Question

Que. As we saw in the class lecture one of the most controversial ideas of Marx was his quote: “Religion is the opium of the people”. Many people now discuss the decline of the role of religion in people’s lives and wonder if Marx’s concept may be outdated. Here is your chance to update Marx’s ideas. For this question, you are to substitute the word “media” for the word “religion” in the above quotation. In other words, the quote you are dealing with reads “Media (or “social media”, “Facebook”, “Twitter”) is the opium of the people”. What you are to do is to focus on one aspect of media (it could be television, “reality tv”, video games, advertising, “second life” computer simulation games, sports (on television and in person), movies, social media, “Facebook”, or “Twitter”) and using the ideas discussed in the summary of Marx’s quotation – apply the same analysis to media today. Using examples to support your ideas, in what ways can it be said that today media operates to “dull the senses” and thereby (using Marx’s terms) operates as a highly addictive and sedative “opium of the people”?(subject is sociology)

(The answer need to be soft copy only)

Answer 1

Media or most specifically social media like Facebook or Twitter is proving to be the new opium of people. People mostly tennagers and upcoming generations are already highly addicted to Facebook. On an average, 40 mins of everyday is invested by U.S. citizens playing social online game which is non-productive on all levels as well as of no use in anyway.

False Rumours containing polticial agenda easily gets spread on high level scale, leading to several negative consequences. Recently, Facebook has influenced the mass to such level that there has been several incidents of mob lynching based on many unverified facebook post. Facebook just brings the illusion of transformation but never ever really brings real transformation or any change. In the need of better society and to acheive radical egalitarianism, people blindly follow social media trends and practices which never adds to any productivity or real happiness. And with all the fake accounts and media leaks, facebook can ruin someone's world while giving others a chance to mock on other's pain forcing the other individual to suicide or severe depression.