Social media impact is continuous: VVS Laxman

Vijayawada: Social media has been making impact every minute all over the world, said former cricketer VVS Laxman while speaking at an interactive session at the Social Media Summit Amaravati 2018 organised by the Andhra Pradesh Tourism Authority here on Friday. The summit will conclude on Saturday.

Recalling his association with Vijayawada, Laxman said that he played cricket for the first time at the Indira Gandhi Municipal Stadium here.  Answering a question from Siddhartha Marupeddi, CEO of StartAP, Laxman referring to trolls on social media, said criticism should be constructive. Laxman said that the social media has been making its impact every minute all over world.

He said that cricket fans are emotional. “Fans are connected to their favourite cricketers through social media and I welcome it,” he added. Earlier, Minister Kollu Ravindra inaugurated the summit by following instructions of Mitra, the robot. He clicked a touch screen on it and said that the society would be greatly benefited by rightly using the social media, which has a great impact on the society.

The Minister said that social media is going play a key role in the coming days. “It was good that the Tourism Authority has organised the summit to discuss various issues,” he said and appealed to the organisers to come out with positive suggestions for improving the situation.

He said that the news on the print media can be seen on the next day while on the electronic media it would appear every hour, but the social media covers the incidents the very minute they occur. CEO of Andhra Pradesh Tourism Authority Himanshu Shukla described the social media as an essential commodity to the present generation. “Sizable number of youth are utilising the services of social media for constructive purpose, while some youth are unnecessarily whiling away their valuable time,” he lamented.

He recalled that Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu identified the importance of such summit and directed the Tourism Authority to organise the summit. ZP chairperson Gadde Anuradha said that social media has become a part and parcel of the life of the present generation.

Rahul Jagtiani of Plush Plaza, Harshadeep Srinivasa of OYO, Raj Paranthaman of Air Asia, noted actress Swara Bhaskar, Anurag Batra, Editor-in-chief of Business World, Mayuk Choudhury of Milaap.org, Lavin Mirchandani of Get Evangelized, Sneehal Dhruve of SuperFan.ai, Aprameya Radhakrishna of Vokal, senior actress Khushboo Sundar and others participated.