Social Network and its perilous superficiality

We live in a world where we are disconnected in a very connected manner. We have hundreds of friends on social networks but don't talk to them. We are aware about almost all the activities of our friends but hardly care to find out their feelings. We know the whereabouts of most of them, yet we fail to meet them. What kind of a world is it? So much connected and yet disconnected? Everything seems so real in this fake world of social network. 

How often a birthday notification forces you to wonder about who the hell is this guy and what is he doing in my friend list? How often you are reminded of your good friend's birthday by a notification?  How often less number of likes on your picture makes you think that you're not good looking? How often do you conform to the latest trending issues without judging their veracity? How often you find fifty friends online and yet nobody to talk to? How often you find posts that make sense?

To me social network reeks in anti-sociality. It was because of the advent of nuclear families that the new progeny acquired the trait of adjusting without socializing much with people as there were less at home. But the inherited trait kept alive the desire to socialize. It was against this background that made social network so popular within a few years and the world went crazy. We now have information about our distant friends but are not aware about the health of our neighbours. The new progeny eventually found its way to socialize albeit rejecting the previously existing ways of socializing. We can now talk to world about our views but when it comes to dealing with relatives at home, the situation becomes nightmarish.

I am not completely averse to the idea of connecting through social network and in no way trying to indicate that we should disconnect from this world. I know it has a lot of benefits if used prudently. All I want to convey is that we should know how to keep away from it as well. Not every notification should sensationalize us. The urge of looking at it should be in our control rather than we being in control of that urge. The distinction between personal and pubic life should be lucid. We should know what should be updated online and what should not. It's time to learn to log out of the fake world of the social network and to re-login to actual social world.

Further it is pertinent to point out that we are being tracked all the time. All our activities are being monitored. The more we exercise it, the more it is easy to track us. Even if we are not involved in any wrong doing and we don't mind authorities keeping a tab on us, why should we make their task easy? At the time when hon'ble Supreme Court of India has stated that storing private information i.e. biometric data about the citizens cannot be made mandatory and has made AADHAR card voluntary(except in a few schemes) in nature, then why should we ourselves give away all our details like that?

Moving on let's analyse who actually are we connected with? Are they all our friends? No. Are they important in our lives? Not really. According to me, we know only a small proportion of friends, out of such a long friend list. Out of the ones we know, we rarely indulge in a chat with them. Even those chats are boring and not at all productive as productive talks are done with well-informed people. Those who are well-informed, they are really not that active on such networks. So is it worth to be connected to the world while sitting in a closed room?

So instead of lamenting over the network issues should we not ourselves switch it off for some time? Should not the propensity to know about life of others belittled? And should not the penchant of sharing everything with the world be subsided? Should that vacuum be not filled in with better things that help us grow as a society? Should we not be playing outdoors instead of weakening our eyes by playing Candy Crush? 

In the cacophony of the discordant voices of the social network we all are losing our own voices. Anyone who plays the bagpiper well uses his talent to mobilize the netizens to dance to his tune. No doubt politicians have started using this platform for propaganda. Anti-social elements find it easy to spread rumours through this channel. In fact the terrorist organisations have started targeting youths for recruitment. And what is the worst part? We are actually falling prey to them. 

No network can guarantee our privacy. We ourselves are to be blamed for creating such a situation. The way ahead is to be more prudent in our dealings online. We have to stop looking at the world outside through the artificial windows of our computers and actually get out of our homes to breathe in fresh air. Having said that all, the irony is I am also using this social network to make people think about how social is this social network.