Early mornings are 'Internet time' for me. After my walk my mind is all fresh to absorb information - both the useful and the useless brand. Though my ever-whining conscience does drag me to the useful, let me admit that I don't reject Gk which people might call gossip. When I say gossip its strictly family and friends related. The circle is so large that I usually don't have time for the 'Kareena-Saif' variety. No offence to them, they are pretty good at churning out 'news' spicy enough for the front-page of certain newspapers but not for me.
I discovered recently that I can get more 'news' by just reading what my people write on each others "walls" and "scrapbooks" than by actually talking to them, that too just a mouse-click away. No wastage of time or resources on meeting people, e-mails or even phone calls. What my third cousin wrote on my first-cousin-once-removed's wall might be more authentic news than what I get second hand from an aunt. Yes, I am slightly jobless right now to be reading 'wall-to-wall' gabfests.
The concept of privacy settings hasn't sunk into most peoples minds. It gets even more interesting when friends put up photos and status messages without realising that some 'friends' also happen to be close/distant relatives or at least that the parents are also friends outside of the virtual world. I have had people frantically trying to reach me through all modes (e-mail, scraps, phone calls) when I congratulate them on their 'engaged/committed' status not to thank but to forbid me from telling anybody who knows their folks.
Thanks to all the networking sites I am well updated but I don't think its helping me attain sainthood any soon. But what the heck my 'spice less' life is sprinkled with some 'gossipice'.
Nice Post; amusing! :D
ReplyDeleteP.S: I am improving myself; no more bothering people with long comments. You won't believe I actually typed here a long comment yesterday (450 words) and then decided against it.
LOL that would be longer than my post :d
ReplyDeleteGuess this is called online stalking.
ReplyDeletePlease!!! :P
-Nikhil
Second Nikhil's comment! Didn't realize you were the stalking type. Man, I should be careful. :P
ReplyDeleteTha has set a cat among the pigeons!;)
ReplyDeleteI think this 'online stalking' is done by everyone in varying degrees.
Tha, here is my full comment that I had typed but did not submit. This is my elaborate comment unless you really make me angry/sad/happy in future!
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Nice post! Amusing!
I liked your innovation: 'Gossipice'!
You have a good vocabulary. You should get good marks in the essay paper and by corollary in other papers too(though the UPSC often gives devastating surprises; I pray that does not happen to you).
I also like the early mornings. I have always loved the small hours. I used to sleep early (very early sometimes by 7 PM) and get up very early (even by 2 AM) for studies (thanks to my father) in my childhood.
I also read scraps and profiles on Orkut. Apart from my regular account, I have a secret account on Orkut on which I have disabled the 'show profile visits' option. I love reading the about me pages on Orkut. I like the creativity and devil-may-care attitude of many Orkutters. By the way you may read my this post related to Orkut (mirror-cracking material). I am mostly an introvert and social networking does not have much significance for me but I like observing people and that is where it has utility for me.
Online networkings (twitter, myspace, facebook, Orkut and the like) have enveloped our lives to dizzying extent. There was some research done recently in the west where a newspaper built the complete biography (including sensitive information) of a person by piecing together all the available information on the internet including at the social networking sites!
I am rather new on Facebook and have only 5 friends there (4 of whom are dormant with almost blank walls!).
One does not have the same latitude on Facebook as Orkut and that is quite fine with me. Orkut still needs improvement (but Google has too many irons in fire to be able to find time to improve Orkut).
I am inclined to thinking it needs creativity to "get more news" on social networking sites and you are quite adept at that ;).
"The concept of privacy settings hasn't sunk into most peoples minds" and most profiles reveal so much unlike yours.
As always, I have forgotten that brevity is the soul of wit, needless to say!
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Typo! Read my elaborate comment as 'my last elaborate comment'!
ReplyDelete@vikas hey hey...i dont read random ppl's profiles/scraps...read friends/family, especially my relatives...family gossip is so much fun :P
ReplyDelete@Nikhil...like u dont do it....u blog stalker :P
@A.K.B....dude u r already so careful...thats why u dont hav a GF as yet ;)
ha.. i am relieved.. maybe i have done a good enough job of ensuring the stalkers don't get to know about certain things! :P
ReplyDeletebtw, no offense meant to anyone but imho, long comments should rather feature as blog-posts..!
@A.K.B.ho
ReplyDeleteThanks for your POV. I kinda both agree and disagree with it. It is often not possible to artificially contract comments/'ramblings' unless you write really little and/or use acronyms like "imho" ;)
When one is moved, one writes/speaks more though it is a fact that brevity is the soul of wit. On many good blogs the real discussion takes place in comments only.
Recently I wrote long comments on a blogging help site and the site owner actually decided to make it a blog post and it was quite successful with a lot of debate and 27 comments! Feel free to visit the following link. http://onecoolsite.wordpress.com/2009/02/12/onecoolsite-tips-from-a-reader/
Thank you for the interjection; no offence taken. :)