Ananya Panday Says Kho Gaye Hum Kahan Helped Her Understand Social Media: 'It's All Superficial' | Exclusive

In this new age era, social media has become one of the most crucial parts of our day-to-day lifestyle. We have spent an unnatural amount of time dissecting each other’s lives and it makes us sometimes feel jealous and at other times happy after seeing somebody else’s posts or comments. Director Arjun Varain Singh’s Kho Gaye Hum Kahan, featuring Ananya Pandey, Siddhartha Chaturvedi, and Adarsh Gourav in the lead which was released last week on Netflix has struck a chord with the audience. The film makes us aware of the significant perils of social media which often reflects on the shallow outlook of people who use the platforms for portraying a different picture of their lifestyle to the world.

A few years back Panday had started a social media initiative ‘So Positive’ to confront social media bullying and termed it as digital social responsibility. The Student of the Year 2 actor says that the initiative stemmed from personal experience as well as what was happening around her. She shares, “I was going through cyberbullying and so were a lot of people around me and I felt that the time that we live in, it is a relevant topic to speak about. Trolling doesn’t happen to actors, it happens to everyone. For example, my younger sister doesn’t like being tagged on social media. Many talented people want to showcase their talent to the world, but they are afraid of being trolled. What gave me the motivation to continue is a lot of young kids would come and talk to me about it.”

The Dream Girl 2 actor claims that she has reduced the amount of time she spends on social media after filming “Kho Gaye Hum Kahan. “I don’t know how much time I spend on social media but I’ve reduced a lot. At the start of my career, I was in love with it and all the attention that I was getting through that medium. I constantly wanted to see who liked my posts and I was falling into that trap. I think this change is because of the film and in general how the feed is constantly dictating our mental health. There is no process and everything is very superficial. I’m feeling in life right now, I’m bored of it,” she says.

Panday says that she also likes to have some downtime. “Spending time alone helps me because I’m constantly surrounded by people, advice and opinions. There’s a lot of background noise, so spending time by myself and listening to my voice is what calms me down,” she says.