Social Media and 'us'

I remember the day when I came back from school. I removed shoes, washed hands, keep my bag at my desk and searched home for Mom. As always she was ready with lunch or some light breakfast. While savoring home made, nice hot dish of the breakfast I used to tell everything that happened in the school....

Then came the days when I went to college. Some things soon started getting filtered out of the dining table conversation. Me and two of my best buddies would go to a nice open space on the outskirts of the town. There was a huge pipeline which supplied water to 100K people. Concrete blocks supported it. At 9 in the evening it used to be nice soothingly breeze. Some gusts would sweep across us making rustling noise through the tall grass underneath. There we used to talk about almost everything. Literally any issue.. from intimate ones like girlfriends to completely and utterly irrelevant like someones neighbor's broken remote for the Television!!

I had to move out of the town for my medical schools. I went to Solapur. My friend circle was all spread throughout the state. Mobiles were pretty rare in 2002-03. So contacts was not that easily possible. First year, the year of ragging went busy in the suffering. Schools , studies, and when you come back to hostel.. ragging.. As the year passed ragging got converted to friendship. The intimate questions asked during the ragging, and the responses to those become matter of fun. Its true that we were forced to answer. but that actually increased our interaction with others. We got to know people. Once known we were good friends. We talked about a lot of things personal and patients were favorites. We knew secrets of friends that we respected. It was like a mutual treaty. 3 more years passed when I found the most incredible thing. We shared everything. 17 hrs of the day we studied in lib, read/dozed/slept together, had meals together, rode bike, hanged out, gone to movies. We trusted each other. So far she was the best thing happened to me. in 3 more years I was finished with my degree and was ready to peep into future. I had to move out. I came home. It was 8 hrs by train. Now we talked on phone. We chatted on internet. We used to talk so much that all these things seemed insufficient. The nice easy happy chat became a tensed one and we lost whatever nice we could have too. I tried talking with parents about some things but now it was not that easy like a dining talk earlier. Did I lose it? Did I forget to talk to my parents?

More days passed, I saw one of my 'pipeline/lifeline' buddies online. I pinged him. He answered we chatted, may be for 20 minutes and then we could not talk anymore. He suggested me to voice-call. We tried in vain to find right talk stream. But it couldnt happen. We dismissed the call, saying I'll catch you later, ttyl.. etc. 

Today I am talking all the shit with all you guys around. I dont know, who may read this and who may not. I am comfortable talking with you guys when I can not see you, when I dont really know you. I may not be so when I see you. When I am supposed to talk with you on the dining table, on the pipeline, at the hostel room. I may get all conscious about who I am then. I observer two patterns here 

1) Its funny that how we can talk with a person using a specific medium. Talking in that specific medium or media makes naturally getting connected easy. It gives requires a true sense of freedom, and being comfortable with who we are.

Today Social media has grown at a scale where the information king is getting hit because of less number of  hits. Sites like facebook give us a freedom to express ourselves in a manner we want to present. It makes us comfortable with our own present. At least it is supposed to make us comfortable, give us the image we want and provide us with the platform from where we can communicate and project ourselves. Wonderful! isnt it?

but wait a minute... I am trying to project my image as I want. I can select and deselect the things about me I want to show off. I am supposed to be comfortable with my image that I have projected. So far so good. But am I getting perceived at the other end as same fashion that I want to project? Are the comments really projecting the true thinking about one's self? Or again it is a pseudo projection of fake feelings? We may say that, I am comfortable as long as people are not speaking bad about you. But what about the true feelings? If these are not true feelings, then are we supposed to be comfortable about it? If I am unable to trust a  person, how am I supposed to be sharing thoughts? If I dont share my true thoughts how am I supposed to get comfortable? In the social network today, am I just sharing the things I want to share (whether those truly exist or not) and getting satisfied with the selective responses that I want to hear? So to interpret all these things, I am actually talking to myself through the chosen random words appearing in my circle on the social network and making out statements that I want to listen to. This is amazing.. This social network although it seems such a global idea, actually working at the individual level. We are living in a bubble that we have created ourselves. Its like dancing in a club where every person is listening to their own songs through the headphones and they are enjoying it. Nothing seems wrong here if everyone is happy! happy with strangers. 

Last I hear all 'us' went back home. They were so used to being happiness.. We carried their bubbles with 'us' at home. With  mother at dining table, with friends at pipelines, with colleagues at med school and in the arms of the lovers.. We were not happy with what we have we wanted more appreciation.. So we went to a room where 'us' were alone. The bubble was not more visible as the random words around them were missing to selectively choose good comments from. It was only 'us' remaining in the quiet, alone the 'true us' naked.. in the mirror.. We couldnt identify 'us' so different from what we projected and got consumed with as true 'us'.

Social media is only a part reality, and understand and maneuver carefully.

Update: Recently I found a nice youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOE1HFEL8XA this guy explains the same to a whole different level of complexity. Nice job.. Must watch..