Give Sarahah a Miss. Use the net for its true potential – here’s how!

Oh Sarahah. There is no escaping it.

The app, which began as a fun way to share feedback anonymously between co-workers, is now facing flak for encouraging trolls to send abusive and threatening messages.

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Whatever your stand maybe on the issue, we figure it’s better to use the internet for its true potential! Presenting to you – 10 things you can do instead of downloading Sarahah!

1. Figure out the next book you can read. We recommend ‘Instrumental’ by James Rhodes. A brilliant tribute to the therapeutic powers of music, Instrumental talks about how something as intimidating as classical music actually works, and about the extraordinary lives of some of the greatest composers. Check out the reviews here.
2.  Watch an NPR concert – The National Public Radio has a fantastic video series of intimate concerts ranging from well-known artists like Adele and Cat Stevens to lesser known prodigies like Australian guitarist Tash Sultana.
   This one, starring Gaelynn Lea – an American folk singer and violinist who suffers from a disability that precludes the development of bones and limbs, is tear jerkingly inspiring. What are your excuses, again?
   

   

3. Feeling upset and/or anxious? Watch some School of Life. Alain de Botton, the editor, has the kind of voice that can soothe you out of a panic attack. The School of Life is an institution that aims to make us more emotionally intelligent. Traditional education teaches us everything except, some would argue, how to live wisely and well.
   

   

4. Anonymous trolling is pathetic, but why hide behind the veil of anonymity if you have something nice to say? Want me to play Captain Agonizingly Obvious and list out apps that facilitate conversation? Sure, can do. 1) Whatsapp 2) Keen on chit-chat AND data privacy? Great, get Signal. 3) Want to send disappearing photos? Snapchat 4) Up for a video chat? Google Duo, Skype, and Snapchat again.
5. And if you really want to pander to the narcissist in you – put up a pretty picture on Instagram with a warm filter, throw in the appropriate hashtags and you are good to go. Protip: More likes if the picture was taken on a Eurotrip. 
6. John Green, the author of the famous novel The Fault in Our Stars, has a great channel for crash courses, but here is a random rant where he talks about the need for a good information diet.
   

   

7. Rewatch Shashi Tharoor make that emphatic speech about Britain owing us reparations. This one is free from an exasperating farrago of words. Ten points for delivery, flair and slicing wit!
   Favourite Line: “It’s a bit rich to oppress, enslave, kill, torture, maim people for 200 years and then celebrate the fact that they are democratic at the end of it. We were denied democracy, so we had to snatch it, seize it from you.”
   

   

8. Be a… ahem… Better Indian. Take on a challenge we roll out at 11 am every day on Facebook and Twitter.
9. I’ll tell you a better way to get noticed on the internet than cowardly trolling – stellar grammar (we are all learning!). Here is someone who has got it down to the T – the copy editor at The New Yorker, Mary Norris. This pretty hilarious series, appropriately titled Coma queen, will sharpen your grammar (and wit).
   

   

You will also like: Labelled as ‘Slow’, This 15-Year-Old Is Now an Entrepreneur in Wooden Toys

10. Lastly, read this great essay that puts our worrying screen addictions into perspective – What Silicon Valley has brought Us

“I now feel under-equipped if I walk out of my apartment without my mobile phone, but I used to travel across the world with almost no contact with the people who loved me, and there was a dizzying freedom, a cool draught of solitude, in that.”

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