Social Life Vs. Social Networking Sites

                                        



As years pass, friends leave, missions go astray, bonds weaken, grey cells decrease-gray hair increase and our jeans fade!

The thing that depends however as each year passes, as technology evolves and our complexity increases is…Stress. During the times of Asimov the 21^st century was unimaginable. Yes we have made technological leaps but even our most “advanced technologies” cannot take care of the diseases plaguing everyone. It is rightly said- Complex technologies bring complex problems.

Think about it. How stressed out we become if for some reason our service provider has a glitch and we can’t log on to Facebook, Twitter or our emails?

Or if we forgetfully leave our mobile phone at home and remember it when we are halfway to our destination?

It’s an unimaginable situation since mobile phones have now become a part of our body!. Social media has become so interconnected with our lives that we do not even realize how much we actually depend on it until something goes wrong with the service and we are unable to connect!

Isn't Our WIRED generation not the WEIRD generation??

Mark Zuckersburg made an exuberant utilization of his “soul-time” by his creating--Facebook. Little did he know that this creation would lead to a unique situation where most people throughout the world would be ruining their “soul-time” by spending more time socializing in cyberspace than socializing in real world! And mind You, soul time is the time which we devote completely to ourselves like going for a walk, gardening, listening to music and so for that matter doing anything which is our favorite pastime.

Nearly 40% of the people in the world spend more time socializing through the internet than in real life. Almost quarters say that they have missed on important moments because they were distracted by trying to share those moments on social networks! Almost 20% of the people prefer to communicate over social networks or text messages rather than talk over phone or face to face.

 Google defines a social network site as a recent phenomenon born out of the Internet that allows individuals to create a personal profile or identity, and connect with friends and strangers alike almost anywhere in the world. This definition holds good till these sites do not rule our lives. Good old days when friends would meet and chat aimlessly without distraction are long gone. These days, social media and what’s happening on Facebook and the like rule our world. It’s about how accessible emails and the internet are, and not by what our friends are telling us in conversation.

Last year in early October, the Blackberry network in the U.S and parts of Europe and Middle East had a meltdown and so people could not connect to each other through the internet. The frustration of the people reached its pinnacle.  In an article from The Telegraph newspaper showed how much being connected to social media means to people.

“So I have no email, Twitter or BBM on my BlackBerry; I may as well cut one of my arms off too *angry face*”. This comment was posted on Twitter by an angry Blackberry user! We have submitted ourselves to the social sites such that even a day without social sites is hard to imagine.

A strange phenomenon is taking place all over the globe when the distinction between real world and cyber world is getting blurred. Many times the positive and negative human emotions are getting mailed and blackmailed over the cyber frequencies. Many impostors and cyber-squatters have flooded the cyberspace and often fooled us in believing them. The younger generation being novice and immature/inexperienced have fallen prey to their dark intentions  Thus the social networking sites present a strange dilemma in today’s times and lives. They connect us socially with like minded people as well as sometimes connect with anti-socials.

 The social networking sites present a great opportunity to our society but like any other technology it is like a double edged sword. Their social relevance is undisputed but in inexperienced hands they can create havoc. Some sort of self discipline and self regulations is the requirement of the day. A certain level of maturity is essential in dealing with technology. Unless we achieve that maturity we should be extremely cautious in dealing with social networking sites.