The Vagabond

When I was small, life was governed by,

“What others would say?”

“Our name will get maligned!”

And I grew up hating these kind of sentences. Why should I care about what others say? That single sentence gave rise to the rebel in me. My mother still worries a lot about others opinions while I give a damn. After writing this here, I am sure she’s going to give me a piece of advise on the next phone call. Reading my posts she’s already hinted me that my life is an open book. Well yes, for like minded people who share my thinking and lend me an ear are welcome, those who can learn from my experiences I am always open but for gossip mongers I hardly bother.

In those times, the influence was just neighbors, relatives and people in your vicinity. The advent of social media brought in likes and followers.

The other day, my son came across and said he wanted to open a you tube channel. I am not a video person, and my knowledge of you tube is limited. I know 90% of his social media time is hijacked by youtube. Dude perfect (44 million ),NigaHiga (21 million ), s2g (100,000) were some of the influencers he wanted to copy.

“I would become a you tuber” he said. Just make a video and become rich was his theory. Only if life was so easy, I wanted to say. Well anyways, the discussion lead no where and he moved to a career of cricketer and then footballer after sometime. All that again influenced by the peer pressure and the glamour of it.

Lately he’s been fascinated by my blog and checks how many followers I have.

“What’s the need to go to Hospital?”You can make money by writing comes the next advise.

How early can your child have a social media account?

I have seen parents creating social media profiles for their kids. Each one to his, but for me an ideal time should be one the child knows the implication of that account. Most of the social media platforms do have an age limit for certain reason. Of course, you don’t want your child to be exposed to adult content before he knows what it actually is.

How does one balance this virtual and real life ?

We as adults know that “likes” “shares” and “followers” do not equate the real value of the person. The online popularity is inherently ephemeral. Yet at times, even we do get carried away. I remember during last A2Z two of the senior bloggers had a fight due to this insecurity. So what are children then ?

Always talk to your children about what they do when they are online, teach them about social and internet etiquettes and most importantly let them know that there value in person to you and their friends means much more than to any of the crazy fans.

Teach them to be accountable for their social media actions.

I am participating in A2Z Blogging Challenge this April and this post is my entry for letter V.