So the world has shrunk, is it?

There used to be a time when your only friends were those whom you went to school with or those that you played with after school. There used to be a time when cousins of your same age were categorized as friends. But today, the thing that scares you the most is a friend 'request' on Facebook from your mom/dad. For those familiar with Twitter, a colleague or a long lost school friend following you is something that would scare you. Not because you don't like them, but because it would be harder for you to maintain the image you have created for yourself. 

The internet has made our lives into something like a restaurant. We choose what we see and work with. If you do not find someone's posts on Facebook interesting you unsubscribe from their news-feed. Yes, internet today can be summed up as Facebook + Twitter + E-mail client. Less than one percent of our internet time is going into constructive work. We read one Wikipedia article for every hundred tweets we read. I'm being generous here. Only one percent of the Wikipedia pages are completely read. It is indeed sad that the internet is eating into our lives.


I happened to stumble upon a fact that Google search results vary from person to person. Even computer to computer for the same person, depending on attributes like location and even the browser you use. We are not reading news in the form of facts. We are reading what the algorithm assumed to be our topic of interest.


You make friends with people whom you haven't even met. You are far more comfortable talking to them about stuff you probably won't discuss with your classmate. One, it is because you find these people to be anonymous and well cut out from your life for the information to come back and bite you. Two, it is because you think these people match your wavelength or in layman's terms they crib about the same thing you do.


Ask yourself how many good friends you had and how many good friends you have?
How many of them have you met online? 


Imagine the number of personal data you have let out into the internet. None of us have the faintest idea about how much of it is recoverable. Facebook is using the data to try and make it more user-friendly. 


Did you notice how many of your friends have disappeared from your news-feed? Do you think it is because they are inactive on Facebook? If so, you have been fooling yourself. It is because you did not pay enough attention to their posts for a certain period of time. You stopped 'liking' their posts. You stopped commenting on their photos. Facebook assumes you do not find them interesting anymore and has made ignoring them easy by removing them from your news-feed entirely. Facebook is phasing out your friends. It is playing the boss by showing you what interests you. It is a machine and it probably is wrong.


Like I said your life has become a restaurant and you are choosing what to see while the internet decided what not to see. It gives you the illusion that you are connecting with people across the globe all the while losing touch with your next door neighbor. Day by day you are becoming an island where all you can see are  the things you once found interesting and the internet assumed that summed up your world.


Ask yourself, has the world really shrunk?

I might as well join the bandwagon

This post can also be titled "A day in the life of " or just in case the limelight misses you "How I joined a billion people in worrying about Tendulkar's ton :-)" 


Before you get all worked up and go "the fuck is this, the fuck is that" on the comments section, I'd like to make four things clear:
1. I'm as much a fan of Sachin as you are. You are probably better because no matter what I say, you will claim so.


2. Sachin will NOT read this blog post even if his astrologer says that reading this will make getting the 100th hundred easier.


3. It's an undeniable fact that Sachin is one of the greatest ever to have swung the willow because none has tried denying it in the first place. Also because it is kinda true.


4. Read points 1-3 until you are clear.


It is indeed sad that a handful of recent happenings have stolen the thunder from Sachin, who, now probably is at some dimly lit bar in Melbourne drinking away his woes. It is important to get over sorrow to become successful. The popular saying goes 'jo jeeta hai woe hi sikkandar'. It has been a real tight competition among Sachin, Kapil Sibal, Anna Hazare and a bunch of corrupt politicians. But in the end, cricket has been the winner, every time.


Godwin's law says that every discussion on the internet will sooner or later end up in Nazi bashing. The Indian version of it is that every discussion will end up with the conversationalists worrying about Tendulkar's hundred not unlike the Tambrahm parent concerned about the son's centum in Mathematics or a bad joke on death and destruction. I ask you one simple question which I have asked myself numerous times in vain, why?

Immediate attention and all that, but there is an etiquette to make jokes, right? Everything is not a joke. There was a fire in a hospital at Calcutta today. The death toll reached 20. And somewhere someone has been making "Who will reach 100 first? Death toll or Sachin?" No expletive can express how cruel this is. It's a welcome change that people have started taking things light. You move on, make a couple of jokes and laugh about it. But when? Not when Rome is still burning. If you come to me with "Nero became famous because he played when Rome was burning. Not when Rome was, well, not burning" I will reply with "fornicate thee" in street language. I'm not asking you to cut down the jokes completely or something like that. I spend major part of my day coming up with pathetic jokes myself. But there is a line and most of us are crossing it even before we tweet or put up a facebook update. 


Wait. I know what you are thinking.I asked you not to talk about Sachin everywhere but I did here.
I asked you not to make jokes about death but I did here.


I being one among you in the society will escape with the same excuse. Everyone is busy coming up with stuff like this, so, I might as well join the bandwagon.