The Social Networking Brouhaha

Facebook, Orkut, Twitter and now the new Buzz!! Yes social networking is here to stay. It has revolutionized our way of keeping in touch with friends, or letting friends know of an important news in one's life. These sites also help us remember our friends' birthdays, yes everyone is just a scrap or a wall post away. The act of really keeping in touch however has somehow faded with the advent of the Internet. While these sites have ushered in a new era of networking, somewhere in this social networking world, it has also made us too open, too public leading to a loss of our own privacy.

Image Courtesy : http://www.mirkku.com/

What is the first thing you check out or the first site you open when you put your computer/laptop on? Do you login to Facebook/Orkut/Twitter and see if you have a comment on your wall post or if someone has dropped you a scrap or rather what Barkha Dutt whom who are following on twitter has tweeted. Why this urge for staying connected?? Why this frenzy to keep posting updates of whether you are committed or whether you are getting married. Why is our privacy becoming more and more public?? And it is we ourselves committing the sin of self-intrusion of privacy! Sometimes I just find it as a filler in our otherwise usual humdrum of life, at other times its more of a distraction.

While one can say its a blessing owing to the ease of maintaining touch with anyone in this world, nevertheless on the other hand its an incessant addiction to which we have fallen prey.Its like "The Truman where "Truman Burbank lives a happy life. However, what he doesn't know is that his life is actually the focus of a reality TV show aired since his birth, that he's the star, his hometown is a giant set piece, and everyone around him is an actor going by a script." The only difference is here we know and knowingly we keep tweeting or updating our so-called walls with personal updates.

The need to stay connected in this networked high tech world is not hard to comprehend. When the whole world is tweeting, yes even Shashi Tharoor, you do not want to be left behind. You want to know what a famous celebrity is doing at any single minute or hour of the day. We all want some news and gossip in our lives. But hell why post personal/suggestive photos/snaps!! Ridiculous photos like the decorated bride sitting on the bed on our first night, gosh gimme a break :X @###$% I want to request an enhancement in the features when it comes to such photos. The onlooker should be able to change privacy settings so as not to see them :D Google/Picassa/Facebook/Orkut are you listening?? :P

While Facebook and Twitter are some years old, Google entered too late with buzz and had to undergo its share of hiccups in this arena. I personally found Buzz very buzzing (read bugging :D) and was thankful that the off button was provided. Nobody needed too keen an observation to say that Buzz failed to create any buzz. Plus it has security concerns. See here Also the auto-follow feature was a MAJOR glitch "The controversy is around the “auto-follow” feature that automatically links those who you email frequently with in your Gmail account to Buzz. When posting something onto Buzz everyone can see who is following you. Basically this allows strangers to see who you email with frequently." An excerpt I took from here Strangers being allowed to see whom you email frequently! Waaaaa :(

When I searched for Buzz I saw the following buzzes, these speak for themselves
"Officially ditching Google Buzz, so if you are trying to get a hold of me, don't do it there."

"Decided to turn off Google Buzz. I couldn't see any point in it. I have all I need in gmail and google chat." (I totally agree with this one)

However, the scarier part is what I stumbled on http://www.macworld.com/article/146539/2010/02/google_privacy.html?lsrc=twt_rgriff on why the user is going to stop using Google. Also went through some comments here and agreed with some that it was useless hullabaloo considering the fact that "Privacy is dead" in the social networking world. Its more at the user discretion actually.

What is your take on Social Networking? Is it a necessary evil? or Is it overkill?