On facebook

Source: A friend's facebook wall

Like any one of you I am an avid user of facebook. Being far from family and friends its my window into the goings on in their lives and vice versa. It also keeps me in touch with people who wouldn’t actually be in touch with me if it wasn’t for facebook! That’s the reality of most so called friendships in today’s world. I won’t apologize for the sarcasm because firstly it’s true and secondly I am good at it! And like you I am eager to find out the comments on my status, my links and my photos from everyone and even the people I don’t actually care about who are just lying latent in my friend list. And I am disappointed when there are none or very few. And I get angry at people who won’t reply or talk even for free! Move a muscle people! If you can’t say anything then at least like my status, my photos, countless youtube videos I posted. Write on my wall or message me or poke me. Or am I asking for too much? Don’t just silently view and grudge about most things and just move on. Care to say something nice or what good you are in my friend list? If you are angry at me tell me; don’t tell the whole world. If you love me tell the whole world! But most people can’t manage more than a couple of words, according to my dad. Blame it on limited speech skills or limited intellect I say and those who do manage to say more than a couple of sentences get lost in their own conversation.

Source: Google images

Many times facebook is a platform for our life’s frustrations; our punching bag and a good one too, where friends reassure us or sometimes don’t bother to do that at all. And where people think a sad or even cynical status means you got a messed up life. And laughing or sometimes even clownish pictures mean you are the happiest person in the world! What most people fail to realize is that the status or whatever people quote on facebook or even in real life is just a state of mind at that point in time and it doesn’t necessarily summarize the person’s whole life for you! Similarly pictures are just moments in life captured on camera and who takes photos when they are unhappy?

Source: Google images

A question that comes to my mind is facebook the death of English language, face to face and telephonic conversations. Lets first take the English language even I was surprised when I tried to write something in proper English I first had to take a long pause for just writing the word ‘were’; what are the correct spellings of “were” ? All I could come up with was ‘ver’, ‘wer’, ‘wr’, ‘wur’ And no matter how hard I tried to write u as you or cud as could, I cudnt, oh I mean I could not. It all seems a little absurd when you give it a serious thought. We could hardly grasp our mother tongue Urdu or our regional languages be it Punjabi,Sindhi,Pushtu,Balochi that too with a huge variety of dialects in each category. And now look what we did to the English language! Maybe this is our way of getting back at foreign powers for defacing our religion and our nation. “Hay, com nd luk wat v dd 2 ur languege”J

Source: Google images

As for communication means, I am in for a surprise when my cell phone rings! Who could be calling me? And its really comforting to see that the only messages you get all day are from business advertisers! Hey but I do get so many notifications and friend requests on facebook. People I have seen in real life but never actually talked to why do they want to be friends with me on facebook? Oh wait a minute I have to correct myself being friends on facebook doesn’t mean knowing each other it just means you are just a number in each other’s list.Why there are so many people in your friend list whom you never actually talk to or have any intention of knowing whatsoever. I guess the increase in number gives a boast to our egos. The higher the number of our friends the more wanted and important we feel. But who are we fooling? We no longer strive to gain respect or measure success from our personality, our academic and professional achievements. Who cares anyways? It’s the number of pictures and close-ups we have with different members of the opposite or same sex doing nothing but ‘fun’ and ‘posing’ for upcoming facebook pictures. I am a good for nothing party person and I love to flaunt it! And guess what, people actually appreciate that! Though some of us want to keep in touch with our far and dear ones; there are those of us busy spreading their lives around they have no filter for what’s proper. For some it’s also a tool for promoting religious and political agenda which is totally not good in my opinion.  

Source: Google images

One thing out of the many things in life which I don’t understand is why cant people stop interfering in each other’s virtual life? Why they want to control what you write in your status, who you make your pictures visible to, and arrrggghh. We got lots of privacy settings but still no privacy it’s a dilemma of this tech advanced world. And the sad part is many fights, break ups and even divorces have resulted cause of facebook. And I think facebook isn’t the deal breaker its people themselves. (No sympathy for those who use this to their advantage to cheat on their loved one.) A wise person once said nothing is good or bad but our thinking makes it so. And so does our actions.

Source: Google images

Why has virtual life made people so brave that they tend to say and show things they wouldn’t in real life? It’s like we are two persons: one in real life and a quite different version in virtual life. That reminds me of people who for privacy reasons have two different profiles on facebook(No offense to my dual profile friends). And what excuse can you probably give for not adding or deleting a family member you definitely don’t want to be a part of your virtual life maybe because you don’t want to share your thoughts and pictures with them or maybe because analyzing and criticizing everything you say or do is on the top of their agenda. And honesty even I am thinking of getting another one so I can say whatever I feel like without actually offending anyone I know cause no matter how good or true your opinion someone will always take offense. Here an amusing thing about facebook is you can remove people you don’t want; just a click of a button! Poof !  If life was that simple the population of the planet would be so less but thankfully that’s not the case. And add to that if you don’t like something that some friend says or even you yourself say. Delete it! If real life was that convenient.

The irony of the matter is that as communication gets extensive, sweeping, and cheaper or almost free in some cases the quantity and especially quality of communication and relationships has terribly deteriorated. And whose fault is that? Well, definitely not facebooks’!

Source: Google images