Essay map
Opening scene
Anecdote
A feed shows a face, a count, a fight. The product is the user. The topic is harsh: inherently selfish — not only ‘some trolls’. The exam wants the design, then an honest exception.
Keep this in every paragraph
One stand
- Inherently: in the grain of the medium — a profile, an algorithm of more-me. Selfish: the self as the unit of value. Write a riot rumour and a disaster thread as cousins.
Use once, in a scene — do not dump names
Quotes to earn
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Gandhi
Means — a medium that trains vanity is already a politics.
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Ambedkar
Public reason — a feed is not a constituent hall.
Turn each heading into a full paragraph in the hall
Heading map
What the line is asking
- Social media: platforms of broadcast-plus-mirror.
- Inherently selfish: structure, not a mood of users.
- Medium: McLuhan cousin — the form is the bias.
Design
- Like, a streak, a rage-click. The self as bait and catch.
Politics / street
- A rumour that flatters ‘our’ people. Polarisation as a business model.
Mind
- Comparison, a loneliness that still scrolls.
The counter
- A missing-child post, a flood SOS, a worker’s union group: the same pipes can carry a we. RTI-style leak, a feminist hashtag. The medium is selfish by default; a public is an achievement against the grain. Law: IT rules, a intermediary — do not make it the whole essay.
Drop one peg where it fits — not a data dump
Value addition
- Art. 19 Speech — and a reasonable restriction when a rumour kills.
- IT Act / intermediaries The legal pipe — peg once.
- Election / IFCN A fact-check as swimming upstream.
Last 8–10 lines in the exam
Last paragraph
- Close: use the pipe; do not worship the mirror. Expand — this is only the map.
Quick related
Students also ask
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If development is not engendered, it is endangered.
Next question on this syllabus topic (2016 · Q1). View answer →
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Is this the full essay?
No. It is a map. In the exam, each heading becomes a paragraph with one Indian case.
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Tone?
Cool. Design first. One SOS thread as the counter. Not a boomer rant, not a Silicon hymn.
Same topic · past papers
UPSC has asked this before
These previous-year questions sit on the same topic. Open one to practise the earlier ask.
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2024 · Q5 · Essay · 125 marks
Social media is triggering 'Fear of Missing Out' amongst the youth, precipitating depression and loneliness. -
2019 · Q7 · Essay · 125 marks
Biased media is a real threat to Indian democracy.
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