The recent deluge of a host of sites on the world wide web that offer networking on a social as well as a professional level has set many thinking as to how and how much have things changed with these kind of services around us. They have become almost an integral part of all of our daily routines.
When was the last time you called your school bench mate? You don’t even remember! But just as you updated your current status on Facebook, you get an instant response in the form of a comment from the same long lost bench mate! Feels great to be connected? Right? Well this definitely is a positive and welcome change in your life. You connect and re-connect with so many lost mates. But on the flip side, there is so much of negativity also associated along with the good. There are privacy issues, with people complaining of hacking of accounts, misuse of personal information, harassment reporting, channelization of the strong medium for anti-social motives and many more. There are teenagers and children who have barely passed school age and are addicted to these sites and for them; everything needs to be chronicled over their prestigious Web Pages. Gone are the days when high-schoolers worked for a reputation within the school gates. Now the war has moved onto the internet. The number of friends is a strong popularity index. Imagine a popular person who does not even know 3500 out of their 5000 Facebook friends!
It is not just the teens, but the middle aged people too who have been entangled into all of it. It has been found out in researches by social scientists that people who are low on self esteem and confidence have turned to Facebook and Twitter in large numbers as it is easy to fabricate and ‘look cool’ in the virtual world as opposed to the real life which demands performance. According to some, it is a blatant promotion of vanity. For example, if you are clicking a picture, almost all the times the motive behind it is “oh wow’’ that would make for a cool album on my Profile or even hey, that would make an ‘’Awesome“ profile picture.
‘Hate them or love them’, you just can’t ignore them. The social networking has changed the way we approach and react to a lot of situations in life. There will be supporters and detractors, but these sites are here to stay as well as the money made through them. Luck is kissing them always.

Tahir Ibn Manzoor is a student at the Government Degree College (Boys) Baramulla, Kashmir.
Feedback: dashingtahi@hotmail.com

Lastupdate on : Wed, 23 Nov 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 23 Nov 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 24 Nov 2011 00:00:00 IST