By A M Radhika:
Looks like they took the ‘stepping forth for bringing about radical change’ part of the discussions too seriously because of the devoted login time that they spent in all forms of social networking consisted of bringing oneself over and above the strata.
The question for today is while on one hand, social networks anchor your weaker relationships for you to re-invigourate them at a later stage of life, does your activity on social networking sites affect your real life relations? The answer is hands down, a ridiculously gigantic YES. I remember seeing this animation video ironically on a social networking website where a child is coaxed by his friends to come on Facebook and following that, his father, classmates, neighbours and other random people turn his yet real world into a virtual kamikaze, when all he wanted to do was his homework and play on the grounds. Even workplace discussions and gossip grapevine which formerly consisted of subjective reconnoiter of bits and pieces of extremely relevant information with a ‘telephone effect’ (one whispers to the second, second to third…), indeed now consists of why was one particular person repeatedly commenting on another’s status message. Personally I may in its entirety, end my association (in reality or virtual space) with those who dare come online on chat and talk about how cool their status message is or how they want me to comment somewhere specific (unless relevant of course). That’s just gross.
Again, there’s the coveted throne, bearing physical form of a form text box. The throne that is lovingly named, ‘Relationship status’. Â Usually applicable to the younger junta, God bless thy soul if you are one of those whose N number of friends keep dwindling from ‘Single’ to ‘Committed’ or ‘In a relationship’ every 10 days (almost always in an effort to gather attention/comments) or so while you stare at your computer and wonder dorkily, if you may, how your life yields a complete zilch concerning such dynamics or what their relationship status would be with Mr. Work. So much so, that people ‘hook up’ only because they want to change their status. Recently there was an apparently huge campaign of updating your relation status corresponding to a breed of alcoholic drinks as a codeword, just to keep the other side of the world wondering. Sure enough, that got its 15 seconds of fame, albeit forcing me to make a mental ignore list of the people who participated. Again, if your feeds are entertaining, there’ll be these underground highly such-and-such mushrooming breed of complete aliens with an ‘I wanna do fraanship with you’ board hung around their necks even in a workplace or educational institution, talking to whom is exact simile to summoning your personalized albatross to come hang itself around yours. Of course, among other things, these statuses are the best way to ‘break up’.
While all that might peg your so called social sensex at an all time high quite literally, you are very likely to disconnect with real world altogether, where you actually interact and participate in interesting, pointed and purpose-driven discussions be it formal or casual, and enjoy the process all the more to remember people forever. While we are at it, talking in terms of work relations, corporate organizations are banking on apart from advertising and internet marketing, the facts that a) employees or potential employees post everything on the internet, only to reveal their true personalities which may be used in favour or against them in the workplaces and b) associations on social networks with other employees of the same organization can actually boost productivity and be engineered, to enhance the concerned employee’s performance, especially if the association is with a superior or colleague of the same level.
Next time when you update your status, think about what all & who all are you going to affect, because the creepier it is, the shorter is your real life ‘friend list’ (Everyone on social networks is a friend. In real life, you have best friends, team mates, acquaintances, companions and levels so forth). And if you’ve seen ‘Social Network’, you’d understand that your real life is a different ball game altogether.
Image courtesy: http://www.4vf.net/facebook-wants-to-read-your-mind/