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title: Tryst with Social Media

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# Tryst with Social Media

Couple of months ago, I met an old friend of mine. He was not married yet, but was in the eagerly planning mode to get hitched. We caught up, had some drinks and dinner together, then we planned to take a stroll. We were walking on a street, talking about life, his marriage plans, and about other friends, when I just stumbled upon a very funny quote on a window of a shop. The quote read "Marriage is like a walk in the park... Jurassic Park." I chuckled at that as it was relevant to our discussion and then I pointed that to my friend to have a look. He read that, looked at me and his immediate reaction was LOL. Yes, he said LOL. 

For a moment, I was blank when I heard that. LOL is an expression that people use on internet and social media to express others that they are 'laughing out loud' - LOL. But what is the need of using it with people directly when you could actually laugh?
So, I was like "What? What did you say?". He immediately understood the blunder and was embarrassed and then we both laughed out loud.

It is quite interesting as well as a bit scary, if we realise how entangled people's lives are with internet, and Social media. It is hard to believe that internet expressions are slowly making way into our lives.

I have this uncle back in India whom I meet every time I visit India. He is a school teacher and like most other people in that job, he is strict and finds every opportunity to teach discipline to all of us around, yet he is a lovely person. 

Whenever I met him, I heard him complaining about people spending a lot of time on mobile phones and he thinks it is quite a waste of time. He doesn't use a smart phone and have no presence on social media.

But to my surprise, last month one fine day when I was in office, I received a message on whatsapp from this very uncle, for the first time ever. I was surprised, and opened the message. It was a forwarded message that read 'Good Morning!'. 
I was initially surprised and as a courtesy I replied "Good Morning Uncle! How are you? What a surprise you are on whatsapp". I sent 3-4 messages out of curiousity. But then there was no response. After few minutes, I get a response from my uncle. It is not a response to any of my questions. It is another forwarded message. This time the forwarded message read "It is a wonderful day today. Do you know why?". Immediately, after reading that, the thought that came to my mind was that, Did I forgot an important day, may be his birthday, some anniversary, a festival... but no, none of them fall on that day. So sheepishly I looked at the message again that read.. "It is a wonderful day today, do you know why?" I responded, "Why?". Again no response from my unclde. By this time, I was getting anxious and was watching the phone and after a few moments, I received a message finally. It was again a forwarded message. It read "It is a wonderful day today because it takes you to closer to your dreams by one day." I was like.. "Come on Uncle, Really?"

As my curiousity grew, that evening I called my uncle and eventually came to know that his school started a whatsapp group and that is how he got in. But what was visible after that day was his presence on social media significantly increased. I see every day 4-5 different "Good Morning" messages. I was like why 4 different "Good Morning" messages one with flowers, one with nice scenary, one with sunshine.. So in one of my phone conversations with him, I told him not to send so many "Good Morning" messages everyday in a subtle way. After that day the "Good Morning" messages have reduced to one. I was like yes it worked, but then 'Life Quotes' have started. I was like "No uncle No..". But those never stopped. Anyway, I got used to it now.

And then recently a terrible thing happened.. I woke up and see a FaceBook friend request on my mobile phone. My uncle joined FB. I was surprised, couldn't believe it. Oh, he got into Facebook now. I showed that request to my wife, who was lying beside me browsing her phone. She looked at that and was equally amused, turned towards me and said LOL...

That's my time!




