Living in the World of Facebook and Twitter

The world is a reflection of who we have become.  What works in the world is somewhat a manifestation of what we espouse – consciously or unconsciously.  This dawned on me the recently when I was trying to look for something I had written sometime back on Facebook.  Did you ever notice that whatever you write – except for the recent messages – just vanish into oblivion?

There is no search which can get, say, what you wrote last year on this day.  Whatever you shared with the world was meant for the moment.  Once the moment has passed, the thing is no more.

Its not just with Facebook, but also with Twitter.

The archives (or even better Tagged Archives) are not to be found in these two very successful communities which have almost the entire world on it.

Interestingly, world is interacting with each other in just the present moment.  It almost seems like helping people live the famous ‘Live in the Moment” mantra that many Spiritualists are fond of espousing.

Or is it that we are becoming short sighted or is the world going through a mass Attention Deficit Disorder syndrome?

There is a method in our interaction, but there is an anarchical element as well.  We meet, befriend, and follow (even “poke”) people within set rules.  But the limits and the boundaries that came with physical, filial, and relational proximity has been broken.  Now, two strangers sitting thousands of miles apart can meet each other and not only become good friends but also be so close to each other that they can share things that neither would share with his/her spouse or parent.

Such a scenario leads to obvious issues in relationships, but it also leads to blurring of boundaries of a “person”.  Because Internet interaction comes with a certain degree of anonymity.  One may be a friend, whose pictures, videos and voice one may have heard – and based on that one may share intimate and very deep things.  But is that long lasting?  Isn’t that something that somehow blurs the very substance of a person?  If you interact with only a handful based on your physical proximity, then the person you project is something very different from what is projected on the screen.

When the relational boundaries blur while the interaction remains attention seeking and attention deficit prone at the same time, where is the (wo)mankind going to?

What do you think?