
While the internet can prove to be mostly unharming if used in moderation, the impact it has on one’s mental health, in reality, is just undeniable. Being a significant source of information in today’s era, there is a dark side to it all, how it takes a toll on people’s mental well-being. Issues like the comparison of lifestyle with that of an influencer or celebrity, body image issues that youngsters face due to the ever-changing beauty standards of the internet and the different trends that prevail every other week have made a mess of people’s lives today.
Here are some of the most dealt with problems that people face that may arise due to the use of internet media:
Body Image Issues: Social media platforms (e.g. Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, etc.) promote severe trends in such a good light that people start following them wholeheartedly. These trends sometimes may even promote unrealistic standards of beauty and eating disorders among people.
Ideal Lifestyle: People follow different types of celebrities, influencers and other people who they might be aspiring to become like. During that process, teenagers mostly, idealise the kind of life that person is living, the kind of clothes they wear or the food they eat and items they promote.
Social media/ Gaming Addiction: The making of social media apps and games is done in such a way that it may make the user addicted to it. Even as entertainment, these apps and games may disturb a person’s daily life activities such as sleep, decrease health and even disrupt their relationships.
Fear of missing out (FOMO): FOMO can be triggered by the updates that people post regularly. One’s mind can get disturbed due to FOMO as they might think that they are missing out on everything that others are enjoying.
Disturbed work-life balance: The addiction that arises due to the excessive use of social media, games or the internet may disturb one’s day-night life balance. People tend to watch social media till late at night which in turn fully disturbs their work-life balance in the real world.
These are just some of the regularly occurring problems that many social media users face. Many severe problems will be discussed in the later part of this blog.
CYBERBULLYING, ANONYMOUS HARASSMENT AND TROLLING
Cyberbullying: The use of technology to harass, threaten, embarrass, or target another person. Online threats and mean, aggressive, or rude texts, tweets, posts, or messages all count.[2]
Anonymous Harassment: It is a type of cyberbullying that occurs when a person uses their internet-provided powers, to hide their identity and harass, embarrass, or post malicious comments/content about another person. The internet provides us with the power to be anonymous on most media platforms and some people take advantage of this for their own benefit.
Trolling: It is posting inflammatory, abusive, controversial, offensive, irrelevant messages against you to upset or provoke you to lash out or display emotional responses. Trolling can start off a heated battle of words among the members of the group against each other while the person who started it enjoys the frustrated responses.[3]
SAFEGUARDING YOURSELF AGAINST SOCIAL MEDIA HARMS
To safeguard yourself from being a victim of the social media trap, you need to know your legal rights well. Below are the laws that help you protect yourself and your loved ones from the traps of media-related problems:
- Information Technology Act 2000
Section 66D – Cheating using computer resources: If a person fraudulently uses the password, digital signature or other unique identification of another person, he/she can face imprisonment for up to 3 years or/and a fine of 1 Lakh INR.[4]
Section 66E – Publishing private images of others: If a person captures, transmits or publishes images of a person’s private parts without his/her consent or knowledge, the person is entitled to imprisonment for up to 3 years or a fine up to 2 Lakhs INR or both.[5][6]
- The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012 (POCSO)
Section 11
(iv) repeatedly or constantly follows or watches or contacts a child either directly or through electronic, digital or any other means;[7]
(v) threatens to use, in any form of media, a real or fabricated depiction through electronic, film or digital or any other mode, of any part of the body of the child or the involvement of the child in a sexual act; or[8]
(vi) entices a child for pornographic purposes or gives gratification therefor.[9]
- The Mental Healthcare Act 2017
Though this act is not specifically focused on cyber issues, this act puts an emphasis on the right to mental healthcare, which may include support for the victims of crimes like cyberbullying, trolling or harassment that might affect their mental well-being.
- Cyber Crime Cells/ Cyber Police Stations
Across our country, there are specialised Cyber Crime Cells where a victim of Social Media traps can lodge their grievances. These cells allow a person to file many types of complaints related to cyberbullying, online harassment, trolling, phishing, hacking, etc.
CONCLUSION
While the world of social media could seem like a very enticing place to us, it holds lots of problems within, like every other thing in this world. Even if the internet provides us with lots of useful information, we should be quite cautious while using it. The increase in the usage of the internet on an excessive level has been adding to a lot of problems among people of different age brackets. The increase in mental health problems is just a small part of it. We need to be vary of our choices while using the internet, be it social media or anything and that could protect us from being a victim ourselves because we all know that ‘Precaution is better than Cure’.
Author(s) Name: Tishtha Chakraborty (Department of Law, Rani Durgawati Vishwavidyalaya, Jabalpur)
References–
[1] ‘Mental Health’ (World Health Organisation) <https://www.who.int/health-topics/mental-health#tab=tab_1> accessed 13 August 2024
[2] ‘Cyberbullying (for Teens)’ (Nemours Kids Health) <https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/cyberbullying.html#:~:text=What%20Is%20Cyberbullying%3F,hurt%20or%20embarrass%20someone%20else.> accessed 14 August 2024
[3] ‘Online Trolling’ (Information Security Awareness for Students) <https://infosecawareness.in/concept/student/online-trolling > accessed 14 August 2024
[4] Information Technology Act 2000, s 66D
[5] ‘Cyber Laws Of India’ (Information Security Awareness) <https://infosecawareness.in/cyber-laws-of-india#:~:text=To%20regulate%20such%20activities%20that,Act%2C%202000%2C%20in%20place.> accessed 14 August 2024
[6] Information Technology Act 2000, s 66E
[7] The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 20122012, s11 (iv)
[8] Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 20122012, s11 (v)
[9] The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 20122012, s11 (vi)
