Skip to main content

Welcome to Facebook Era!

I am amazed that we don't notice change while it happens. Maybe because it is so slow- one micro pixel at a time! Though we do notice change when it has happened, we notice it when it is too late, we notice it to record an absence. For instance, Facebook will, I am afraid, irreversibly change our attitudes to relationships with people and things in times to come. At least we have known another era, kids growing up in FaceBook era won't know any other reality.

To start with everyone in our contact list is a 'friend'. I might add my parents but when they join Facebook, they will have to be my 'friend'! My husband is my friend, so are my siblings. Oh yeah that girl I met last weekend on the beach who was very friendly and wanted to add me to stay in touch-is also a friend! What about that annoying guy in high school whom I was so happy to have lost in my life but now he has added me (I accepted his 'friendship because he was a friend of a friend and I didn't want to appear rude) and is my friend-the same status that everyone else has. The only people who are not in that 'friend' list are friends who have stood with me through thick and thin!

Also, all of them have access to my photo albums, which in old days were locked in the bottom drawer of my chest of drawers or in that old, long forgotten suitcase; or a little recently uploaded and shared only with close family and maybe some friends. Not only that 'friends' can comment on them and 'tag' with whatever names they may fancy. Well I may choose my friends prudently but if I haven't learnt about privacy settings they can very well be viewed by my friends' friends. Anonymity gone with the wind!

What about our likes and dislikes? Like Shahrukh Khan, Daniel Day-Lewis or Al Pacino and oh yeah God, chocolate, He Man, prophets and the Holy Book, I am a fan of all of them/these. So I am already entering the age of minimum fuss over vocabulary. What is our relationship to all of them? Are we fans? Have we missed the order of things?

We are also updated on how everyone in our list is feeling every five minutes. The problem is not that I don't want to know, I would definitely like to know but I am not sure when someone is really sad and when someone is putting a spin on the word. The more superlative we become, either with feelings or speech the more we have to increase the scale and consequently there is an ever increasing gap between signified and signifier!

Welcome to the virtual world of vanity and relationships: Welcome Facebook!

Comments

arifa said…
so true, you know i feel the same!
very well written.
as i say "truly aala!!"
14 May 2009 at 12:46
MOHABBAT said…
wht's wrong with all that? don't use it if you don't like it! you can tell ppl that u don't use facebook! that's not rude at all!
18 May 2009 at 13:23
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Choices...

Everyday we make choices. Big choices, small choices, green choices, important choices, insignificant choices....but we make them without realizing that we have a choice. So many times the choices we make are not real choices but are made for us by forces outside of us. First and foremost we are persuaded by advertisement, through billboards, pop ups, television, newspapers or by advocates who have already realized their power to choose. Without educating us they advocate for their choice and we are swayed. Strong advocates for atheism, going vegetarian, going green, going organic, the list goes on. Then there is a modern and current sway which catches us unawares. You are caught in the domino effect and don't even realize your own conversion. And its a strange conversion because you always were what you suddenly start claiming but now you have to define your self, you cant choose to live in the border area, you have to declare. Not only that you have to now start defending your po...
2 comments
Read more

Lollywood

When watching Academy Awards or Indian Film Fare Awards how many of you thought about our own Nigar awards. And if anyone was reminded of them it must have reminded them of our actors and actresses and the short revival of Lollywood with films like Sargam, Ghonghat, Jeeva, Inteha and maybe a few others that we actually went to the Cinema to watch. Don't you miss Reema, Saima, Noor, Meera, Resham, Nirma even Atiqa on the silver screen and Shan, Moamer Rana, John Rambo (Cockroach killer), Salim Sheikh and Baber Ali. But where is Pakistani Cinema right now? Apart from the obvious fact that it is an artistic vacuum, it also means that all those who were associated with the industry, actors, directors, distributors, cameramen, writers, sound engineers etc are jobless. Even if the industry churned out bad films at least the industry existed and hope was there that new blood will cleanse the industry. But a popular medium like Cinema has been allowed or maybe even systematically destroyed...
2 comments
Read more

Sawal Gum, Jawab Gum

While still in school as I was just beginning to realize that there was a world outside the 'self' and everything was not an extension of my being and that the world did not really revolve around me when all of a sudden I was struck by questions all the time. They came like shooting stars, out of the blue and with flashing brilliance. I was not alone of course, everyone my age, around me had similar queries. The hows and whys of life and beyond. But whereas I was encouraged to ask I felt some of my friends snubbed these thoughts because ''Islam' did not allow them to question'! And I would ask them why and was told that there are some questions to which there are no answers and if we persist our faith may be tested...hmmm..but isn't it that every question has an answer and 'dhoondney sei tou Khuda bhi mil jaata hai' (One can even find God, if one goes out searching for Him) , and how can we have answers when the search has stopped? Isn't the cur...
2 comments
Read more