Being Social

Recently I came across a picture posted by my friend on Facebook. The picture featured him and his brand new bride and it was tagged "On our honeymoon". Now I happened to know that they had gotten married a couple of days before this picture was posted, which meant that they were on their honeymoon when he uploaded the picture. While most of us would probably overlook that fact and focus on the pristine waters and the white sands of the beach they were enjoying while sipping on their pina coladas, I found it very amusing that they wanted to be "connected" even when enjoying what was designed to be an exclusively newly married event - the honeymoon.

We all feel the need to share. Humans aren't wired to keep things within themselves which is what makes us social beings. We like to keep and divulge secrets, share some gossip, pass on news and sometimes even spike it with our own masala, backbite, mock, gloat, and sometimes just talk because we can. With the explosion of Facebook and twitter you can now learn that your long forgotten middle school classmate checked in for lunch at Three Amigos and ordered a chicken and cheese enchilada with nachos on the side because he so kindly uploaded a picture of his entree. You find out that the most popular couple in high school have long broken up and are dating their best friend's sister and the class geek who made it real big in banking (in any order). You take joy in seeing pictures of your best friend's newborn and you put your two cents in when people rant about how India should have played 5 bowlers and Dhoni is a jackass for making Nehra bowl that last over against SA. Twitter takes this interaction one step further because you can now hear from the celebrity horses mouth as in the case of Charlie Sheen breaking up with his porn star girlfriend because she's too tired to give him some sugar or Gaddafi proclaiming to the entire world that all Libyans love him.

Gone are the days when we'd pick up the phone and call a friend at the other end of the country because we can now simply poke him out of his slumber or write on her wall. And this is considered good enough. People have lowered their expectations when it comes to keeping in touch even though there are now some 35 different ways to get connected. Reminds me of this message a friend's mom posted on his wall asking him to call her because it had been so long that he was out of touch ;) I spent quite a few hours today rummaging through some really old emails exchanged among friends who I've not been in as much touch with as I'd like to. We had some great times, really funny back and forths, long emails littered with randomness, interspersed with some gems of wisdom (not really). I have all these friends on Facebook and Gtalk but it's just not the same anymore and it will probably never be that way. Is it because we have all grown up, have a lot more on our plate now with our own personal lives and families, consider these personal exchanges frivolous? We don't really need to send all these emails and make all these phone calls anymore because we can always see what the other person is up to by monitoring their profile. At least the part of their life that they'd like to share. In the time of ever increasing population, individuals are demanding an ever expanding bubble to engulf themselves in. Somehow that math doesn't work out well in my head :)