THE VIRTUAL YOU

I remember checking my mails just once a day when Facebook, Twitter and Youtube were not launched. Today I can’t resist myself from checking my FB updates atleast thrice a day. The social Networking fever seems to have gripped us all tightly. I read about Orkut in a newspaper 5 years back and decided to try it out. It seemed fun initially but little did anyone know that a 25 year old guy would bring in a huge virtual revolution as its competitor. Mark Zuckerberg certainly deserved to  be  ‘Time ‘Magazine’s “Person of the year’ for introducing the world to a whole new and fun way of Networking.

    ‘Are u there on FB’? Cool, I’ll add u then, were the common sentences one can hear these days. From college canteens to movie halls to Parties, it was all there. For some it was just another social networking site which helped them to connect to their old friends.For most  others FB became an addiction. Status updates atleast twice a day became very common. Girls changing their profile pictures just to grab attention became the order of the day. There were people who wanted to go the extra edge and decided to become very open about their personal lives. All this  seemed fine initially as most of them wanted to increase their virtual popularity. Thanks to FB’s weird applications like….’Friends matrix’ and ‘who screwed my exams’? , It’s become irritating to log onto  it these days.How would u feel if a 25-26 year  old person uses this application, tags a lot of friends and expects them to comment  or at least ‘like it’. I get surprised to see people thanking each other for having included their name in some silly application generated photograph. If one person tries out such meaningless applications, then the others necessarily have to do it. They cannot see themselves lagging in any way. Perhaps the word, ‘Herd Mentality’ fits in better. Youngsters these days are more concerned about making their virtual impression strong. The Virtual self is losing out to the ‘real self’.

 During my graduation days (3 years back), the craze of  updating every little detail of one's  life was very less.The scene is totally reversed now. These days, from passing an exam to getting a driving license;  joining a gym to shopping; joining a company to training ; first salary to even resignation, it’s there for everybody. Most of the people I know get their pics clicked only to be uploaded in FB later. Their status updates are only for others reactions. In short, they are living only for FB.

Personally, I am not too much of a FB fan but love seeing seeing some pages on photography,Books and craft. To me it’s also  a medium to showcase snapshots of my hobbies. It’s a place where I can connect to almost anyone (both personally and professionally).Its a place where i like to be...only for few minutes a day.

       There is a very thin line between a habit and addiction.Stop pampering the Virtual self so much.