It is a very "in" thing these days to be a member of as many online communities as possible. You join, fill up a profile about yourself, put up as many photos of yourself, and add everyone you know who's also a member of that website as your "friend". So within about a week of joining, the whole world knows you some 60-odd friends. The interesting thing about these websites is that people you had completely lost touch with suddenly reappear in your life and add you as their friends. So it's all very exciting and lots of messages going back and forth about how looooooooooooooooong it's been and how grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat it is to hear from you again and what is up with you these days and blah, blah, blah!!! After about four-five such messages, silence re-emerges, and you simply occasionally visit each other's profile, and pat yourselves on the back about how many people you're in touch with.
I have never seen the point of these websites. Yes, they occasionally lead to a real reconnection between long-lost friends, and yes they can be fun at times (and very amusing at others for some!!!), but for the most part, it seems to be a kind of security blanket (in a friend's words - copyrights must be respected) to say that you know what a 101 people are doing. I know what most of former classmates are doing today thanks to these websites, but I wouldn't say I'm in touch with any of them. Knowing where a person is does not amount to keeping in touch in my book.
The latest craze is a website called Orkut. This has gone one step forward. It has the concept of "scrapbooks" wherein you can leave messages for people in a way that the whole world can read them. Now, maybe I'm a neurotically private person, who doesn't really like the whole world to know what I'm upto, but I honestly do find the whole concept of scraps quite absurd.
I was talking to a friend on the phone the other night. Now he happens to be someone who is a hardcore fan of these websites. He mentioned how he met an school friend some days back, someone who he hasn't spoken to in years, yet someone who knows every detail of what's going on in his life and vice versa, simply because they've been reading up each other's scraps. I tried pointing out that such a thing isn't exactly something to be kicked about, but he thinks it's quite cool for whatever reason. Well, gee I'm sorry, but I don't get it.
How is it cool to have someone who you haven't spoken to in years know every little detail about your life?!? Some former schoolmates of mine added me as their "friends" on Orkut; I accepted out of politeness. These people are now scrapping me asking me about what's going on in my life, as well as sending me Friendship Day scraps. The best part about this? Not once in our eight years of being in the same school did we ever exchange words. I'm sorry, but I don't get it.
Something happened to me a couple of months back that was probably the best news I had received in a long, long time. Not wanting the whole freaking world to know about it, I emailed four-five people about it because I felt they deserved to know. Two replied very nicely, while the other two simply scrapped me back. I'm sorry, but I don't get it.
I don't get how you can let the whole world know what's happening in your life. I don't get how you can let everyone read your conversations with anyone. I don't get how you can scrap someone who has emailed you about something quite personal. I do realise that not everyone likes to keep things as private as I do, and I respect that. But this latest fad seems to be encouraging a complete lack of privacy for anyone and everyone, and I'm sorry, but I don't get how that can be considered so highly wonderful.
