'Social' has a New Definition

chillibreeze writer — Subhadarshini Mitra

Social networking sites are no more just a tool to connect with like-minded people or long-lost school friends. They have found their way into history for bringing a revolution in the world of web and technology. Cutting across class, caste or other such social distinctions, it’s a pool of human resource — coming together on one platform to voice opinions on issues, thinking loud and even ideating at times with islands of people getting to know each other and sharing minds, even if they are miles apart geographically.

The answer to the question ‘What is your Social Quotient or SQ’ is directly proportional to your presence in as many social networking sites as possible. Facebook, Orkut, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. are some of the networking sites which are shaping this giant monster whose popularity is growing by the day. If you want to become really famous, you just got to spend as much time as you can, hopping from one site to the other.

Wonder if Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor would have managed to become the talk of the town as much had he not been tweeting around — creating ripples, every now and then, with his comments on Twitter. Mr. Tharoor is not the only one who has ‘tweet’ as his middle name; actors like Amitabh Bachchan and many more biggies have got on to the wagon.

Youngsters, these days, check their popularity and at times compete against each other depending upon the number of friends they have got in their profiles or by how many of them show up every time they post something on the profile. It has been seen that the larger the figure in friends list, the better, for you would be considered ‘social’ likewise!

Visibility is a key factor in increasing your social quotient in this case but mind you, it can get you into trouble if you try getting attention for the wrong reasons. The recent protest by the hardliners in Pakistan where they objected to a community asking people to draw their Prophet and the subsequent ban imposed on Facebook, later lifted by the court, is one such example. In the sub-continent, even Bangladesh recently banned the use of Facebook due to uploading of sardonic pictures of Prophet Mohammad. In Chin, it has been banned for quite some time now. You can well imagine the scale of acceptance and their role in mobilising people by the concerns shown at a national level.

A research on social media says that if Facebook were a nation, it would apparently be the fourth largest in the world between the United States and Indonesia. Another report says that in India however, Orkut has the maximum number of members, followed by Facebook. Lucky Mr. Orkut and Mr. Zuckerberg, who are raking moolah for having started these social sites! Bharatstudent.com, ibibo.com and LinkedIn follow the leaders.

However, a concern raised by the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales is over the fleeting friendships that have been proliferating through the internet. Adults registered on these sites can responsibly connect with people; however, minors (who become members with fake age) are at a risk if their ‘friendships’ do not remain limited to a healthy exchange of information and ideas.

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Chillibreeze's disclaimer: This is a contributed article and was published on Chillibreeze in August, 2010. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of Chillibreeze as a company. Chillibreeze has a strict anti-plagiarism policy. Please contact us to report any copyright issues related to this article. The relevance of the facts and figures cited (if any) could change after a period of time.

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—About our writer:

Shubhdarshani Mitra has studied journalism and has over six years of experience in television and print media. She began her career with Reuters Television before getting into print. She has travelled to villages, academic institutions and tourist spots while working on assignments. She worked on the B-school Guide brought out by the Business World magazine and the Skills Compendium by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). Apart from freelancing for management books, Shubhdarshani occasionally writes for mainstream newspapers and has also prepared content for the website of an open university. She is currently based out of Bangalore.

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