Facebook or Orkut: the new “Armageddon” of the 21st century

“You might not find thousand friends in your real life, but you will definitely find a thousand faces smiling in your facebook or orkut friends list”- Rosemary Ishorari

That’s pretty much what our media marketing teacher said to us when we were final year media students. Status updates and changes in the relationship status have become more important news amongst the youth rather than social or political news.



Yes, social networking sites like Facebook, Orkut, Bebo, Linkdin, Twitter, Fropper and Ibibo have become the new tools of asserting oneself and making oneself socially active. India is a pretty young country when it comes to the advent of internet and the use of social networking has increased only since the past five years. However, it has spread like wildfire with more and more of young as well as old users taking up to the social networking websites to make themselves more socially acceptable amongst their respective peer groups. Just recently, facebook achieved another milestone by completing five successful years over the Web. Started in 2004 by Mark Zuckerburg, facebook had only a handful of users in its network initially, mostly comprising of Harvard students. However, with time it grew rapidly to become the leading social networking website throughout the world. So, what led to its success? One of the biggest reasons is word-of-mouth or rather word-of-mouse publicity.

Love letters and real life conversations have been replaced by scraps or blurbs and online chatting. With the society and the world running at a very fast pace people don’t have much time for each other. Thus most people look forward to joining social networking websites to connect with family members, friends and even look for soul mates online. What’s even more interesting is that adults are using social networks more than the younger demographic today, something which has never happened before the last year or so. On questioning an eighteen year old student from Presidency college about the usage of facebook or orkut, he said, “most people use orkut or facebook just to find girlfriends or boyfriends. Changes of relationship status from single to in a relationship is gaining more publicity than getting married or having a divorce” Out of a survey that I conducted in Lake town, S.K Deb Road, Kolkata, I found that 60% use social networking for finding new boyfriends or girlfriends, 10% use it for business networking, 15% use it for staying connected with family and friends, 5% use it for social gaming while the last 10% use it simply for publicity. It would be impossible to imagine a day without social networking websites. And today people have found a better way to access the web. With the advent of mobile phones and mobile internet, people access the web anywhere anytime without going to a cyber café or sitting next to their desktops, thus making it easier for most busy people to stay connected with their friends or even fans.



However, social networking does have its downside since such forms of communication are taking over interpersonal communication. People get hooked with strangers before seeing or meeting them thus making youngsters more prone to sexual abuse by pedophiles. Moreover even the rate of outdoor physical activities has declined with obesity on the rise amongst children due to the use of many social gaming websites like zynga games, ibibo and zapak.com. Even the usage of English as a language has been degraded and distorted with mobile language coming into the scene. As social networking becomes a topic of discussion for youngsters, most of them want to be alive and kicking on the network and share their likes and dislikes with people. This has given software developers another reason to come up with innovative applications in tune with the contemporary lifestyle, which is indeed worth appreciating. However, problem arises when youngsters overuse these applications and compromise their social life by constantly updating their profile to let people know how ‘cool’ they are. This is also one of the main reasons why personal interaction has been affected to a great extent.

It is true that social networking websites are a boon to the society by helping people stay connected and spreading news and information that one might not be aware of. However, don’t let the social networking take over your life. For once, turn off your desktop or laptop, go out and talk to people. This will probably help you to create better sources and friends rather than virtual friends. Remember the old proverb, “Old is gold, new is suspicious”.

                              
RITUPARNA GUPTA