Social networking – A curious obsession ( by Maneyapanda Bhamini)
Ever notice how the hours you spend on networking sites are getting longer? Mine certainly have… I’ve gone from logging on once a week to logging off once a week!! That is not a good sign… social networking it seems!! My shiny cocoa brown buttocks it’s SOCIAL!! Social networking sites are engineered to make you far less social far more deprived of actual social company or real conversations, and not to mention sunlight! (Or moonlight…depending when you are at your social best!)
Sure … it got you back in touch with this classmate of yours from the 4th standard…yeah…the same one who used to dig his nose with a pencil he borrowed from you… or the girl who refused to share her lunch or her notes… o wait what about the friend who used to pass wind in class and blame it on you? Yeah… it’s great to get back in touch with those friends…how lovely… Really now… I mean even if you overlook the nose digging, non-sharing and the forced ownership of flatulence, how do you feel about being reminded of those awful gawky days when the cool and hip gang in school (which I was clearly not part of O! sob.. sob..) just did not think of you as ‘cool’ enough to talk about nail colour, training bras and Peter Andre with!!
Another reason why e-networking is annoying is that it feeds my eternal need to marinade in pain for long periods of time…the more time I spend checking out someone’s profile and pictures the more sore I get…someone else’s life seems so much fuller, happier, married-Er, sexier, thinner, jet setting-Er, fun-Er…makes me Err about my own singleness, healthiness, lack of travel-ness, and non-diaper-ness…o the misery of roasting in useless-ness!! But my ego goes into a tizzy thinking of the possibility that a friend from school is staring at my profile page and thinking that my life is better!! EeeehhaaHahahahaaahaaa… (evil laugh fading)
What about giving into the temptation of provocative status messages when you are bored and looking for social action? Ahem…don’t pretend like you don’t do it!! And then to spend the rest of the day keeping check on who’s commented on it…Oh! The joys of written conversation! And surely some one is going to be interested on your status, updating hundreds of friends when you last had your shower! Let’s not even mention how often that profile picture has been changed!
And…then there’s online farming!! What the heck is that about???? A sheep ate your cabbage… then I suggest you eat the sheep. What is the obsession with this kind of farming…? Who’s going to eat all these digital vegetables?? Trust me…do the real thing…it’s far more satisfying. We are not saving the planet by growing a mauve digital pumpkin. What next?? Exercise-Ville? Get fit by lifting weights with a click of your mouse, 50 jumping e-jacks alongside emailing your mother about your day! Sweat it out! I won’t be surprised if that catches on.
So why do we do it? Spend hours obsessing what people are doing with their lives? So much so that half the day goes in wondering what the story behind a certain someone changing his status from ‘single’ to ‘in a relation’ is, or why someone put that other one on a limited profile. On whether to send that friend request or not…to aggravate the matter further, we crib about what an infringement on personal space and privacy Face Book, Orkut and other such sites are. Why then the obsession?
Hmmm…yeah, its fun, that’s why… it is pointless, time wasting, self obsessing fun. It’s also the story about curiosity killing the cat, listen… the cat’s got nine lives… we’ve got just this one. To make the most of social networking sites practice self-control and use it just as a social tool it’s meant to be.
P.S – Hey! Don’t forget to load your honey moon pictures, we’re just like dying to see them okayyy darrlinng! Mmuwah! Ciao!