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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
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