In the cyber space of zeros and ones….
I heard people saying that with the advent of internet, the distance between people are really reducing or in other words it would bring the world closer by merging the distance. But do you really think that does it actually do that? Yeah we can communicate over here irrespective of the time and space but I don’t know I feel that it deprived of the face to face interaction and the physical contact too. Sitting next to us and asking “how are you?” in chat is something that shows the highest dependency on the technology but yeah do you ever feel that it is the height of isolation too?? I feel so... Instead of asking directly, asking about your illness or replying through the emails from the next cubicle makes me strongly feel that we are living in an era which is heavily dependent on the Internet for social interaction too. while chatting I never feel that much of intimacy and yeah I hate to chat with my dear ones, coz it always made me feel that I am talking to a third person.
Our thoughts, our way of life has too reduced in to a column and we are so hypnotized on exploring the world through a box that we ignore the world around us. Is it not? We are living in an age where having a twitter or FB account is a must (orkut is almost on the edge of its death ... so no comments on that: P). Sometimes these are used as a measurements of how you are socially committed or be with the trend. Recently I have read somewhere that Forty-seven percent of people (those polled) believed the Internet was more important in people's lives than religion, with one in five people paying the Internet more attention than their partner. It shows the dependency is it not??
I too’ve been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the Internet. Even when I’m not working, I’m as likely as not to be foraging in the Web’s info-thickets ‘reading and writing e-mails, scanning headlines and blog posts, watching videos, or just tripping from link to link to link.
But I can find a big difference in my reading style too. I am not interested to read so much of information at a stretch. I’ve lost the ability to do that. Sometimes I book marked the page but most of the times I never get back to it. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I used to skim it... And the way I use language also is influenced a lot. Now a days I prefer short forms and do not care much about the grammar and spellings while in chat or in emails. The way I communicate professionally also has got changed.. I mean the salutation has changed a lot. Now I used to address my Boss “Hi” rather than “sir”.
We are so dependent on the Internet, sometimes to the point of enslavement. It has restructured our daily lives and we have begun to follow it blindly into the future .I know people checking FB and orkut rather than reading news paper, with a hot cup of tea in their hand. It is the first thing that they do when they wake up. If we rely on it too much, our addiction will keep growing until the addiction itself controls our functionality… Do you agree???
P.S:- Depending on the Internet is a choice based on convenience and practicality, not on need.
