Last evening, a friend of mine broke off from his girlfriend. There was nothing unique about the whole thing, except the fact that the breakup took place first on Facebook and then on Orkut and never face to face. There were comments (read catfights and jeers) and "Likes". Made me wonder what are we as a generation upto? In several ways I am proud to be a part of the gen-x for I have seen what the past and the future generations have/will not see. Forget globalization and India's enty into space age..its about the virtual social networking, the "other" world that we live in and its impact on the real world.
Sample this- you are at an important client meeting. Post work hours you are sitting in the cafeteria organising the minutes of the meeting of the day to be sent across to your boss. Another tab on the screen would indicate your presence on facebook or orkut or probably both(and maybe a couple of other similar sites). A team member (whom you met that very day and are still to decide whether you like or not) walks in and stops by just to have a word. If at all, he notices the facebook/Orkut tab , he would say "Wow Great you are also on FB/Orkut?" as if being on FB/Orkut is as wonderful and exotic living in Copa Blanca or a privilege accessible only to a select few. Willingly or unwillingly you would type his name in the "find" box and add him. And for the rest of your life (and his) the two of you would be stuck up with each other sharing oneliners (status messages), photos and videos and maybe an occassional greeting and maybe never an actual spoken word again. Infact a random search on the internet revealed what I consider to be a true statistics (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_yhQkHDTt6wA/TN4ERe-rDTI/AAAAAAAAL0A/CwRwNiAW0b8/s1600/facebook.gif ) - just a miniature percentage of people in the friend list are actual friends, the rest-some x y z whom after a while you wouldnt even remember where you met or when.
Not that FB/Orkut has no visible advantages. There are. Besides the obvious ones, its a huge morale booster. Post a pic or a video or a one liner and some idiot (idiot=one who has nothing better to do -that includes basically the whole world) is for sure is gonna like it or comment on it. The more the comments the more the likes the better is your day. You dont trust me on that? Well, take a statistics of the number of people(and not just college kids) who logon to the social networking sites first thing in the morning - even before opening their eyes fully and you shall know the truth. I haven't come across many not-nice comments. Maybe FB doesnt like this practice - thats why there is no Dislike button.
Also if you are a manager or someone who holds even 0.5% power to make or break a guy's performance appraisal at the end of the year you would be bombarded with a billion comments and a zillion likes. Ditto for your good-for-nothing wife who does nothing except uploading the photographs of some dishes (she read on the internet and the cook made), photographs (taken while the boss was on an onsite business trip) and hand made paintings (the art teacher- who happened to be the aunt of some subordiante in office slogged while she just chatted away). After all bhabhiji (in more refined words...madam) is the BEST, the versatile genius...The reverse is equally true as well. A "friend" whom I asked for some help not only stopped replying on mails but stopped commenting on my updates(which he used to do earlier, frequently). As soon as the work got done(obviously through other sources) and he got to know of it he was back in action.
If you are wondering that I have nothing good to say, well then let me tell you that I am an addict as well. I have a huge friend list ranging from teachers from school to ex collegues, ex boyfriends, to children of my friends and people I have never met. But at times it disturbs me that each one of these would see a side that they didnt even knew existed. A couple of days back I saw the pics of a family friend's son who is in college with his girlfriend(s) at a wild party and my first instinct was to report him to his parents. But then I controlled myself...for who didnt have fun in college? And anyways the kid was doing great in his studies. I realised for me he would always be a kid and it would take me a while to adjust to the idea of his being a young adult instead of the cute kid from the neighbourhood. Maybe there should be a way to customize the views...so that the users can decide what they want a set of friends to see.
But in some ways its fun to see certain people on these sites. Especially the ones I never really spoke to but have them on the friend list because we had something in common- say the same school or college or neighbourhood. I felt proud when a senior from school whom I idolised got placed in the US, I felt a wee bit disappointed when the professor in college whom I had a crush on got married, I was elated when some friend from kindergarden posted the class pic and was saddened when someone lost a family member. For sure, the closest friends will update about changes in their lives in a more "communicable" manner but then there is another world that exists at the perifery - there are people I have known all my life but never really spoken to. Their familiar presence becomes the nucleus of the forever expanding world, despite there being miles that put us apart.
I guess thats enough for the moment...I must get back to facebook and Orkut and Twitter- for who knows if Amitabh Bachan might have added me in his friend list and Bill Gates might have borrowed me a few thousand dollars...
