I’m sure you logged on your facebook account today. Browsed for a couple of minutes, typed something on your wall, typed some more on other people’s wall, checked your messages, chat for a bit, etc., but try to quickly take a look at how many friends you have. Is that 487 people, right? Do you know all of them? If you do, congratulations. You can get the congeniality award. If you don’t, well, you are just like me and perhaps almost everyone else.
Roughly half of my friends are probably cyber friends, which could be better translated as either: someone who just added me randomly, or friend of a highschool friend’s cousin (Stop making than mental tree diagram). Why do I confirm them? Because.
Humanity is swelling up. Our environment is contracting. You don’t know what you need and who you might need for things that are yet to come. If you are the confident type, no problemo. Competition is apparent, and these days, having links and the right contacts has proven greater results than a double major degree with honors, maybe.
And that’s not even me. So, the chance that I will be indebted is larger. If you think that this appears to be like some kind of human exploitation, yes, you are probably right to some extent, but each of us is a breathing commodity. Sometimes you provide for other people, other times you take something from them. That’s how it works.
And now with the new media, it is even more complicated. Internet and network technology has changed the face of how we communicate and interact. Facebook, twitter, instant messaging, video calls, and mobile phones are parts of a normal day. Not only they make connections easier, they also made it cheaper and efficient.
When I was in senior high school, only about 4 or 5 (out of about 130) have mobile phones. 11 years ago, I started college at the age of 17 and I still don’t have my own mobile phone. I guess I only had it when I was on my 2nd year, a Nokia 3210 (which I eventually lost). There was no facebook or twitter, but there’re yahoo messaging and friendster. Like there’s an unwritten rule against them, anyone whose age could pass as my parent doesn’t have web profiles. But sooner, they were quick to catch-up. Very much.
It comes with this technological innovation a lot of other things. Recently, OMG, LOL, and the heart shape were included in the dictionary. With the advent of video streaming, people get instantly famous. A Filipina, for one, is now a Hollywood sensation, care of YouTube. I get to watch movies and tv series right at the comfort of my own desk. Modernism has seeped even up to serious matters. People now give official judiciary statements via skype. Professionals work from home. Information spread lightning-fast that eventually led to upheavals in Africa, or amass donations for Japan’s recent tragedy.
But with all these positives, surely there’s a catch. Apart from more and more people become slackers, and less and less people know how to spell properly, people put behind proper etiquette on sociability. Everyone started to take it less seriously.
If you add someone as a contact in a social site, a brief message won’t hurt. Don’t just creep on the internet and blindly click on the ‘Add as friend’ button. People are not expecting a full autobiography or a 10-page ala slam book entry but there has to be some reason.
Some people send instant messages while they appear offline. I don’t know if anyone else finds this a little bit impolite, but I think it’s more proper to let the person know you are there and not a sleeping grayed smiley icon. It shouldn’t be one-way. If you are busy and you don’t want to be disturbed so you appear offline, then don’t chat. It’s that simple. What makes you think you can disturb others? Not that I care too much about these, which frankly, I don’t. But there’s just something in these acts that tells me it’s not the most correct thing to do, well, personally, I mean.
Going back to the reason why I accept blind invites, it’s because I’m not giving in. I know things change, and this is probably me again, scrutinizing single tiny details of things, but what is the point of this post? The point is, let’s not forget being humans.
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