Social Networking

The Internet has changed the way people interact with each other. There used to be days when you would meet your friends everyday, hang out, do stuff. When you moved away, friends grew distant, and sometimes faded away into the darkness of time. New places, meant new friends, new faces, new lives.

These days things are different. Friends, if you want them to be, can be in touch wherever you go. Whenever you need them, they can be reached. The Internet was quite responsible for all this. Childhood friends, continue to grow with you, albeit through the interface of a messenger, or mails. But is this good? It can cause life to be static. Always clinging on to the past, never letting the present into your soul. Thats one way to look at it.

In a world where trust is hard to come by, why should we risk ourselves to exposure to new things. Its dangerous, and usually not very helpful to us. In a world where everyone is closed unless they need to be, how can we let anyone in at all?

This is where social networking on the Internet changes the board a little. With all these sites online to bring like minded people together, or even people who've been long lost, the playing field opens up. Just this past week, I found friends from elementary and middle school from my previous tryst with this country online. What a joy it is to reconnect with the people from those days, if only to see whats become of the world you knew. People change. Grown up in a world where everyone is a doctor or an IT professional, its a welcome change to come across writers, singers, lawyers, therapists and the so called "unconventional proffessional fields."

Networking is turning out to be quite an important aspect of life these days. The person with the most useful contacts usually comes out ahead. In the age of information, the more people you know, the higher chances you get to know of something important.

But whats the cost of all this?

Technologically Challenged

Coming from an engineering background, one would think that this cant be me. In a field where not knowing the latest can severly dent you, and where the latest changes very often, I suddenly feel very cut off from the world. Ten months cocooned in grad school, where everyone around you has pretty much the same exposure to technology as you, and you are lulled into a false sense of security.

One and half months in the valley, and you realise that your life has been isolated from the rest of this technologically dependent country. Talks of TiVo, Roomba, home servers for all your shows, a mac mini, apple tv, 40 inch computer displays, devices that rebroadcast tv from any region to your laptop, and many such things. This is the country where technology is because it can be, not because it is useful. Where the newest means that something a little old loses favour instantly.

Ordinarily this is not something that would be of any importance. Even now its not something that keeps me awake. It is a conversation stopper, however. Out at a barbeque, and everyone talking about their problems with the roomba, or tivo, and all you can do is try to figure out what they are talking about. Sure you can ask, but then you get such stares, it kind of takes the steam out of curiosity.

In the end, it makes you want to learn about this crazily electronic world. That is always a good sign, but the knowledge banks arent particularly helpful, which makes me feel technologically challenged.