I had blogged a while back about social networking sites. I thought I should do a revisit. :) I have been on facebook for a while now and I kinda like being in touch with everyone. Also not having to upload pictures and email. Now all I do is upload pics to my profile and share only with my friends and voila everyone gets to see. All my family members are on there now, so it's much easier.
When I was in Boston last month I was staying at my friend Raghu's home. He is not on facebook. With such a big trend of people joining in recent years I asked him why he was not. He told me something interesting that made me think back on my thoughts about social networking sites. He said, when he meets his friends after a long gap, he would like to know about them in person. Like did they get married, how many children. what else new etc.. My side of argument was that since I don't get to see many of them, I would love to know what's going on in their lives and be in touch. He likes the surprise factor of knowing / seeing all the missed out factors.
After a week of this conversation with him, I met my friends pal whom I hadn't seen almost a yr. But she is my facebook friend, so I knew she recently had a baby. I usually scrap her how cute her kid is and leave comments on her pics. That day when we came face to face, I started searching for things to talk about. Coz I think I had exhausted our conversation topics online, so in person I couldn't quickly come up with stuff. For the first time I was little puzzled myself of not being able to to keep up the conversation. I then remembered what Raghu had told me. Funny, I thought.. Coz I felt I shouldn't have known all about her, then I would have had a more pleasant conversation with her.. And was not in that awkward situation.
I do miss my days of calling up friends and chatting for hours. Having status updates keeps my friends posted on what's going on in my life (But pls, I don't update ALL the things I did in a day anyway!!!!!! ), but does that make me vulnerable too? Not sure. I am searching for definite answers, but meanwhile I do keep networking!! That makes me think, is the world getting smaller or is the world getting just smarter online community and there is no human interaction/ personal touch in that conversation.???
2 comments:
I guess you run out of topics when the person you are talking to is not all that close to you. With the closer ones you are never short of topics and that reminds me of our get together. Met up with Paddu, shan and suchi couple of days back. We fell short of time as our never ending stories just wouldn't end, so planning on meeting once again. Hope it works ;)
That's true too.! I think it's the first initial conversations that I am running out of with new people. :o). All 4 of u met! Wow, it must have been sooo much fun.!
Post a Comment