I read this news headline few days back "Wife assaulted Husband who didn't 'like' her Facebook status". Reading that, I laughed out loud and I'm sure many would.
Now read these:
"An IIM student committed suicide because her boyfriend announced breaking up with her on Facebook"
"A 35 year old who lured a minor girl on Facebook got arrested"
"Youth robbed by his Facebook friend"
"Man arrested for Facebook status message"
"Woman arrested for 'poking' Facebook user" and many more. Even London riots that happened a couple of months back, Egypt uprising were fueled by Facebook.
At the outset, many think why and how a silly website can affect anybody's life so much; afterall its a virtual website and not a "real world". Those who are not active on Facebook will never understand the phenomenon of Facebook which affects (both in good and bad ways) mental, emotional, professional, psychological and social lives of thousands..err..millions across the world.
Life before online social networking
Before online social networking (eMail, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, Orkut, Twitter and Facebook) came into picture, life was simple, straight forward and limited to known contacts who met us regularly in person. Social life was all about talking to relatives, cousins, friends, classmates, colleagues. We knew who liked us, who didn't, who cared about our day to day life and who did not. We knew how to deal if somebody had any problem with us because there was no way we could bypass them. With the advent of social networking, dynamics changed and obviously the "friends list" expanded beyond our managing capabilities.
Likes and comments
I believe Facebook is such a roaring success because of its features like 'Like' and 'Comments'. If these options are removed, I don't think many would write anything on FB, they would rather go blogging or write diaries for themselves :)
Now, talking about the example I gave in the first line of this post, the woman assaulted her hubby for not liking her status because that status message was in memory of her dead mother which was acknowledged by many of her close ones except her husband who was active on FB liking and commenting on all other stories and deliberately snubbing her status (sic). So the issue was not about liking a FB status, but was much intense, that of neglecting her mother's memory deliberately, which'd hurt her more. If there was no FB, obviously she would not have known even if he was having a gala time behind her :p
Those who are not active on FB are exempt from this kind of judgement for obvious reasons, but those who enjoy liking and commenting must be aware of such repercussions. Acknowledging and commenting on most of your friends, but consciously ignoring one among them is like entering a room full of guests, handshaking with everyone but conveniently snubbing one among them; they obviously feel hurt. Only that in FB, you can't read their expressions or any ill-feeling they nurture against you (unless and until you do that to deliberately hurt them :))
Making Relationships
Another reason for the success of online social world is the facility to make new friends, relationships which you could never have made in real life. Thanks to FB, the world abruptly exploded and you are thrown among hundreds of people who you may like or relate yourself with.
A reason for my addiction to Facebook or other online social forms is its wide canvas which allowed me to select my loved ones, choose those I want to be close with. Again there are pros and cons to this facility because all FB users present their best behavior and looks on FB, which can be quite deceptive. Steering across all such deceptions and finding right ones is a challenge in itself, but if you find one, you can have real fun.
Public Image
If we write any status message, that will be viewed by hundreds of people in our list who we may know well, know formally, don't know at all. Each person will have certain impression about us and anything we write may go well or against them, but the bad part is we never know how many of them judge us unless and until they present their views in terms of "comments" and "likes". So our public image is at stake (for those who care, of course, and even for those who don't :p).
If you write something utterly stupid, the whole world will immediately know how stupid you are, which is not the case in real world, because you never say anything before a crowd of 300 odd people. But the greener side is that if you are intelligent enough, the same entire world knows that regardless of whether they like it, comment it, acknowledge it or not. So you have to understand if you are really intelligent or not, before you post anything on FB while you don't have this risk in the real world :)
You can be an object of judgement based on groups you join, pages you like, articles you share, what you write in info about you, words you use (certain people suddenly stopped talking to me when they saw me using F word in some status message :p).
Invasion of Privacy
Your privacy can be invaded based on photos you upload, friends you tag (or you get tagged in). FB is a wonderful tool for voyeurs, peeping toms and if they are smart, they can pull out your entire janam kundali. Identifying who are close to you, who are not is not a big deal, thanks to your FB activity.
As mentioned earlier in this post, people are arrested for what they have written as their Facebook status message. So those who write inflammatory or provocative statuses are always subject to scrutiny. Some tech savvy thieves are always on prowl to see if anybody has posted a status message like "Hawaii, here I come", "Vacation to Europe" etc. These messages can be keys to your getting plundered :). So before writing anything, just imagine who can get mileage of your message.
Really Virtual - Virtually Real
Facebook can't be taken easy as just any social website or a tool for passing time. Its a world in itself. Whatever you say in real world will be multiplied in intensity if you say on Facebook. if you are good, it gets better, but if you are not so good at managing people and your words or behavior, God bless you !
You might have rubbed a lot of people in a wrong way, yet you don't know who they are. You don't know who all got paranoid that you don't like them despite no such intentions from your side. You don't know who all propagate negative things against you based on how you present yourself on FB.
