Social Networking on the NET
In the olden days, let us say before the year 2000, there was Qualitative Networking: person to person; consideration for the other; relationships, visiting each other, spending time with each other. TIME was the gift that bonded each other and with the community.
With the universal acceptance of a corporate lifestyle (in Kuala Lumpur, in HoChiMinh City, Bangalore not to mention Sydney, Paris, Buenos Aires etc.), with the DOLLAR/Euro becoming the Bottom Line (like the Yanks like to say)-Quantitative networking was re-born. Re-born in that It had existed from time immemorial but it was done in context: royal letter carrier viziers, travelers taking bales of silk and bringing back spaghetti; the latter day colonialists spreading Coca-Cola and Jesus (in the movie, Swept Away, Giancarlo Gianini has a line: Coca Cola is in more places than Jesus Christ). But the acceptance of a corporate lifestyle even in small towns and villages in the developing world as well as backpacker budget travel is a recent phenomenon indeed. Perhaps, the divide and rule of the British and other colonial powers and their Missionary companions was a form of Quantitative Networking?
What can I get out of this? How can I advance my career? How to best propagandize my belief system? It no longer mattered, if you had to step over other people.
But you will pass the same people as you slid down the corporate ladder, the same people you stepped on your hurry to get up that ladder, said someone.
Visiting Cards are no longer ceremoniously exchanged, since there are no visits, there are no visiting cards.
The newer form of web-based networking does away with visiting cards, personal visits altogether. You can be present whilst being absent. You don't have to take time to visit, spend time for conversations, you are more selfish, you connect at your own pace and time and context, when you want, not when it is suitable for all parties concerned.
American Indians say: The right time is when every one is ready, wondering at the punctuality of the European and his clock time.
This is the age of net-based social networking. I do spend more time on the computer (WI fi freely available) than before, even 5 years before. Checking email once a day was the only social networking activity in those days. Even now it is so, but the circle of friends with emails in all countries, Cambodia, Myanmar, China, Cuba, Iran, India, apart from the more developed countries, have increased. Emails tend to be short, in spurts, covering a single point, not a discourse but a communication, seldom imparting knowledge but almost always some information, very very seldom anything resembling a holistic conversation like the days before the Internet and strictly Quantitative Networking of the men and women in black suits.
The Daily Telegraph of London on its 5th March 2011 issue had this on page 9.
Forget TV, we spend more time checking Facebook!
Some startling figures (this from the UK)
Adults spend more time, up to 2.5 hours per day on social networking sites, increasingly on their iPhones plus their computers. By comparison, they average 2 hours of TV viewing; even then the Laptop may be left on.
3000 people were polled; ¼ admitted to spending up to 4 hours a day on Face Book!
Three out of four said they rather catch up with their friends than watch TV
Two out of three check updates after they go to bed.
Seven out of ten people in Britain have a Face Book account
One in three has a smartphone and almost all use it for Face Book, averaging two hours per day.
One in three logged on to Face Book up to 20 times per day, one in six even more…
Yet another sobering thought, one in three said they have had sex with some one they met on the Face Book!
(To be continued)
The photo in this page is a testament on how quickly cultures can speed its destruction. Sixty years ago, Bretonnes wore their typical hair adornment, called Bigouden, various regions in bretagne had their particular style. This lady is the last ONE left who uses the hair piece on a daily basis!
