The Social Network

Before you ask, this has nothing to do with the movie. Anyway, I am confident that you, the reader, is a person who logs on to facebook, twitter and/or any of the umpteen social networking sites at least twice a day. Ever since the inception of the social network, the world has become connected in a way it never has been in the past. In fact, one can draw a parable between the way the invention of the telephone revolutionized how we communicate, and the way that social networks are revamping global communication today.

From 10 year olds to 60 year olds almost everyone uses at least one social networking site if not more on a daily basis. With the internet becoming an indispensable necessity the world is increasingly growing dependent on the web to communicate. Social networking is especially a rage among high schoolers and college students. In fact one in every 14 people are registered on facebook. Facebook was started by a bored Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard initially just to post pictures of girls at Harvard and have guys rate them on their beauty. From a handful of college graduates in 2004 to 500 million people in 2010 Facebook has revolutionized the way we connect with each other. Umpteen other networking sites sprang up trying to emulate the success formula of facebook but few managed to wriggled their way into people's daily lives. Twitter is one such successful effort although honestly, it escapes me why people would bother with a site where all you can do is put up status messages less than 42 chars. I mean facebook already does that and so much more. Anyway, twitter and "tweeting" has become the rage with celebs and politicians and a new weapon for the papparazzi to intrude even further into celeb's private lives. This is especially true when a star tweets something in the heat of the moment and the media pounces on it and starts an uproar. Case in point, is Mr.Lalit modi's tweet about stakeholders in IPL 3. That little line started a string of scandals, law suits and political name calling that has still not abated. The slew of smart phones invading today's market is another catalyst for the growth of these networking sites. With practically every phone being connected to the internet and having specific apps for facebook and twitter, every person is connected to all of his friends practically every minute of his day.

What does this all mean in the bigger scheme of things? How is this phenomenon being integrated into our social fabric? Well capitalists can rejoice because right now there is no better marketing tool than facebook and twitter. Anything and everything posted on these sites reaches millions of people faster than any marketing campaign ever can. Big corporations, small businesses, startups everyone is jumping on the facebook bandwagon, posting ads, links to the company website, polls, events etc etc. In fact companies actually hire people to market the company on the web through social networking sites. These sites are a huge boon for non-profit organizations like PETA who have limited resources but make maximum use of the opportunities networking sites offer them.

Coming to the reason these sites were actually created in the first place for - social networking. I am not ashamed to admit that I am practically addicted to facebook. The first thing I do in the morning is fire up my laptop, open my browser and before anything else open facebook. There is this urge to find out what our friends are upto, post status messages on a whim and share mundane stuff. And this is true of almost 80% of my friends. I wonder how we managed to stay connected with people before facebook arrived. And nowadays when you make new acquaintances you dont ask for their phone number or business card - you ask for their facebook profile name or linked in profile name.

The most interesting aspect of this phenomenon according to me is its impact on relationships, be it love, friendship, or any other relationship for that matter. Today flirting , proposing , reconciling, apologizing, arguing, conspiring, laughing and umpteen other emotions are being shared through electronic ether. I feel today's generation has lost the human touch in emotions, the reason we are different from robots, the genuineness of displaying emotions face to face. It's sad that laughter no longer involves your facial muscles and tears are no longer wet and salty but is instead just three keystrokes. No more cute little handwritten love notes, no more waiting for that special phone call, no more hanging out with friends on street corners to gossip. On the flip side there are enormous advantages too. Consider 2 people chatting online. One can always take the time to think about his response and its effects. When you r not face to face with the other person, you can express yourself in ways that wouldn't be very possible face to face. You can manipulate, coax, cajole, lie, plead, scream through typed words rather than enduring the physical and mental restraints you would have had to overcome in person. The net effect is that typed words mean much less than the spoken word. Emotions lose their power, apologies lose their sincerity and love loses its lustre when expressed through type. But the typed word allows otherwise self-conscious, introverted people to socialize and express themselves like never before. No wonder facebook was founded by a socially challenged student! With friends,relatives, colleagues and pretty much everybody connected through facebook there also comes considerations of appropriateness in your activities online. Should I post this pic or not? will some of my relatives see it? what will my friends think of me? what if my boss sees this status ? should I ignore my mom's friend request???!! One can vent anger at one's boss through an innocuous status message only for it to find its way to the boss through a chatty colleague. Pictures of bachelor parties have a good chance of finding its way to conservative family members, drunken rants anger our special someones, vendettas play out in public every now and then, relationships are forged, shattered, remembered, forgotten and our very lives are played out digitally day after day. We have forgotten to go out and play in the sun, to close our eyes and feel the breeze on our face, to smell nature's cocktail of aromas, to look into another's eyes and understand them, to hold hands and speak in silence, to talk gibberish for hours on end, to speak not to communicate but to find solace in the emotion of conversations, to feel human, to feel civilized and to limit living our lives digitally and embrace the essence of humanity.