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Out of sight, out of mind?


So it’s been quite sometime since I de activated my Facebook account. Well yes, it’s not a big deal. Thousands of people each day do that and I have perhaps just joined the bandwagon of the “oh so anti-social” people. But is not having a virtual presence really that anti social? Actually, not having a Facebook presence really that anti social? Are the ones who deactivate their Facebook accounts really like those movies that the audience forgets once they stop being aired on the television very often? Is the only way one can feel “social”; by posting one liners ranging from “I just woke up” to maybe “I just died”? Why the urge to open your account every 5 hours to see how many people liked your recent photo? Why the inclination to blow sirens over your “love” for your sweetheart? Why the ‘oh so intellectual” task of growing virtual plants?

Barring the last things, I have done it all and that’s precisely why I am wondering about the “Why” of it all! Are these things something we always wanted to do and didn’t do because we never got a chance to do? Or did we get addicted to these because they came in the market, even if we had no innate inclination towards them? Just to draw a parallel, did the demand create the supply here or the supply created the demand? I think the latter. Life is so much more peaceful now that I don’t have random people to entertain, random reasons to act “cool”, random things to say, and random things to do!

Often my friends have the complaint that they are bored of Facebook, and yet de activating their Facebook account sounds just “so wrong’! Are we really so scared of being “forgotten” by people? Do those people even matter who can just forget about you once you are out of their immediate surroundings? Do you really think your Facebook “Friends” will come to your rescue the next time you are in trouble? Without wanting to cynical here, I do acknowledge the fact that there have been many success stories that fill you with such profoundly joyful emotions about Facebook, but really? I have also heard a lot of profoundly joyful experiences of people on drugs. The same people who cannot remember what they said to their ex-girlfriend in an inebriated state.

Well perhaps there is a better side of Facebook that I wasn’t able to explore in the 4 years that I spent there. But I really doubt I would be able to do it even now. Is Facebook really connecting people? Is it really making the world more social? Is it really still that novel idea which will make this world a better place? Really? I have my doubts.
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  1. anupam11 April 2013 at 06:16

    I guess getting too Anti social is also not correct on your part.In Nature(be it Facebook or any other technology or may be a non-tech product)everything has its own crests and troughs ,positives and negatives,ups and downs and simply boycotting the thing just due to realizing it's negatives is really wrong.Ya I strongly agree that Facebook has stopped the actual "real conversation between close and dear ones" ,"ya Facebook has lead to making of virtual friends" in short yup it has made people addicts over Facebook But what i think personally is that getting off from Facebook and making yourself totally cut off from the online world is not really only alternative left.What is really required is to introspect oneself and self manage yourself and preventing yourself from turning into Facebook/twitter addicts which can be really disturbing.

    So in nutshell its not the Whys? that are needed ,its your self management and deep realization of self ,needed to avoid the addiction growing at such alarming rates among youths.

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