When Shakespeare eloquently elaborated in As You Like it: All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players, little did he know he was foretelling the future. In this digitized virtual world, we do live our lives like a movie, a script narrated by us on forums like Facebook and Twitter, and then instead of an animated applause from the audience after our soliloquy we are rewarded with “Likes” and “Comments”.
I am bracing myself for the impending critique following this verbal vocalization of thoughts, however, I would be wrong to say that I didn’t have inspiration to begin with. The author of the book Alone Together, Sherry Turkle – a Psychologist and Director of the MIT initiative on Technology and Self Program in Science, Technology and Society, talks of how everyone is “performing” on these virtual forums. (http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/371249/january-17-2011/sherry-turkle). Also vehement discussions with a dear friend who infact told me about Ms. Turkle, are also responsible for shaping these thoughts.
Ever heard of information overload? The amount of information that assaults our senses everyday is humongous. Do we really need to know what each and every one of us is engaging in and with what emotional intensity on an hourly basis? Do we really need to update 500 people every day about the food we ate that day or the clothes we bought for our birthday party?
Let me draw a simple parallel. Do we display on the doors of our homes what we are eating, doing, feeling whenever any significant variation occurs that we deem to be important in our self concocted bubble of narcissism? No. We don’t do that because it is socially inappropriate to leave a poster outside your door announcing the purchase of your new Mac Book Air and how it is any day better than a run of the mill PC or that you had an awful day and how life is a wormhole filled with feces. We don’t do that because we want to be private about these things. This brings me to another issue- the Privacy Settings option. We need to educate ourselves more about what we share and with whom. Yes indeed, there is a way after all- of not sharing everything with the person you met in a bar five years ago and haven’t met since. Free tutorials from my side to the uninitiated is going to be my civic duty as of now.
Well, online social forums are facades for easing communication, networking and casual banter on inane issues, and they work brilliantly for these purposes. Technology has its merits after all. It’s evolution and an indication of how far we’ve come. We need to curb our enthusiasm and fast. Otherwise, very soon we won’t know the difference between what’s real and what’s not.
Disclaimer: This work is not intended to offend anyone or instill self-doubt. These essentially are ramblings which should not be considered all pervasive or universal after all everything is ephemeral. Diatribes are welcome, though not encouraged ;)
More on Social Networks in NYTIMES: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/opinion/26dunbar.html?scp=1&sq=150%20friends&st=cse
Second your thoughts really. Especially with respect to being more aware about one's privacy settings, especially with all your personal pictures and moments floating around the web.
ReplyDeleteThe second thing which you have rightly hit upon is the meaningless rambling that goes on on social networking site. While I am not bothered about what one would want to share or not, what concerns me is the severe undermining of "virtual emotions". Just as a " :-) " may no longer be representative of an actual smile on the face of the person typing it out, the abuse of the "like" button has had a similar degrading effect. The difference between "like", "appreciate", "enjoy", "fool around" has been blurred completely.