Sania Mirza on social media toxicity: Everybody has an opinion about everything and feels the urge to put it out every time – tennis

Like many others in the public domain, Sania Mirza too feels social media toxicity has reached an unusual high. The tennis ace feels that people are expressing their anger and frustration in the space. And no matter how much ones tries to avoid this negative environment, it does get on people, something Mirza herself have experienced.

“We’re living in difficult times and I honestly think that a lot of people are frustrated. And somehow that is coming out on social media and you can see how much it has erupted. There’s a lot more hate in the last few months on social media than it was before. Everybody has an opinion about everything and they somehow think that they need to put it out on social media every single time, which should not be the case in my opinion,” she says.

With no intention of passing any judgment, Mirza adds that every individual has their own way of dealing with things. Though it’s important to have a dignified stand when it comes to expression, according to her, most of these people do not realise that expressing opinions, discussions are fine but passing judgment and all the threats and abuses aren’t.

“The last few months, things haven’t been easy and it has affected us real hard. People are going through a lot and may be, unknowingly, have become hateful towards others. And everyone is forming an opinion about almost everything, right or wrong,” she adds.

Highlighting the “great ups” of social media, Mirza agrees that there are lot of cons too that have come out in the fore more now, turning the otherwise valuable space “pretty toxic”. And she has her way of dealing with it.

“I do take a break from social media every now and then and don’t really indulge in it every single day. To be honest, I never read the ‘mentions’ because I think that mental sanity is important than anything else. I laugh at it most of the time but there are days when it does get to you, so I kind of cut off from it. You’ve to take social media with a pinch of salt. Good or bad, you can’t take it too seriously,” she explains.

Spending time with family is what keeps Mirza’s heart and mind off this negativity. The 33-year-old, had earlier spoken about how difficult it is for her and son Izhaan to stay away from husband and cricketer Shoaib Malik for over six months due to the pandemic. Finally, along with her son, sister Anam Mirza and brother-in-law Mohammad Asaduddin, she flew down to Dubai recently.

“It was obviously very tough and it wasn’t really something that was in our control. We had to deal with the circumstances… It was great to see Shoaib after so long, not just for myself but also for Izhaan. I think Izhaan is very excited to spend time with his dad. I thought he would take a little time but actually he went to him straight away. Surprisingly, he remembered him and all the little things he used to do with him. I guess that’s what a father and a son relationship is all about,” she says adding, she will be coming back to India soon.