I very recently was made aware of the phenomenon of a flash mob. I understand that a flash mob is a sudden gathering of people mobilized by social media that perform some activity for a brief time for various 'causes' to attract passerby. The thing that makes me find this interesting/weird is the impact of social media. I am not a Facebook 'updater' and do not follow Tweets. I do use Facebook, but I do not find the idea that I might find or someone will find my updates on where I am at that moment or what I am eating to be appealing in any sense.
As an extension, I find the concept of social media quite ironical. I say that because I think the term 'friend' seems to be thrown around a lot. I agree that there might not be a better term that is slightly more personal that an 'acquaintance'. The ironical part in all this is that the amount of time you spend on 'connecting' with one's acquaintances reduces the amount of time that you spend with yourself or your real-life friend. I for one do not think that I'm becoming more social by knowing what 200+ 'friends' in Facebook are doing that day - doesn't it give a false pretense that you 'know' what everyone is up to? and eventually know none? I like Facebook in the sense that if I suddenly remember what an old classmate is doing now, I can quickly look it up just like what the original paper face book would do. Nothing more!
Now, back from my rant on social networking, the idea of a flash mob seems too hip to me! Wiki seems to suggest that flash mobs occur because people want to conform to something and be part of something big that is happening. This reminds me of shady links which say, oh click on me and you'll be donating a buck for some cause - and we in our generous urge to 'freely donate' something, click on it and feel good about it. Do you expect something to turn out by such simple acts and say a 15min flash mob? Numbers do help, just in the context of democratic protests, but for social causes, people should be involved in their community and personally help people. These social media based events seem to take people away from directly involving and is deluding the actual cause, or it appears so to me.
These things make me feel that I'm old and reminds me that I'm not catching up with technological changes brought about in society - or is it that certain things should not change and these are just passing clouds? How weird it would be to get married online? I'm sure at least a few happen that way every year. If I'm old and not social in this context, maybe I am!
1 comments:
Nice to know about flash mobs. Regarding social networking, you are the 2nd person in past month who is saying same thing. I think it's just the name being deceptive. If someone is really reducing face to face meetings / phone conversations with close friends, it's their stupidity and no sympathies for stupid people.
On the other hand, it is a good way to keep in tough with people with whom you would have otherwise lost contact, like say LKG friends or you classmates, who were not friends per say.
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