THE THING ABOUT US - OUR SOCIAL DEPENDENCY

A few years back, when Facebook (or FB) was making its mark on the Internet, a lot of my friends quicky subscribed to its service and jumped on this social networking bandwagon.

I did not.

I really think that social networking services in the Internet are meant for those who have a lot of free time at their hands and honestly, I am not into that kind of thing. Well, I did join some social networking site but its more of a strategy to promote and to popularize my previous blog, Nasi Lemak and Nescafe Tarik.


Now I think, almost everyone I know has a Facebook, and if they are not, I'll bet you that someone they know are Facebooks users. Thats how big the circle of FB users around you. I think its most appropriate if now we say, kalau baling batu tengah orang ramai mesti kena sorang Facebook user.

Anyway, that is not what I am getting at.

People loves to hear news about someone they know. Doesnt matter if that someone is a relative, friends or an old flame. Hey, people even loves to know something about a friend of a friend. And sometimes they dont have any idea who the hell that friend of a friend is anyway. Rather than labelling that kind of behaviour as nosy or busybody, I would personally say that its normal inquisitive human nature at work. Its embedded in our DNA since forever to want to know about something even if it got nothing to do with ourselves.

The old way of catching up latest news, gossips and happenings back then in my growing up years, would be at the gathering of parents searching for their children right before maghrib. Usually parents will berkumpul in front of a popular neighbour's house turned playground, and while yelling "Oi budak, engko balik mandi SEKARANG, kata aku!" they exchanged information on everyday stuff.

I also remember that whenever the fishmonger came to our neighbourhood riding his Honda 70 kapchai every morning, all the wives and mothers came out in droves from their homes. And of course while buying foodstuff to cook for the afternoon meal, they grabbed at that opportunity to exchange latest gossips.

And they did this every single day.

It made me think that perhaps our social act of getting together far outweigh the importance of exchanging of the news itself.

Make sense?

I mean that is what millions of Facebook fans are doing, arent they? Like our parents before us, we discussed about everything under the stars in there. Need that particular recipe? Just post what we need on our FB wall, and someone will surely give the much needed help. Got wishes to send? No problem, just send it through one of the many available FB applications. Want to share share a particular news? Type what we think inside our head in the FB and everybody will know the instance they launched their own FB.

We gathered almost all the person we know in our own space. And we wholeheartedly embraced social networking application like Facebook to share our news, happenings and gossips with one another, much like what the older generations did. Long distances doesnt mean a thing these days and we could easily keep in touch wherever we are.

The thing with all this is that, we cannot but be dependent on one another for that need to interact. The way of keeping in touch might be totally different now compared to 10 - 20 years ago, but we are no different from our parents generation or the generation before them. Our social dependency still remains the same. We got together on Facebook and socialize, even with the obvious lack of personal touches and the privilege of having the interaction face to face.

Joining other middle age adult this year for me, I think I am beginning to morph and form new characteristics that were very alien to me before. Like subscribing to Facebook. I admit with no shame that I now consider myself as a heavy Facebook user. I enjoyed the user friendly interface and the space provided for photos storage. And I found Mafia Wars is very, very fun and engaging to play.


Oh yes, I am putting the blame on the age factor, definitely.