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Tales around digital campfire
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Social media tools facilitate a blend of old –fashioned humanity and warmth with the 21st century bells and whistles, says G.B.S.N.P. Varma
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Photo: Ranjeet Kumar
Bonhomie Staying connected gives a high which is akin to the warmth and cheer spread by a campfire
There was a doctor, a civil engineer, and a computer scientist sitting around late one evening, and they got to discuss about the oldest profession. The doctor pointed out that according to Biblical tradition, God created Eve from Adam’s rib. T
his obviously required surgery, so therefore that was the oldest profession in the world.
The engineer countered with an earlier passage in the Bible that stated that God created order from the chaos, and that was most certainly the biggest and best civil engineering example ever, and also proved that his profession was the oldest profession.
The computer scientist leaned back in her chair, and with a sly smile responded: “Yes, but who do you think created the chaos?”
Well, you kinda tell a joke like this or a story around a campfire in a chilly breeze or in your neck of woods, hoping it would touch a chord in others. The warmth of connecting with others through stories has been with us from time immemorial. It’s elemental.
How do you keep the conversation going or how do you go about sharing the stories? Welcome to the new social media.
Staying connected
Social media is a set of online technologies and practices that facilitates people to share stories, experiences, feelings, and thoughts with each other and to participate in interesting and engaging conversations to connect with others. Social media takes different forms: blogs (these are online diaries where you can post and get the feedback), social networking sites (where you can create personal web pages and connect with friends, like in MySpace), wikis (you can contribute and edit the content on these websites, as in the well known Wikipedia), podcasts (audio and video files) forums (online discussions about specific topics and interests), content communities (online communities sharing content about a particular interest, like Flickr for photos, YouTube for videos). “Whether a professional or an amateur, social software tools have given a voice to people,” says G. Ramakrishna, a lecturer in sociology. “Web sociology is something we should care for, the kinship among people across continents, their attitudes and lifestyles shaped by these exchanges, how they affect real-world life, all these should be carefully researched into,” he opines.
These media tools are the best thing to happen for someone like Satish, a second year M.A. sociology student. “They give unprecedented access to the world.” Unlike in “traditional media which is mostly top-down”, the new tools “facilitate a conversation at the visceral level.”
Great feedback
“It has given a new dimension to our interaction, no matter what the distance," chirps Chandrasekhar happily. “Apart from e-mails, I go online for discussions on latest trends in technology,” he says adding: “Well, you get exposed to the happenings in the tech world, and you get to see multiple points of a view,” observes Sulochana, a third year engineering student.
“When I had trouble coding,” shares Rakesh, a software programmer, “I discussed it in online forums and a guy from Finland suggested a way out. Man! It worked fine,” he gushes. Sridhar is an amateur sociologist who feels that “these applications load a lot of context into our interactions. And, you can also wear your heart on your sleeve,” he says with a glint in his eyes, adding: “Of course, you can’t help doing it in any other way in these intimate informal interactions.”
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