It needs just a click to be a friend — at least to show your intention to become friend with someone. We even may not know the person, we may have never met, never talked... yet we are friends. At least i've several "friends" on Facebook who i'm yet to meet face to face. But i know who s/he is, what s/he does for a living, the last city s/he visited, the food s/he loves and what nots... Facebook reminded me the other day of a 10-year friendship with a person who i did not forget but never bothered to check the names of kids the couple have! The reason is simple: no Facebook update from their end. It's easy to be friends and easier to forget.
But our school hostels did not teach life as such. There, friends were everything. When i was shivering with fever, my roommates used to give me paracetamol or bring food home before informing the warden. Before exams, we did exchange notes unlike millions of children taught otherwise by parents these days. We used to debate on issues ranging from science to society — far more in depth than that we do on social media now. The concept of friend, for me, was indeed not necessarily not "in need". I'm sure you also have same experience in your childhood.
Has social media robbed me, and you, of what could have been more social connect? Do i really need 1,300 and odd friends who are on my Facebook list? I've seen people, especially millennials, fighting over how many friends are on their list. Go through your friend list once: check when you last had a hearty laughter with him/her. Well, i'm repeating the same cliche — social media friendship — that is being researched for quite some time now. I may not have needed to utter a single word but a dream last night took me to a different world, when i used to share my afternoons with Arnab.
Like many of us on Facebook, i also looked for Arnab by filling in the blank on "search". Lots of results with same name and last name. But the face is hardly similar to that decades ago. Can i forget, or remember at all, the face of a primary school friend? I am remotely in touch with only one of my primary school classmate but no clues of Arnab. Thoughts, particularly the sub-conscious ones, have a spontaneity not like the mundane reality of life where you go to office, do your job, come back home to spend very little time with family. Amid such thoughts, sometimes we all are reminded of the long-lost friend, in reality or in dream.
But our school hostels did not teach life as such. There, friends were everything. When i was shivering with fever, my roommates used to give me paracetamol or bring food home before informing the warden. Before exams, we did exchange notes unlike millions of children taught otherwise by parents these days. We used to debate on issues ranging from science to society — far more in depth than that we do on social media now. The concept of friend, for me, was indeed not necessarily not "in need". I'm sure you also have same experience in your childhood.
Has social media robbed me, and you, of what could have been more social connect? Do i really need 1,300 and odd friends who are on my Facebook list? I've seen people, especially millennials, fighting over how many friends are on their list. Go through your friend list once: check when you last had a hearty laughter with him/her. Well, i'm repeating the same cliche — social media friendship — that is being researched for quite some time now. I may not have needed to utter a single word but a dream last night took me to a different world, when i used to share my afternoons with Arnab.
Like many of us on Facebook, i also looked for Arnab by filling in the blank on "search". Lots of results with same name and last name. But the face is hardly similar to that decades ago. Can i forget, or remember at all, the face of a primary school friend? I am remotely in touch with only one of my primary school classmate but no clues of Arnab. Thoughts, particularly the sub-conscious ones, have a spontaneity not like the mundane reality of life where you go to office, do your job, come back home to spend very little time with family. Amid such thoughts, sometimes we all are reminded of the long-lost friend, in reality or in dream.
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