Born in the early ’80s, I am a borderline millennial. It means I had a cassette player once, but am on Instagram now. It also means I saw the Internet grow out of the sweet innocence of blogs, hit puberty with social media, and reach adulthood with fake news. It is now essentially a salesman with a major personality disorder.
It is safe to say that looking for personal improvement and constructive criticism on the Internet is the equivalent of watching a Pahlaj Nihalani film to understand Indian culture. The idea of India, even culture itself, is irreversibly damaged in the process. There are comment sections on Reddit where dignity and self-respect are tightly curled up in a corner sucking their thumbs. Now WhatsApp forwards deliver more pop psychology and misogyny to the average Indian household than a TV serial. Self-esteem in young adults is currently quantifiable under likes, shares and comments.
It is into this steaming pile that Sarahah arrived. For the uninitiated, Sarahah is an App that “helps you self-develop by receiving constructive anonymous feedback.” The present-day ironies in that sentence are strong enough to tear the fabric of conscious thought. And in the age of Aadhaar verification, one would expect the Indian populace to be more circumspect about claims of anonymity. But it has become quite popular, going by the speech bubbles popping up across social media platforms.
The App was apparently designed for employees to submit anonymous feedback to employers, but mutated along expected lines to serve secret crushes and passive-aggressive co-workers. It is now in the hands of people like me who are otherwise on WhatsApp alumni groups where marriage announcements have bottomed out, births have plateaued, and divorcees or marathon runners are on the rise. Surprisingly, the initial impact has been positive. Instead of triggering many premature mid-life crises, most messages seem to be positive. However, the risks inbuilt in such a platform are too high to ignore.
The threat in your child’s phone
Recent incidents of young adults committing suicide that were directly linked to the Blue Whale challenge or reportedly to the Netflix original “13 Reasons Why” are indicators of how much the well-being of impressionable minds is now linked to their online world. The threat is credible enough now that the Central government has issued a letter to the major online platforms to remove any links to the Blue Whale challenge.
Another veritable danger in such a messaging App is bullying. Cyberbullying is harmful enough without being handed the advantage of anonymity. When bullying moves online, it gets much more difficult to track; and unlike the physical playing field or classroom, there is no escaping it even at home.
It may not be long before Sarahah descends into the online equivalent of the wall of a passenger train toilet, and people move on to the next viral phenomenon. But in the meantime, the threat is real and in your children’s phones.