Finally I broke free...!!! Free of those so called social networking sites.Though I still am a member of one of the various social networking sites which float in the virtual world nonchalantly....most of the profiles I had created are non existent now...but not before it forced me to think why I had joined it at the first place and now why I am feeling a sense of near ecstasy after coming out of it? And seems the ordeal was not secluded to me only!According to a study by comScore Inc..the growth in new users of these site in North America is beginning to level off. Paradoxically this is the place where it all started!!!
There is no denying that these sites offer excellent platform to social as well as business networking but unfortunately, while the business networking through these sites may be rational and corroborative for the ones seeking business liasioning,it seems to be taking nowhere when it comes to pure social networking.
Apart from being prone to identity theft.....this well may be a platform where unsolicited friend requests keep popping up and if you do take the risk of checking the profile of those sending you the interest...be sure to be encountered( in most of the cases) by some porn video or something similar to that.
After studying various profiles(if its not set to 'private'),I felt that it was more to do with seeking solitude and doing things(in this case,expressing) in the safety of the vast audience of the virtual world,which generally can't be performed in a civilized society without losing the social respect and standing and yet be securely unrecognized.And it was not long before my thought got verified in the form of an invite from someone I knew(not)but obviously he was oblivious to who I was!Only when I wrote the message thanking him for the invite and conveying my regards for his wife,did he realize who I was!!He,who I had known as a person of worldly virtues(though this itself is debatable)was here with the kind of profile a teenager possess'. A happily married person with two teenage children was here for dating!!
Then there was this person who kept asking for 'friendship" despite innumerable denials and even after reporting 'abuse'. And these kinds of incidences left me wondering whether my profile was there for me or for those unwanted visitors?
Apart from these visitors I was feeling equally trapped by those omnipresent advertisements which seemed to galvanize my whole identity......With each use there was this palpable sense of being used as a commodity.
And more over,I started having the doubts about very purpose of these site.Do we really need these sort of things to stay connected with our near and dear ones? Will these sites ever be able to help us in nurturing and maintaining a good relationship with our immediate neighbours in the real world? Will it ever teach us that it is more important to know the people and environment surrounding you in the real world than knowing and developing that 'not so real ' relationship in that virtual world?
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