Social psychologist Kenneth Gergen in 1991 has warned of an world where technology might saturate human beings to the point of multiphrenia, a fragmented version of the self that is pulled in so many directions the individual would be lost.

Now as the society sits here more than 20 years later with tablets and cell phones and electronic gadgets people have never been more linked, more connected, and more bound to a virtual reality that many of us can no longer live without.

Tethered to technology, people are shaken when that world ‘unplugged’ does not signify, does not satisfy. They build a following on Facebook or MySpace and wonder to what degree our followers are friends. They re-create themselves as online personae and give themselves new bodies, homes, jobs etc.

While social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are powerful tools that have the potential to build communities, connect relatives in far-flung places, leverage careers etc they are also unleashing a myriad of complex psychological issues that have altered people’s collective sense of reality.

Some people use this social media to create something that they are not .Virtual world can distract people so much from their real lives that they either forget who they are or become so involved in the reality they’ve created that they don’t want to work on their own issues.

In a virtual world where it is understood that everyone exaggerates and reality is always slightly distorted, the temptation to lie or stretch the truth is more pervasive than ever .For instance people especially project the good things they have done on the social media increasing their market value and popularity , fake messages and news circulate in social media without checking for its authenticity.

A 2011 clinical report on The Impact of Social Media on Children, Adolescents and Families, was one of the first to raise the issue of “Facebook depression” among young people worried that they weren’t accumulating enough “friends” or “likes” to their status updates. It is the danger of slipping too far into a virtual world and losing a sense of real life, real self, and real priorities.

Overreliance on this virtual world that we create online is undermining all the progress human beings have made in addressing real-life problems. People need to  appreciate that the computer is not a substitute for a real human being and as a society people need to be vigilant about taking time to unplug, to disconnect, and to reconnect with themselves and their real lives.