Somebody is always watching and judging you !
Now read these:
"An IIM student committed suicide because her boyfriend announced breaking up with her on Facebook"
"A 35 year old who lured a minor girl on Facebook got arrested"
"Youth robbed by his Facebook friend"
"Man arrested for Facebook status message"
"Woman arrested for 'poking' Facebook user" and many more. Even London riots that happened a couple of months back, Egypt uprising were fueled by Facebook.
At the outset, many think why and how a silly website can affect anybody's life so much; afterall its a virtual website and not a "real world". Those who are not active on Facebook will never understand the phenomenon of Facebook which affects (both in good and bad ways) mental, emotional, professional, psychological and social lives of thousands..err..millions across the world.
Life before online social networking
Before online social networking (eMail, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, Orkut, Twitter and Facebook) came into picture, life was simple, straight forward and limited to known contacts who met us regularly in person. Social life was all about talking to relatives, cousins, friends, classmates, colleagues. We knew who liked us, who didn't, who cared about our day to day life and who did not. We knew how to deal if somebody had any problem with us because there was no way we could bypass them. With the advent of social networking, dynamics changed and obviously the "friends list" expanded beyond our managing capabilities.
Likes and comments
I believe Facebook is such a roaring success because of its features like 'Like' and 'Comments'. If these options are removed, I don't think many would write anything on FB, they would rather go blogging or write diaries for themselves :)
Now, talking about the example I gave in the first line of this post, the woman assaulted her hubby for not liking her status because that status message was in memory of her dead mother which was acknowledged by many of her close ones except her husband who was active on FB liking and commenting on all other stories and deliberately snubbing her status (sic). So the issue was not about liking a FB status, but was much intense, that of neglecting her mother's memory deliberately, which'd hurt her more. If there was no FB, obviously she would not have known even if he was having a gala time behind her :p
Those who are not active on FB are exempt from this kind of judgement for obvious reasons, but those who enjoy liking and commenting must be aware of such repercussions. Acknowledging and commenting on most of your friends, but consciously ignoring one among them is like entering a room full of guests, handshaking with everyone but conveniently snubbing one among them; they obviously feel hurt. Only that in FB, you can't read their expressions or any ill-feeling they nurture against you (unless and until you do that to deliberately hurt them :))
Making Relationships
Another reason for the success of online social world is the facility to make new friends, relationships which you could never have made in real life. Thanks to FB, the world abruptly exploded and you are thrown among hundreds of people who you may like or relate yourself with.
A reason for my addiction to Facebook or other online social forms is its wide canvas which allowed me to select my loved ones, choose those I want to be close with. Again there are pros and cons to this facility because all FB users present their best behavior and looks on FB, which can be quite deceptive. Steering across all such deceptions and finding right ones is a challenge in itself, but if you find one, you can have real fun.
Public Image
If we write any status message, that will be viewed by hundreds of people in our list who we may know well, know formally, don't know at all. Each person will have certain impression about us and anything we write may go well or against them, but the bad part is we never know how many of them judge us unless and until they present their views in terms of "comments" and "likes". So our public image is at stake (for those who care, of course, and even for those who don't :p).
If you write something utterly stupid, the whole world will immediately know how stupid you are, which is not the case in real world, because you never say anything before a crowd of 300 odd people. But the greener side is that if you are intelligent enough, the same entire world knows that regardless of whether they like it, comment it, acknowledge it or not. So you have to understand if you are really intelligent or not, before you post anything on FB while you don't have this risk in the real world :)
You can be an object of judgement based on groups you join, pages you like, articles you share, what you write in info about you, words you use (certain people suddenly stopped talking to me when they saw me using F word in some status message :p).
Invasion of Privacy
Your privacy can be invaded based on photos you upload, friends you tag (or you get tagged in). FB is a wonderful tool for voyeurs, peeping toms and if they are smart, they can pull out your entire janam kundali. Identifying who are close to you, who are not is not a big deal, thanks to your FB activity.
As mentioned earlier in this post, people are arrested for what they have written as their Facebook status message. So those who write inflammatory or provocative statuses are always subject to scrutiny. Some tech savvy thieves are always on prowl to see if anybody has posted a status message like "Hawaii, here I come", "Vacation to Europe" etc. These messages can be keys to your getting plundered :). So before writing anything, just imagine who can get mileage of your message.
Really Virtual - Virtually Real
Facebook can't be taken easy as just any social website or a tool for passing time. Its a world in itself. Whatever you say in real world will be multiplied in intensity if you say on Facebook. if you are good, it gets better, but if you are not so good at managing people and your words or behavior, God bless you !
You might have rubbed a lot of people in a wrong way, yet you don't know who they are. You don't know who all got paranoid that you don't like them despite no such intentions from your side. You don't know who all propagate negative things against you based on how you present yourself on FB.
Somebody is always watching and judging you !
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