Past in a click

Our window to the outside world today is majorly through the various media, chiefly electronic in which the contribution of Social Networking is nothing short of immense in shaping our perceptions, impressions and views on many global and local issues likewise - either directly or indirectly. It is incredible how much information is accessible on the press of mouse click or more popularly nowadays - the touch of a screen.

The coming of the Social Networking revolution signaled the beginning of the end for many small but significant activities that we were used to regularly doing up until then. In this write-up I will describe a few that completely changed the way we looked at life.

a) Life Decisions -  

In a recent conversation that I had with my grandparents, they were telling me how they had to write letters every single time to let their concerned one's know about the happenings in their lives; right from a birth, a death or a marriage in the family among many other things. Compare that to our parents' generation wherein telephone calls albeit of poor quality and scarce quantity were more commonplace.

Compare those two scenarios now to our generation - The Social Networking generation. Friendships are forged, varied relationships blossom, love flourishes, romantic messages are sent, jokes are shared, personal and professional bonds are made, even marriages are broadcast halfway across the world, baby births are congratulated and heck even deaths are announced on Social networking platforms - all at the click of a button and in the split of a second. 

Imagine our kids and grand kids skimming through our Facebook page a couple of decades down the line; pointing and laughing at knowing our every single story, goof up and our childish eccentricities in a jiffy. Whats worse is that, given that we were the first generation to benefit from the 'in thing' that was Social Networking and the fact that we took to it like fish to water - they could dig even deeper into our past. 

Here I take the liberty of stating that most Facebook users in India were not first timers in the Social Networking jungle but merely immigrants from Orkut which is practically every FB user's dark past. To think that I would get the shudders when my kid skims through my orkut page would be the least of my worries because I don't have the insulation of making my crazy adventures sound interesting and cool the way my parents did when they shared their teenage or childhood stories with me.

Sample this coversation - 30 years down the road when your kid reads a post on your FB wall that says - I`m through with you.

Your Kid: Were you dumped on FB when you were in college? Why? 

All you can probably come up with is - I was going to dump her as well just that she beat me to it because my internet was down. An ace lawyer would not be able to refute it for you because all your friends, relatives, classmates and even your Kamwali Bai would have liked and commented on that wall post in which you were ceremoniously dumped. Heck my parents would have been the first to comment LOL/ROFL on that fateful post.

So the moral of the story is - Make no mistakes, even if you do - Wipe out the evidence before someone gets their hands on it :P.  

b) Chronicling -

You notice the severity and magnitude of change in the last 30 years when your parents complain that they're not able to get in touch with people in their previous job or project whereas you are easily able to track down a complete stranger you met 15 minutes ago through a mutual contact and send that person an add request.

Gone is the era of Slam books, Yearbook photographs and photo albums chronicling the relationship and memories of your school or team. The change is so immense that unless a set of our photos or notes of a tour, experience or farewell are either digital or online we refuse to regard it as a valid life experience.

I am reminded of a time when film was still being used to click pictures and we would have to immediately develop it so that it could be printed and stacked safely in an album for future reminiscence. Compare that to the scenario we have now, clicking 1000's of pictures on our high definition cameras with no compulsion of printing, to be stored on our numerous hard drives or online photo albums and instantaneously forgotten, only to be remembered when we have to over write it with something else that is more valuable because of a database space crunch.

Social networking has effectively displaced diary and journal writing with Personal notes on social networking pages and online journals which has deprived us and the future from the joy of flipping through old and smelly paper journals and diaries adorned with fountain pen written verses and thoughts that stir up memories more effectively than any electronic media.

PS 1: Sooner or later, this( Below) is going to hold true unless we stay updated with the momentary 'In thing'.

            

   
PS 2: I`m guilty of some of the activities mentioned above as well - so let me not cry Wolf.