Remember the time when we used to reach out for our phone in the pocket, recall a friends' number from memory, exercise our fingers to dial that number and talk our hearts out. We heard the voice of our laughter and we judged the mood of the person on the other side by their tone. It has never been said by a celebrity or proven by a scientist/research, but hearing yourself laugh or cry does make you feel good. Remember you had a smile after the call? You can argue about it all you want, but the digital age has taken a part of that smile, that elation of hearing a friend and verbally sharing your thoughts, from us.
We are presently living in what has come to be known as the Social Networking Era. Mark Zuckerberg - that rascal hit the right nerve when the time was ripe! He has arguably revolutionized the way people interact or even get to know each other. Hell, I've seen people meeting and getting to know each other on Facebook and eventually getting married. Whatsapp, to me, is a touch more conservative. Both of them have their pros and cons - more pros than cons. The elder generation in my family have their facebook and whatsapp accounts setup (Off the record - its a CON for us :P). They feel it has brought them closer to us and right they are. But, they can handle the storm. Its us, the younger bunch that has been swept off its feet and now we have the feet tied to the ceiling, our heads dangling, but, strange enough, we still have out smart phones in our hands and our fingers working overtime.
Think about it. You say LOL, LMAO and ROFL. How many times have you actually had the faintest of smiles while you say it?? Answer - Not a lot of times!! Why? Because its a CHAT. Who laughs while chatting?? How stupid would it look if you were literally L(ing)OL while looking at your smart phone? Not a very smart user with a pretty smart phone, eh? The thing that I find most annoying is the pouring of emotions on status updates, and that holds true for both Facebook and Whatsapp. I see people updating that they are sad about blah blah blah (what's the big deal, you say?). The bad part follows next. Then you see 10 people like it! WTF? 10 people like that you're sad. In real world, you would've felt worse, but, not here. You tend to feel good you got 10 likes on your post. That to me is some serious emotional instability!
I could never actually get a grip of the concept of telling the 500 people that you're sad and receiving 40 likes over it (that's for girls, guys won't even get 4! #truestory) when you could have called one good friend, talk to him/her about it and feel better. Instead, we choose to let the world know we're in misery and receive comments like "Aww", "Don't worry", "<some random inspirational quote>", etc., as if that'll make you feel better.
I'm not all against social media. I think its fantastic as a common platform for a lot of things. I like to stay in touch with my family and friends, see where they recently traveled, feel sorry for them when I see them getting married, look at random trolls and videos, etc. I'm not a news or a football person, but I know what's going on from facebook and whatsapp - which is great. But like everything else, its important to maintain a steady head on your shoulders in context to this as well. There's a difference in enjoying something and getting carried away by it. Make it a hobby and not a habit. The world doesn't need to know what misfortunes you've gone through. Trust me, it doesn't make you look a hero, it makes you look desperate for attention.
Staying in one another's friend's list is not the way to stay in touch. Go ahead, call the people you like before you or the other person gets too busy in his/her life. Hear yourself laugh on the stupid jokes instead of LOLing around. Guess the tone and start a different conversation. Expanding your world through social media is great, but it doesn't imply you don't have any other means of communication. The traditional way of digging in your pocket for your phone and exercising your vocal chords instead of your fingers will keep a friend close. Go ahead, you've being chatting for a long time now, give your friends a call!
Quoting Barney Stinson (+me),
We are presently living in what has come to be known as the Social Networking Era. Mark Zuckerberg - that rascal hit the right nerve when the time was ripe! He has arguably revolutionized the way people interact or even get to know each other. Hell, I've seen people meeting and getting to know each other on Facebook and eventually getting married. Whatsapp, to me, is a touch more conservative. Both of them have their pros and cons - more pros than cons. The elder generation in my family have their facebook and whatsapp accounts setup (Off the record - its a CON for us :P). They feel it has brought them closer to us and right they are. But, they can handle the storm. Its us, the younger bunch that has been swept off its feet and now we have the feet tied to the ceiling, our heads dangling, but, strange enough, we still have out smart phones in our hands and our fingers working overtime.
Think about it. You say LOL, LMAO and ROFL. How many times have you actually had the faintest of smiles while you say it?? Answer - Not a lot of times!! Why? Because its a CHAT. Who laughs while chatting?? How stupid would it look if you were literally L(ing)OL while looking at your smart phone? Not a very smart user with a pretty smart phone, eh? The thing that I find most annoying is the pouring of emotions on status updates, and that holds true for both Facebook and Whatsapp. I see people updating that they are sad about blah blah blah (what's the big deal, you say?). The bad part follows next. Then you see 10 people like it! WTF? 10 people like that you're sad. In real world, you would've felt worse, but, not here. You tend to feel good you got 10 likes on your post. That to me is some serious emotional instability!
I could never actually get a grip of the concept of telling the 500 people that you're sad and receiving 40 likes over it (that's for girls, guys won't even get 4! #truestory) when you could have called one good friend, talk to him/her about it and feel better. Instead, we choose to let the world know we're in misery and receive comments like "Aww", "Don't worry", "<some random inspirational quote>", etc., as if that'll make you feel better.
I'm not all against social media. I think its fantastic as a common platform for a lot of things. I like to stay in touch with my family and friends, see where they recently traveled, feel sorry for them when I see them getting married, look at random trolls and videos, etc. I'm not a news or a football person, but I know what's going on from facebook and whatsapp - which is great. But like everything else, its important to maintain a steady head on your shoulders in context to this as well. There's a difference in enjoying something and getting carried away by it. Make it a hobby and not a habit. The world doesn't need to know what misfortunes you've gone through. Trust me, it doesn't make you look a hero, it makes you look desperate for attention.
Staying in one another's friend's list is not the way to stay in touch. Go ahead, call the people you like before you or the other person gets too busy in his/her life. Hear yourself laugh on the stupid jokes instead of LOLing around. Guess the tone and start a different conversation. Expanding your world through social media is great, but it doesn't imply you don't have any other means of communication. The traditional way of digging in your pocket for your phone and exercising your vocal chords instead of your fingers will keep a friend close. Go ahead, you've being chatting for a long time now, give your friends a call!
Quoting Barney Stinson (+me),
When you're sad, stop being sad and be awesome instead! And while you're at it, don't update your status!
PS. I'm not a twitter fan, so I figured I better not include it.
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