Social media is leading to information overdose: Mukesh Khanna

At a time when Nakuul Mehta claims that he has made everyone on his Pyaar Ka Dard Hai Meetha Meetha Pyaara Pyaara sets avid fans of Twitter, he has failed to enroll veteran Mukesh Khanna, who plays his grandfather in the above Star Plus daily, on the social media bandwagon. “I don’t like chatting. You will not find me on Facebook, Twitter or WhatsApp. Sadly, the youth today, is immersed in this. It is not safe as you end up talking with strangers. Hence there is no guarantee that the other person you are talking to is what he/she is really claiming to be. There have been several cases of cheating as well, though today, video chat has changed things. If you remember what my character had told Aditya (Nakuul), when the show began, that real friends are not the 1000 odd buddies on Facebook he constantly chats with, but are the ones in real life who are there for him when the chips are down, ” says this actor who is well-known as super hero Shaktimaan. “Today’s youth does not talk to the other person one-on-one. Even on our Rajshri Productions’ set the younger lot of co-stars, instead of talking to each other during the break are busier on their phones. I feel Gen X is connected to an illusionary world. Today, lot of younger actors is getting umpteen fans through Twitter. Even we have had fans during our times, but our game was different,” Khanna observes. “I have gone off WhatsApp for I feel that people who are not friendly can ping you. I got tired of people randomly asking me silly questions like ‘Sir how are you, etc’. I find it silly but youngsters like to keep updating their status about what they are doing every moment of their life,” the senior actor adds. Khanna also does not like the new fad of forwarding inspirational SMSes. Everybody’s phone keeps ringing on festival days. “I screamed at someone for sending me one such message. He was surprised. I asked him as to why he was falling victim to marketing ploys. The thought did not come from you, right?, I asked him. I, for one, don’t like chatting on SMS as well. Rather, I prefer to call the person I want to talk to, directly,” reveals Khanna. Finally Khanna, in a word of caution, avers, “Social media is leading to information overdose. During our time, kids of Class X had info only about their level; today class 4 kids have knowledge about the syllabus of Class XII. This phenomenon can either make kids really smart or they may go down the wrong route. I feel that somebody must ban this.”