Welcome Reality

TRRRRRING !!!! The alarm bell rang on my mobile sharp at 9:00 AM. Still lying parallel to the floor, I turned on my laptop with eyes half open. The first thing I did when I saw the colourful desktop on my laptop was to open the Internet Explorer which automatically took me to my Facebook homepage. Even before I checked my email, I had to update myself with the Live News Feed on my homepage. I as an FB enthusiast scrolled down to check status messages on my friends’ “walls” to see what’s going on in others’ minds… I pressed the “like it” button on a few pictures and gradually erected my position to post comments on a couple of them.

This was me till the first month after my first introduction to Facebook. My dedication to Facebook far surpassed that I displayed towards the front page of the daily newspaper.

The Gen X and its successors want to be apprised of everything that happens around them, but why is it that the “social updates” rank higher than the national news in the priority list!! The desire to be “omniscient” urges people to hook to these social networking sites under the veil of “staying connected”. The urgency to upload pictures seems as an activity aimed at highlighting the ‘fun’ element in one’s life (and sometimes even seek envy) targeting the friend list (of which most are not a part of the 'fun' activity) than just to store memories… in tangible form as we used to till two decades earlier. At times, the excitement to 'share' experiences virtually, overshadows the existance of reality that's around.

The other day, like any other day I was 'connected' even before I realised what time of the day it was. After an hour of staring at the screen did I realise that my room mates were missing and that I was not even cognizant of their where abouts. I called up one of them, again with an urge to know what I didn't know and that's when my room-mate told me that she had informed me the last day itself that she'd be out to visit her aunt. Probably I didn't listen to her as I was too preoccupied smiling while pushing buttons on the keyboard. I took some time out, thought about what I was doing and why was I doing it. It's nice to know what our acquaintanes have been doing .... but probably staying connected to the ones in the closest physical promoximity should take precedence over the former.

The social networking sites are good tools to communicate, stay in touch and express oneself, but we should not forget that 'real' people should be given more importance than the 'real but virtual' ones. The networking sites should be used as a substitute to the other modes of communication, and not as a replacement to acknowledgement of the entities existing in the real world.

When my alarm bell rang this morning, I promptly snoozed it to extend my sleep by another ten minutes :) Facebook can wait because it is no more indispensible for me... I am real again