Friday, December 18, 2009

Facebooked

In the past few months of joblessness, if there’s one thing that I’ve been regular with, other than sleeping for long hours, it is giving Facebook quality time from my limited remaining hours of the day, managing to login there about 10 times daily! Whenever I’d open my Internet browser thinking of something interesting to do, after a few vague and unsuccessful attempts to reach an engaging website, I’d inevitably start typing facebook.com. I actually realised today that even if I had nothing to do there, I’d just go because I feel I have to. It’d satiate some unknown urge within me and even if I have to torture my eyes to go through countless Farmville or Mafia Wars activity feeds on my homepage, I’d do it, cursing their hundreds of users as I scroll down to look for ‘meaningful’ activity.

But while I religiously keep doing this every single day, occasionally a modest 3-letter word rings in my head: WHY? Just why am I doing this? Is it just me? And the earnest response from within is: NO! Backed by figures, there are millions of users around the world doing the same thing. Then follows a string of questions: Why is everyone doing this? Why is there this need to spend hours of our day staying logged on to a social networking website when clearly we could be doing something more meaningful with our lives? Why is it important to comment on somebody’s pictures? Why is it that we even end up commenting on certain status messages that talk about how some acquaintance is feeling? Why is it that we want to check out what groups the others are a part of or what/who they become a fan of?

To all this, I could just think of one rationale: we have a need to ‘connect’. An unsaid desire to know what the others are doing and making them know how our life is treating us. I’ve always believed that every human in this world is connected in some unknown way. A heart speaks to another, even without words or gestures. And a way to acknowledge this connection is to communicate. And that’s what we try to do, directly or indirectly, by writing status messages and waiting to receive comments from all those who get to read it, by playing random games with or against others, by posting our pictures and checking others’, by sending birthday or anniversary greetings, by joining interest groups, by sharing reviews about a movie that we watched or a restaurant that we ate at or a place that we visited or an experience that we were a part of! All this, just to ‘communicate’! To reach out and keep that unknown connection alive and to nurture it by feeding it with little doses of ‘Facebook Indulgence’ to replete its hunger.

P.S. By the time I finished writing this post, I’d checked my e-mail thrice to see if there were any new mails from Facebook! Good job, Mark Zuckerberg! :)

12 comments:

razzdino said...

I agree with you, kuro, to a large extent. However, for me individually this urge to communicate or connect would not apply to every contact on fb. However, having said that, it's always nice to have that "interesting" yet "unknown" person you know, or would like to know suddenly like your status or comment on your picture!
I check fb 3-4 times in a day myself, and wouldn't want to give up on the habit as yet.

Btw, can I blogroll you?

Anonymous said...

Divya likes it !!

P said...

This is interesting! I never thought of it that way!

PS~ Shantaram is a great read.

Aastha Jain said...

Nice !

Aditi Sharma said...

Kur Kur,

More than just connect, its the urge to get attention and be recognised.

Think about it!

LuckyKaur said...

JEM, I completely agree! It's become part of our lifestyle...I sometimes feel if fb would've been a class, I'd have topped each exam. hehe.. Nice one tho! Keep writing :)

Anonymous said...

Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!

Ankur Arora said...

@razzdino: :) That's why I said "connected in some unknown way". I'm sure you'd get a chance to acknowledge that connection with others too some time.
-----------------------------------
@divya, aastha: Danke!
-----------------------------------
@priya: Hmmm... :) Shantaram has been pretty decent so far. I'm a terribly slow reader, so it'll take me a long time to get to the end!
-----------------------------------
@aditi: True, everybody seeks attention and recognition, no denying that. Everybody wants to be liked by the others, nobody wants to be disliked by anyone. But why is it that we feel this way? Why is it important that others like us? I feel it's again because we are "connected"! Think about it! :)
-----------------------------------
@ginny: Haha...I'm sure! :P
-----------------------------------
@anonymous: Thanks so much. I notice that too when at times I read the stuff I posted earlier. With each passing day, one grows, and it shows! ;)
It's good to receive such comments, even better with a name to them! :)

Anonymous said...

I will not concur on it. I regard as precise post. Especially the title-deed attracted me to review the sound story.

Anonymous said...

Amiable post and this mail helped me alot in my college assignement. Gratefulness you seeking your information.

Anonymous said...

Hii Ankur,
Me and sm of my frnds hv started an E-magazine called Reader's Quotient
It is totally for a noble cause, i came across ur blog in my quest to search talented writers and felt worth to inquire if u shall be interested to come along with us
If yes pls contact us at sangeeta.goswami@readersquotient.com
waiting for ur revert
regds Sangeeta
www.readersquotient.com

Anonymous said...

Hi
Very nice and intrestingss story.