Exposing ourselves on the Internet
The web is quite a different entity now, compared to how it was a couple of years back. One can do so much on the net today, apart from emails and searching for information, we can now socialize, auction, shop, earn, blog, SMS, share photos, etc. Everyday more websites spring up, offering some new feature and service for hungry surfers.
There are way too many sites, where it is almost mandatory to become a member these days. Some examples are orkut, hi5, yahoo! 360, sms.ac, flickr, del.icio.us, blogger, technorati, birthday alarm, etc. etc. It is a major pain to remember the usernames and passwords for all these sites and sometimes its easy to forget even which site we registered in! We end up registering and not visiting some of these sites. Or we post a query in some community and forget all about it the next day!
One thing that is common to all of these sites is that it exposes us further. Through every one of these sites, we are revealing more and more of ourselves to the world. I wonder what makes us want to scream out loud "I'm alive! Look at me" through these sites?! It is so easy to find out the entire life history of a person, including photos and info about their schools, colleges, parents, friends, company, holidays, etc., on the web, through some proper searches.
Why do we have a hit counter (or two or three) to check the number of visitors to our blog or website and feel happy to see that someone, somewhere is reading about us? Why do we feel happy to see a comment or two in our blogs? Why do we upload our private photos to flickr and let people around the world see them? Why do we blog or have a website in the first place?
Most people seem to have more of a life online than offline. People tend to be more open and expressive on the world wide web, than their own homes.
It's as if we are almost afraid that we will be lost and forgotten and more frightening is the fact that all of us seem to be very lonely nowadays. The days and nights that we spend feeling truly lonely seems to be increasing, inspite of being active on all these sites and making new friends every day!
The net has become a very addictive place for most of us and seems to give us a better high than anything else. It is almost as if we are given a new life online and we are neglecting more and more of our offline lives!
And with more and more companies starting to focus more of their research and development on the new web, more online services are coming up that is only going to increase our dependence on the Internet. I don't know if it is good or bad to be so dependent on something that is not even real, a big virtual world.
posted by Sabarish @ 12/12/2005 10:36:00 AM
I enjoyed reading your post ...
Welcome to the real world :D
@Ankur - Glad you liked the post! By saying this I now confirm the fact that I am very much a part of the "we" I was talking about in my post! :D
@Sharath - Real world indeed!
The digital revolution (or evolution, more aptly) has started and I dont think its going to stop. I just hope that it further strengthens human relationships and values.
Your so cool Sabarish.
And you have such a devoted band of friends.
I like your blog because you seem sincere and thoughtful and not precocious and rude like so many other blogs.
Its seems like a rather genuine peek into someones very real life.
Thanks for the movie updates, and the photos.
We got to see a movie with Ash Rai called "I have found it.", at college
theater. I thought it was quite good.
Some of us were curious if you or friends had seen or liked the english movies,"Office Space", or Harold and Kumar go to White Castle", just because they both have computer people in them. They are a little on the rude side, but are some of our favorites.
Laters,
A.W.
@A.W - Hmmm...it would be nice if you told me who you were?! Do you blog yourself? Anyway thanks for your kind words! You just made a blogger's day! :)
I haven't seen the movies you mentioned, but I read their reviews now and I'm sure I'd enjoy them!
Hi!!
I've always enjoyed reading your blog, I get so much information from it. Seriously, you could be google.com!
Hi
Very interesting blog. Internet facilitates a clandestine operation or so we like to think. We all are peeping toms we always love to know whats happening with others and profiles are probably more widely read than blogs itsel..with Orkut one even track who checked out your profile..now is it flattering? I let you decide
Cheers