Nearly 3 years ago, I jumped into the social networking bandwagon out of sheer curiosity. I wanted to know what all the fuss was all about. Since then, I've been hooked on and how! For someone who never understood how orkut had the whole nation was bitten by the social networking bug, I surprised myself by getting so addicted to facebook and twitter that I hardly had time for other hobbies.
Initially, I was too gauche in my conversations ; it took a while to get the hang of these sites, to learn to differentiate between the face to face conversations and the conversations which everyone in your friend list could read. I feel hugely embarrassed when I go through my really old comments & status updates. From being showered with messages every hour to every message going unnoticed, from unfriending to being unfriended, from blocking to being blocked and sending requests to the people whom I unfriended, from a message that completely altered the next six months of my life to the comments that made me laugh, cringe, sad, furious; I've seen it all.
People whom I hardly interacted with in school became my closest fb buddies whereas the closest pals kept drifting away. Monitoring my then girlfriend's moves, stalking my high-school crush's photos had become my favorite pastime. Facebook for me is all about give and take; you like my status/photos, I'll like yours. Pulling each others' legs, making sarcastic remarks and ludicrous altercations were no less amusing than watching a high octane drama.
Following influential people, interacting and debating with eminent journalists, professionals, armchair activists on twitter restricted me from saying things that were remotely chauvinistic, racist, misogynic, ageist or homophobic. All my feelings of repugnance and aversion towards the LGBT community because my ignorance and sheer conservatism were replaced by respect and sympathy for them who get unfair treatment in this country to this date. How even today the chauvinistic attitude of our society is evident in the very fact that children in school are still taught that the father is the 'head' of the family and not the mother.
On twitter, I made some really all kinds of friends - funny, weird, bitchy, agressive, gossippy, intelligent, naive etc. Some of these friends are nicer than the so called 'friends' I have in real life. Not to mention that I made some enemies and some friends turned into foes. I enjoy twitter the most whenever I get to kick a troll's ass. I remember giving a troll such a tough time that he changed his colours and turned treacly sweet towards me .
Whatever leisure time I used to have is now occupied by facebooking and twittering but the real life is so mundane and dull that the 1-2 hours of my trip to the virtual world everyday is my escape from the stress, complications and troubles of the real world to find some relief by having interesting conversations or reading funny stuff which actually is a huge stressbuster. Interacting with people or reading what they have to say makes you feel much better when you are utterly downcast. In my opinion, it's more entertaining than TV which is only a one way communication.
As enlightening and entertaining these sites are, they can be equally dangerous if not handled properly. You may find it hard to believe, but I made one of the biggest blunders of my life on Facebook. An aquaintance once accused me of being a social media addict. I don't mind that. I guess it is alright for a teetotaller like me who is not addicted to anything to be infatuated with the new revolution that is social networking. If you're not on any of these sites, I assume you live in a cave.
Initially, I was too gauche in my conversations ; it took a while to get the hang of these sites, to learn to differentiate between the face to face conversations and the conversations which everyone in your friend list could read. I feel hugely embarrassed when I go through my really old comments & status updates. From being showered with messages every hour to every message going unnoticed, from unfriending to being unfriended, from blocking to being blocked and sending requests to the people whom I unfriended, from a message that completely altered the next six months of my life to the comments that made me laugh, cringe, sad, furious; I've seen it all.
People whom I hardly interacted with in school became my closest fb buddies whereas the closest pals kept drifting away. Monitoring my then girlfriend's moves, stalking my high-school crush's photos had become my favorite pastime. Facebook for me is all about give and take; you like my status/photos, I'll like yours. Pulling each others' legs, making sarcastic remarks and ludicrous altercations were no less amusing than watching a high octane drama.
Following influential people, interacting and debating with eminent journalists, professionals, armchair activists on twitter restricted me from saying things that were remotely chauvinistic, racist, misogynic, ageist or homophobic. All my feelings of repugnance and aversion towards the LGBT community because my ignorance and sheer conservatism were replaced by respect and sympathy for them who get unfair treatment in this country to this date. How even today the chauvinistic attitude of our society is evident in the very fact that children in school are still taught that the father is the 'head' of the family and not the mother.
On twitter, I made some really all kinds of friends - funny, weird, bitchy, agressive, gossippy, intelligent, naive etc. Some of these friends are nicer than the so called 'friends' I have in real life. Not to mention that I made some enemies and some friends turned into foes. I enjoy twitter the most whenever I get to kick a troll's ass. I remember giving a troll such a tough time that he changed his colours and turned treacly sweet towards me .
Whatever leisure time I used to have is now occupied by facebooking and twittering but the real life is so mundane and dull that the 1-2 hours of my trip to the virtual world everyday is my escape from the stress, complications and troubles of the real world to find some relief by having interesting conversations or reading funny stuff which actually is a huge stressbuster. Interacting with people or reading what they have to say makes you feel much better when you are utterly downcast. In my opinion, it's more entertaining than TV which is only a one way communication.
As enlightening and entertaining these sites are, they can be equally dangerous if not handled properly. You may find it hard to believe, but I made one of the biggest blunders of my life on Facebook. An aquaintance once accused me of being a social media addict. I don't mind that. I guess it is alright for a teetotaller like me who is not addicted to anything to be infatuated with the new revolution that is social networking. If you're not on any of these sites, I assume you live in a cave.
