(Dis)Connected..

"I have more than 200 friends"
"Wow! so many friends..so what are you doing this Saturday evening?"
"I will be in front of the computer"

This funny, yet eye opening dialog from the movie "Funny People" on social network is the inspiration for this imaginary post.

Raj - Son
Dia - Daughter
Mom and Dad

Raj: Hi Mom, sorry I woke up late, good to catch u on IM, what do we have for dinner?

Mom: I am late to a meeting, the menu and sample pictures of the food for the entire week is posted on my Facebook, your Dad sent a text to me and trying to reach you. love u Raj, c u later.

Raj: Great, I will check it out and comment on the changes I want. I will also call Dad.

Raj calling Dad: Pop, I need cash.

Dad: I will wire transfer to your checking later today. We need to catch up on arrangements for Dia's wedding.

Raj: Don't worry Dad, I have high level plans almost finalized and I will send you the PPT when it is ready.

Dad: Thanks Raj! Buzz me and I will check the PPT. love u, talk to you later.

Slide 1 - Invitation: Raj logged in to Geni, Facebook, LinkedIn contacts and created an invitation distribution list. He also roughly calculated the invitation numbers based on other family member's social network contacts. Once Raj had the headcount, he selected eVite, Facebook and Twitter updates for sending invitations and updates.

Slide 2 - Photos/Video: Raj Google'd photo/video broadcast professionals in the area and short listed a few. He planned on podcasting the event live and later make it available on YouTube. Twitter updates will be posted every 5 minutes during the marriage ceremony.

Slide 3 - Food: Raj short listed Pizza Hut, Saravana Bhavan and Jamba Juice with Salad as the possible options for food ordering. The attendees will either get a food coupon that they can redeem on the marriage day or get rain check for later use.

Slide 4 - Thaamboolam: Once the attendees successfully login and attend the function, they will get album of their choice as free download from iTunes as thaamboolam.

Slide 5 - Gifts: Attendees can send their gift via Fedex (prepaid free shipping) or choose to use Paypal for cash gifts.

Raj emailed the PPT to Mom, Dad and Dia and sent an Outlook invitation for video conference call later that day and hoped every one can attend.

If we continue our passion and craze for social connections through technology, who knows, we might end up like this soon.

Are we really connected?

Look at me...

Disclaimer: I am NOT against Facebook or it's authors, I am just sharing my experience on some of the crazy things that people do using Facebook.

Recently, I have received quite a few invites from friends and families to join Facebook. This is the only thing that I am still hesitant to take a plunge. I could be wrong, but most of the Facebook that I am reading are aimed mostly at one thing, pictures and self proclaimed message "I am cute/cool" or "I did this". For the most part, the daily Facebook updates are almost always aimed at sending the same message mentioned above over and over again.

I guess for starters, you should be an ardent fan of talking about yourself and more importantly very interested in others knowing about you. Have you seen நம்ம வீட்டு கல்யாணம் in Vijay TV, where TV stars were so thrilled and all enthusiastic to talk about their marriage in front of the camera? One should have a lots of eagerness and high optimism on viewers to show that kind of enthusiasm. Most of the Facebook entries fall in this category, "My trip to Niagara", "Lovely London" types.

My wife, though doesn't post any in Facebook, is a big fan of logging in every now and then to check out on her friends who live in other continents. One of the entry that she shared with me was from her friend who wrote "My cute little son is so sick today and I don't feel like doing anything" with a picture of sick child. I mean, how artificial that is? First of all, the person had the time to take a picture of her sick baby, spend time online to post the message etc. She probably have not heard காக்கைக்கு தன் குஞ்சு பொன் குஞ்சு.

The other entry that I read recently was how my friend was so busy with his project that he couldn't take a break for a week. Apparently he had the time to update his Facebook with a looong post. The immediate feeling you get is "Dhoda!"

To be honest, all of us like spotlight, virtual வம்பு through Facebook, vent outs through blog etc, but posting pictures everyday and Facebook தற்பெருமை will get people bored after a while.