Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Orkut. If you are not on atleast one of these then you are not a part of the net society. If you are not sharing through Blogs, Websites, Flickr, Picassa, Facebook or YouTube then you are as closed as an oyster. Albums are now online. References for jobs are now recommendations on LinkedIn. Your daily dairy has given way to blogs and status updates. You find dates and soul mates online. Want to know more?
We can overcome physical limitations and keep in touch with friends all over the world. Also we don’t have time to catch up with friends often. So I thought it was a great idea to have an account (besides my friends were already sending me numerous invites). So I tried it out. Now I plan my events online and send invites to all with a click. Nobody turns up, but I can count the wishes pouring in. I got back in touch with my childhood buddies and keep tabs on what’s happening in their lives. I share my photos online for everyone to see. Now even the ‘not-so-often’ meetings have become rare.
I’ve added online friends like crazy. If I don’t see my Facebook page for a day, it’ll take me hours to check older posts and see if I have missed out on something. I hardly have time for orkut updates and I barely manage to check LinkedIn update email. Since I had more time, I piled on other work. This lead to further reduction in my social networking time. Now I don’t have time to tweet/ update status/ share that frequently.
When cities grew, we moved to outskirts and we had to make an effort to travel to meet someone staying within the same city. When internet grew, we had to make an effort to filter down what we want to see (No wonder search engines are the biggest technological success stories). When online social-networking grew, it is an effort on our part to maintain our online accounts. And I found out that I am not alone. Quite a few of my friends are having the same trouble.
One thing became clear to me. When we din’t have time to write letters regularly, it was time for telephone. When we din’t have time to call up our dear ones and stay connected, it was time to network online. Now we don’t have time to network online. Is someone out there coming up with a better technology?
(Those of you who wish to comment on this post, please accept my thanks beforehand. I hope you understand if I don’t reply back immediately)
