Un-Sociable networks

Human beings have a tendency to advertise themselves, to be seen, heard etc. The rise of social networks only cements this fact. In 6 years these sites have taken centre stage in the lives of millions of teenagers. I am often asked if i am on any one of these sites. I doubt if i'll ever be. I'm sure the advantages of being on them is plentiful. But am i missing out on something by not being on these sites? I don't think so. My cousin says facebook is for people who can't make friends in real life. Ironically the man has a facebook account. When i asked him about the mismatch between walk and talk, he said he did it to look up on people. A stalker. I did find it interesting enough and using my sister's id i checked up on a lot of people thereon. Each profile seemed to reflect who the person wanted to be than who the person was. Some of them were plain pretentious. I know 'who am i to pass judgement on people', right. But it's my fuckin blog. I am not going to write about the obvious threat of paedophiles, sex stalkers, recently in india even kidnappers. They way i see it people start living two lives one virtual and one real. Nothing wrong with that. The trouble is when they find it easier to live the virtual life. There are kids who are as young as 8 on facebook. I dont know if they have an active social life. Chances are they do. But they might take solace in the virtual world than deal with the tougher reality. I actually came across lot of instances where people would not say a face to face hello but would send friend requests on social networking sites. There is something really wierd about that. They probably couldn't face rejection in reality so they go the virtual way. I truly believe that these social sites will have a negative effect on building social relationships and inter-personal relationships.

Another ill effect would be to cocoon yourself into a groupthink. By groupthink i mean there are so many groups in face book, orkut etc. When you are part of such groups you vision, creativity is narrowed. There exists prejudice in belonging to such groups, you tend to be peer influenced and subscribe to dogma. It is nice to find someone else who listen to Belle & Sebastian on these sites. But i find it also nice to enjoy something by meself also & discover stuff on my own.

I recently came across a site where you can commit virtual suicide by 'killing' yourself on this site. This stuck me as quite stupid. Is it necessary i make a drama of a simple act of deleting my profile. It seems like the internet has succeded in making people feel like celebrities by indulging in celebrity like behaviour.

They call it social networking but oddly it has made people more doleful and unsociable to their immediate environment.