Has The Power of Invisibility Made us Invincible?

By Swetha Narayankumar

At the age of 7, I saw Harry Potter wear the invisibility cloak for the first time and I was in awe. I felt I needed one too. Although I knew it was magic and it can never happen in the real world, I thought if I actually had one, I could simply do whatever I want. Fast-forward to now, I feel almost everyone now owns the cloak of invisibility, thanks to the world of internet and technology. Quoting one of the most famous movie lines 'With great power comes great responsibility ', it has almost become everyone's responsibility to use this power wisely. Unfortunately, not many of us do. In fact, most often it's the other way around.

The anonymity and the option of keeping one's true self hidden across social networking platforms is causing more harm to people than we could possibly imagine. We are all quite aware of the different implications this has in the society, from stalking to constant negativity and destructive criticisms in posts and comments to unsolicited opinions hurting one's self esteem has led to hatred, violence and shame across the internet, and even outside of it. This insensitive behaviour comes from a place of dominance and lack of empathy. Even though it might sound a bit exaggerated, this problematic attitude is more like adding poison to the well, eventually causing more harm than good. Although, the possibility of not being known or punished is one of the reasons why people are bullied online, what we often fail to understand is that the consequences are almost often reflected outside of it, in real-time. The victims sometimes end up having trauma for a life time. While most of these hurt comments are often from people hiding their original identities, this is also seen amongst people with real identities too, even the most educated and respected people sometimes fail to address disagreement efficiently without actually ruining the reputation of the other.

It is everyone's freedom to voice out their opinions, but not at the cost of someone else's self-respect that too for no apparent reason. Almost all things in this world, including freedom can only be defined in a relative sense and never absolute. If only most people understood this, the world would be a lot less dramatic and calmer than it currently is. The true power does not lie in whether the cloak is invisible or not, rather it is in our ability to be mindful of our actions and intentions.

By Swetha Narayankumar