The New and Upgraded Social Life

I woke up as usual. Snoozing the alarm twice, squeezing in some last minute dream sequences.

Finally blinked my eyes open and reached out for my cellphone for a quick check of missed calls and messages. Clicked on Facebook to peek at what the rest of the world had been up to while I had been sleeping. It didn't connect. Apparently, my Wi-fi hadn't woken up with me. I didn't give it much thought, lazed around a while longer and got on with my day.

Later in the afternoon, I rang up a friend. I hadn't spoken to her in a couple of months. She told me that she had just put the baby to sleep. Baby? Isn't your daughter almost two now? She told me that she was talking about her second child. What?? When? I know how! But why didn't you tell me?? She innocently remarked, "But I had put it up on Facebook!"

After our conversation, I sat down and mulled over what had just happened. I missed out on my friend having a baby because I had skipped a post on Facebook. Try as I might, I could not get comfortable with that thought.

I logged on to my Facebook account and scrolled through my friend's Wall posts. Sure enough, there it was -- her announcement to the world that she had been blessed with a son. Peppered with about a score of congratulatory comments. I was intrigued by the fact that not only had she chosen Facebook to deliver the news (pun intended), most of her acquaintances had chosen to congratulate her in public rather than make one small personal call asking how she and the baby were doing. If I had seen the post, my comment might've been there, too.

I trawled through other people's Walls, (including my own) and realized that we had all also chosen to wish each other a happy birthday through this impersonal space. It didn't bother any of us that we didn't speak to our "friends" on their special day.

Despite being reasonably active on social networking sites, it was just dawning on me that this, which was supposed to just an additional medium of communication, had slowly snuck up on me and become my entire social life.

More trawling. The dawn brightened into daylight. Did I just say "impersonal" space? I now know more about a friend's exercise routine than I would ever have cared to. I also know that another friend is missing her husband so much that she's finding it difficult to get through the night alone. And I always thought such things belonged in love letters. Silly me. Well, I guess it beats husbands wishing their wives Happy Anniversary on Facebook (no kidding). The online equivalent of PDA? Maybe. 

Speaking of friends, I apparently have 234. So why am I sitting alone at home most evenings? Shouldn't at least one of the 234 be available to spend some time with me? We are "friends" after all. But here's the thing. The word "friend" no longer means someone you have something in common with and share a comfortable relationship with. It's someone you know. Period. I guess that makes an acquaintance “someone you have made eye contact with briefly”.

But it's not all bad. For one, you have your very own mass media channel. Instead of spending a lot of time with one person getting to know a lot about him or her, you now get to know a little about a lot of people everyday.

Which, over time, accumulates into knowing a lot about a lot of people, I guess. I'm not quite sure my brain is okay with that kind of information overload. Especially when it's about baby massages and the number of times someone's at the airport -- boarding, landing, at security check, checking in....(no offence meant to any of my “friends”).

The "whose status update is the wittiest" undercurrent seems no different from the "who's dressed the best today" torture of college days. I now need to have a comment-worthy status, along with a like-worthy photograph on a regular basis. I now also need to make sure that any and every photograph taken of me anywhere is fabulous because it WILL find it's way online and no matter how quick you are to de-tag, there will always be that ONE person who will have seen it before you and launched the comments countdown. Performance anxiety is no longer restricted to the bedroom, my friend. 

With the latest introduction of a live feed of your friend's activities, I can subscribe to my friend as I would a to a newspaper. Interesting. I wonder if they'll soon have realtime updates like "XYZ just sneezed" and "ABC just rolled over".

Recently, there was news about a groom Facebooking (the editor in me cringes at this verb) live during his wedding.

Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but if I was in his place, I would rather live the moment, breathe in the ambience, catch the candid moments and create lifetime memories for ME rather than create status updates for others…updates that will soon be discarded as just another news snippet in the sea of social information.

Excuse me, while I post this article on Facebook.