It was around fifteen years when I got to know about Facebook. Since then Facebook has been changing its profiles in several interesting patterns. Friends who had once appeared as the most sincere one have either disappeared or lost in the run of times. Fortunately, some old friends go back into real from the realm of memories and some new friends made their pleasant presence felt. But sad that with the passage of time, Facebook is becoming a medium of deception where we began to behave more formal than real. Often I thought of leaving this field but presence of few friends had proved to be the magnet that kept the relationships alive. However, I feel this friendship is losing the verve and sincerity. I may take a sabbatical from social media and for those of my friends who want to know what does this word means – “In recent times, “sabbatical” has come to mean any extended absence in the career of an individual in order to achieve something. In the modern sense, one takes sabbatical typically to fulfill some goal, e.g., writing a book, need time to look into retrospect or travel extensively for research. Some universities and other institutional employers of scientists, physicians, and academics offer the opportunity to qualify for paid sabbatical as an employee benefit, called sabbatical leave. The concept of sabbatical originates in the Holy Bible.
An article of my colleague Sneha Pathak is forcing to go in that direction. Here are some excerpts of her thought provoking column:
Gone are the days when people write elaborate letters and wait for replies, or spend evening in a park or a coffee house talking to friends.
People are becoming increasingly more reserved for fear of being judged by a society where appearing happy on social media is more important than actually being happy. So ironically, the more some people share, less they share their real selves. Sometimes one needs to listen to people, understand their situations without judgment.
What a world we live in where we would rather post messages to random strangers than communicate about what is bothering us with our close friends.
It is easy to mask your emotions behind the bunch of fake ones.
What is the point of observing on social media if we don’t know what is going on in their life.
For a change, let’s try to be social in our real lives instead of the virtual world.
