Who the Hell is THAT?

In the modern world, with the ideas of a ‘global village’ and ‘the world is a family’ scheme of things, we make many friends. Some instantaneous, some in hesitant steps, some with caution and some that are best kept a hand’s length away. However, connections are made every day and every hour possibly, in the life of a person, because though one cannot speak for the entire world, a large enough part of its population is connected to the internet today, thus voluntarily or involuntarily becoming part of a global endeavour to better the human civilization and build a tight web in order that we may not be nations in the future, but a World.

Taking what is explained above in macro and putting it in a scale that becomes inclusive in the bigger scheme of things, we come to social networking. And out of the many social networking sites, there is one that has stood out in this decade and much of the previous one. That small step giant leap was the development of Facebook as a tool or means to reach the above mentioned destination, and as they say, ‘the journey is more important…’

Image Courtesy: Google Images.

One makes so many contacts on Facebook. Friends, acquaintances, friends of friends, visitors, relatives, teachers, students, colleagues, seniors, juniors, drinking partners, business associates and even complete strangers are added to people’s accounts every day. It serves the basic human need to be connected and be recognized. The need to know people everywhere and to be pleased in the knowledge that others, in various places, know them.

Then there is the need for communication. To be able to communicate with people, regardless of distance, time and availability; albeit not without an internet connection. The need for rapid, cheap and easy communication is facilitated by it.

There is also a requirement for short-term connections. A need wherein two or more people need to stay connected for a certain amount of time after which they go their separate ways, sometimes without even a single glance backwards. It is this that is the crux of what is to come next.

I've observed, through personal experience that it so happens that after a while, maybe a year or two on Facebook, when one goes through their friends list, they find that there are people that they don’t know. People that they have no memory of and who are just there, God knows how. Actually, they did know that person once, but with passing time, the memory of that person has either become too hazy or has been wiped out totally. This is of course taking into consideration only those who do not keep adding people indiscriminately for the heck of it.

There have been times, when I've gone through my friends list (I do that every six months) and found at least five or more people who I recollected only faintly or who I didn't remember having a decent conversation with, even virtually for over a year.

And sometimes, I'm just like,

“Who the Hell is THAT?”

Image Courtesy: Google Images.