The Hindu Business Line : Some ‘cool’ connection

A clutch of familiar but long-lost cousins, a couple of friends; the rest is silence. Or whatever the Internet equivalent of silence is called. The reference is to a social networking site I recently became a member of. The first few days had me hunting for more cousins and friends, sending and accepting friend requests, posting and commenting on each other’s messages, and then progressing to put up photos and waiting for reactions. But there are none.

Is it me? Is it them? Our ages? Are we all very boring? Or is it the entire social networking phenomenon? Are there as many inactive members as active users? Which raises a number of questions: How many of us really use these sites, and how many more ways (in person, e-mail, telephone, text messages, chat) do we need to keep in touch? (Most of these media are too laborious and personal, not amenable to busy lifestyles, says a friend, making the point that with these sites, you can keep in touch while not really being in touch.)

Also, if we’re naturally reticent, is there a point to enrolling in one? How do you say no to friend requests from people you know but don’t really want a personal connection with? Or are these sites only for family/friends/others with whom you haven’t kept in touch with on a regular basis but now intend to because there’s a not-very-but-personal-all-the-same medium for that?

If it’s the last, isn’t it futile if most of them use the service as erratically as you do? Of course, there are concerns of security as well, but that’s fodder for another article all by itself.

Hunt for handyman

Having failed to find a handyman through my real-world social network, I joined Orkut hoping there would be a group for Chennai home repair services — yes, I actually hoped for something like that — but discovered that those who came into my network and ‘scrapped’ me were mostly people from work and home.

There was also the rather disquieting development of seeing the names of various strangers visiting my profile and realising my name would be listed on theirs too if I visited!

The last scrap on my Orkut profile is more than a year old and I barely even remember my user ID, let alone the password!

Then there was another invitation from a friend that made its way into my Inbox. I accepted — only to realise that the invitation had somehow insinuated its way there through my friend’s e-mail address book, and was not personal. It brought me a couple of invitations from total strangers “wanting to make frank/innocent friendship” or who sent me “lots of love”.

The account was promptly deleted. There was yet another which promised to be more professional; in fact, that was the first I joined. There too, most of us are now silent.

Snob quotient

I do notice there are many who have more than 300 friends on their list, that it’s cause for pride and has its own snob quotient depending on the who’s who present.

Great, but do you keep in touch with most of them, just a few or only your closest friends? One regular observes that people flit from one social networking site to another, whichever is considered trendy at that moment. Unless one is very committed to keeping in touch with old friends and acquaintances, no amount of cool networking sites can revive the relationship, says another.

Minority though they may be, there do seem to be a multitude whose profiles tend to stagnate after a while.

Over the last few years, I have enrolled in at least five such sites, and most people on my contacts list are dormant on these fora. On the latest, there haven’t been any more invitations or messages and I’m already bored with it.

However, if you’re reading this, and you’re not family or a “personal friend”, don’t send me an invite. If I haven’t forgotten my log-in details by now, I would find it hard to reject you but I certainly don’t want you to know what I’m doing now, who my friends are, how I look on vacation and what I stuffed my face with for lunch.

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