Social Networking: Useless/Useful???

The recent surveys show a new kind of addiction spreading among the youth as well as teenagers. Some data reveals that even "Not So Young" people also face the same addiction. This is FB Addiction i.e facebook/social networking addiction.
Well, enough have been said about the ill effects of this Zuckerberg's offspring. It makes students and employees lazy and unproductive. Various Psychological imbalances have been observed in the online patients of  this ailment. Many people have reported their urge to tweet/update their each and every activity on Internet.Many couples are facing infidelity cases due to this.It has replaced "The Idiot Box" in  time wastage.The concept of :Identity theft has come due to this.So,Is everything wrong with this wonderful innovation??
No,Certainly NOT. Like every beautiful thing, it is lethal too. We must know how to handle it.Let us look at some brighter aspects of this. Well,First thing what I observed is that the general knowledge i.e the awareness about what is happening around us in the world has risen to a great extent among its users. People love to crack jokes about the political or social drama happening in the real world and this indirectly takes them few steps forward in becoming responsible citizens as they come to know about their country and the people ruling them. The other thing which  I observed is that people have become more expressive. They express themselves on social forums more openly and more aggressively than ever before.
The persons who had no interest in visiting new places have suddenly become avid travelers as they have to upload their photographs and same place every time seems a bit out of fashion!!!(believe me, its true and I have seen many organisms of this species). We are trying new things like new games,new wines,new restaurents, new "FAKE" hobbies just to get maximum likes and "awwwws" :)
Well,above all what I feel is that if a person wants to get any information and views on certain things, he can get most reliable data in the minimum of time in easiest way as never before.Last month, I saw some discussions going on about north east people and I got a chance to know the exact views of NE people, What they feel about caling names and when they feel insulted..everything which I guess could never have been possible 5 years back. Many times, I have got a chance to interact with "GENUINE" people across the globe with the same interests as mine and believe me I had a wonderfula and fruitful experience which was imposible if I didn't had account on fb.
I feel surveys on facebook are mostly on useless topics but the results are genuine in most cases. I have seen people replying honestly on facebook if it didnt affect their "Show-OFF quotient".
Undoubtedly, there is no better way to know a person than meeting him directly in REAL world and spending some  time with him/her, but, one can certainly know a lot about a person by his/her social networking profile, the tweets he has done. The pics,groups,hobbies,movies,music,things liked etc tell a lot about person without meeting in person and this has all been possible due to this online networking portals.
Sites such as Linkedin provides us a chance to visit the educational and corporate profile of a top honcho with minimum efforts, Apart from that, Many big companies are hiring on LinkedIn too.
In short, I would say that it is a boon if used wisely and monster otherwise.
So,be careful next time...!!!! :) :)

Changing faces of Indian society...

Today is an era of social networking.We have the freedom to express our thoughts,our feelings and our fascinations that never existed before. We are free to do many things which were considered taboo before. Are we in an era of social freedom?? Does expressing ourselves more openly achieves the freedom we always aspired?? Does talking about social stigmas in open makes us liberal and mature society? Does the growth of Indian film industry to adolescent stage make us  relax to an extent? Have we become more liberal, more tolerant?
The answers to the above questions are quite conflicting. When we ponder over these, we find a large range of the variations which exist. We are ready to accept live-in relationships and same sex courtship but we are not ready to let our sisters and daughters wear what they want. We are moral police to them though we enjoy watching models in their minimum outfits. We force them in a way they should dress themselves so that we do feel comfortable in their companionship in society.
We happily attend inter caste/religion marriages but when our "OWN" wants to do the same, we try our best to convince them by citing many examples how their relationships failed who tried the same before.Why so slackness in subconscious mind? It cant be judged whether it is right or wrong but yes, there is certainly "CONTRADICTION".
There is a common notion prevailing in our society that we will not interfere what others are doing in their life but we will not follow the trend as we are the best,in J.K.Rowling's words "Pure Bloods".We don't want to be bad...We are liberal, we send our daughters for better education but if the same daughter tells us about her "live-in" relationship, we frown. We think how can this occur to us, we were "Exceptions". Gradually we accept it with heavy heart and try to set a benchmark in society(though inside we know we never wished the same).
We give national award to the "Dirty" movie as we had to prove to the world that we were growing but we cannot telecast it on the National television as we had babies in our homes who may be misguided by watching such stuffs..what an irony!!
Our babies watch the advertisements of invert-er with an erotic touch but they cant watch bold movies. Why there is no such regulation on advertisements?
We are confused what to do with this liberty and freedom to express. We try to project ourselves as broad minded but then the side effects starts pouring in which we are not ready to accept.
We can never see our teenagers going on prom-nights taking condoms with them. We are not OK with PDAs..yet we want to live in a liberal society where everyone is free to express themselves.
Certainly some middle path needs to be taken to reach the stage where we are comfortable with our culture as well as progress.
Then only the society can come out of the confusion and flourish as never before..
amen