Social networking has been on an upscale ever since Orkut came out. "Will you frandship me?" That is how my social networking had started, with random people sending me friend requests and me conveniently declining them. Adding all the people I knew and keeping a track of them all. I can safely call it stalking now. Checking who logged in when and who commented on what. People started uploading their photos, and before I knew it, communities were made. Scrapping was the new lingo.
Not long till the mastermind Zuckerberg came up with his version of social network, Facebook. Barely had I adjusted to using Orkut that everyone I knew started talking about Facebook. And in no time, Facebook drew me in too. With a more attractive web page and cooler stuff to do, Facebook became beyond an addiction. Farm ville and other such stupid game requests started spamming my wall. Poking became this fun thing. I added people who I was not in touch with from school days. Nothing has changed though. I am still not actively in touch with them. Though thanks to Facebook, I get regular updates as to what each one is doing in their lives. It is more like a medium of uploading photos of all the places you visit and prove to the world that your life is awesome. For some it is a mode of checking in at places and telling you where they are, some enjoy putting up status updates every hour (figuratively) and some use it to keep a track of birthdays.
Facebook has been like the "in" thing for the longest time I have known. Plus it came in to action during my college days, thus the hype was more for me. Before I knew it, uncles-aunties, relatives were on it sending me friendship requests. I found this beyond absurd. Shocking was when I got a friend request from my mother. It's not that I hide anything from my parents, (okay, probably some things I do, but that is only because they are not worth telling), but adding them on a social network site means me having to be cautious as to what I say and upload. Thus, till date they remain my parents and friends, but only at home, not on Facebook. Some of you may not agree to my logic, but then again, its my choice and perspective.
Then came Twitter, the era in which I live currently. I had signed up when I heard of it, but was never active. After almost a year I finally started tweeting full fledge. It started with following celebs, but little did I know that there was a whole different world out there. You want to see democracy, join Twitter. People voicing their opinion on the smallest of matters and creating awareness on the important ones too. From philosophy to venting, match updates to Bollywood buzz, politics to gibberish, you name it and it's trending. There is a constant entertainment that goes on. However, for me, what stands out the most is the little family of fellow medicos that I have made. People ranting about our corrupt and lethargic medical system, cracking sassy jokes and the 'gooey love' and flirting going on. In all this, I found my reason to be happy, happy because I am not the only one struggling in life, happy because there are people who understand what I am going through, and happy because people do not judge me. The anonymity of name, caste, religion is surprisingly bliss.
The late night jamming sessions, pulling people's legs and being a cupid (but terribly failing) makes me smile to myself. Fights, flirting and FF's makes one believe that those people are not just a random bunch of freaks, but freaks you know for a long time. Wonder how it would be if I met all those people for real. But then again, at times, I like the surreptitiousness. Meet or not meet, whether everyone achieves the great heights or not, I would love for them to keep making me smile, just the way they do.
Moreover, it is thanks to these social networking sites that you are reading this right now. If it wasn't for you guys, I wouldn't be sitting and typing this. All this said, I am sure a lot more social networking sites will crop up in the near future. There already may be some trending as I write this. I may or may not join those, but the social animal in me will never die.
Not long till the mastermind Zuckerberg came up with his version of social network, Facebook. Barely had I adjusted to using Orkut that everyone I knew started talking about Facebook. And in no time, Facebook drew me in too. With a more attractive web page and cooler stuff to do, Facebook became beyond an addiction. Farm ville and other such stupid game requests started spamming my wall. Poking became this fun thing. I added people who I was not in touch with from school days. Nothing has changed though. I am still not actively in touch with them. Though thanks to Facebook, I get regular updates as to what each one is doing in their lives. It is more like a medium of uploading photos of all the places you visit and prove to the world that your life is awesome. For some it is a mode of checking in at places and telling you where they are, some enjoy putting up status updates every hour (figuratively) and some use it to keep a track of birthdays.
Facebook has been like the "in" thing for the longest time I have known. Plus it came in to action during my college days, thus the hype was more for me. Before I knew it, uncles-aunties, relatives were on it sending me friendship requests. I found this beyond absurd. Shocking was when I got a friend request from my mother. It's not that I hide anything from my parents, (okay, probably some things I do, but that is only because they are not worth telling), but adding them on a social network site means me having to be cautious as to what I say and upload. Thus, till date they remain my parents and friends, but only at home, not on Facebook. Some of you may not agree to my logic, but then again, its my choice and perspective.
Then came Twitter, the era in which I live currently. I had signed up when I heard of it, but was never active. After almost a year I finally started tweeting full fledge. It started with following celebs, but little did I know that there was a whole different world out there. You want to see democracy, join Twitter. People voicing their opinion on the smallest of matters and creating awareness on the important ones too. From philosophy to venting, match updates to Bollywood buzz, politics to gibberish, you name it and it's trending. There is a constant entertainment that goes on. However, for me, what stands out the most is the little family of fellow medicos that I have made. People ranting about our corrupt and lethargic medical system, cracking sassy jokes and the 'gooey love' and flirting going on. In all this, I found my reason to be happy, happy because I am not the only one struggling in life, happy because there are people who understand what I am going through, and happy because people do not judge me. The anonymity of name, caste, religion is surprisingly bliss.
The late night jamming sessions, pulling people's legs and being a cupid (but terribly failing) makes me smile to myself. Fights, flirting and FF's makes one believe that those people are not just a random bunch of freaks, but freaks you know for a long time. Wonder how it would be if I met all those people for real. But then again, at times, I like the surreptitiousness. Meet or not meet, whether everyone achieves the great heights or not, I would love for them to keep making me smile, just the way they do.
Moreover, it is thanks to these social networking sites that you are reading this right now. If it wasn't for you guys, I wouldn't be sitting and typing this. All this said, I am sure a lot more social networking sites will crop up in the near future. There already may be some trending as I write this. I may or may not join those, but the social animal in me will never die.
Its a cyclic loop. When we friends meet in real, we talk about what happened on FB. When we are on FB, we talked in real..which was about FB. The conversation grows stale. And boredom sets in.
ReplyDeleteOnline social networking should not replace reality, which is what all the developers are aiming for.. it should be a supplement to reality, not an alternative.