Skip to main content

Featured Loser

I found this story about Facebook monitoring users with low or no wall activity and prompting their friends to write on their wall, somewhat disturbing. I have a FB account for my blog but not one for my real self. I find the constant connection and interaction with hundreds of friends and acquaintances very suffocating. If my real self did have FB profile, it would probably not see much wall or any activity for that matter. One sided communication can last only so long - after a while folks would simply stop poking me and writing on my wall. With that, I would be a prime candidate for FB's Featured Loser program.

FB assumes that a person's social standing is directly proportional to the volume of activity on their wall. What if the person is on FB simply because everyone else in their social circle is but they are not into social networking at all. Making them feel like a loser is not likely to get them excited about a medium they are lukewarm about to begin with. Upping activity and usage stats is all fine and dandy but this is probably not the smartest way to go about the job.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Unknown said…
Send breathtaking gifts to USA and make a beguiling focal point to any celebration. Add unique beauty and style to the occasions of your special ones in USA with our exotic range of gifts.

Please visit:
www.expressgiftbasketsusa.com
5:30 AM
Hemanth said…
One couldn't agree more. Social networking sites are becoming a norm these days. You've got to be on FB, Twitter, whatever. They are no more what they set out to be.
6:37 AM
LIFE_REFACTORED said…
FB is different in many senses.
If you can blog without expecting comments, why not use your blog fb account to socialize with your blog fb friends :)
I'm sure you have a steady readership.
But god, i hate twitter.
11:49 PM
Anonymous said…
like life, on FB too it boils down to being comfortable with yourself. No body can make you feel like a loser if you don't consider yourself one. I am pretty proud of the fact that I don't play farmville and write philosophical things as my status every morning. So much so, I think I am becoming a snob.

-A bonafide FB loser
12:30 AM
LIFE_REFACTORED said…
sent you a note to an fb account resembling this blog.
2:17 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Part Liberated Woman

An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t...
111 comments
Read more

Under Advisement

Recently a desi dude who is more acquaintance less friend called to check in on me. Those who have read this blog before might know that such calls tend to make me anxious. Depending on how far back we go, there are sets of FAQs that I brace myself to answer. The trick is to be sufficiently evasive without being downright offensive - a fine balancing act given the provocative nature of questions involved. I look at these calls as opportunities for building patience and tolerance both of which I seriously lack. Basically, they are very desirous of finding out how I am doing in my personal and professional life to be sure that they have me correctly categorized and filed for future reference. The major buckets appear to be loser, struggling, average, arrived, superstar and uncategorizable. My goal needless to say, is to be in the last bucket - the unknown, unquantifiable and therefore uninteresting entity. Their aim is to pull me into something more tangible. So anyways, the dude in ques...
6 comments
Read more

Changing Pace

This blog has been a big part of my life for the last five years. Besides giving me the opportunity to connect with a number of interesting people and share my thoughts and ideas with them, it has been a form of daily meditation for me. No matter what the day threw my way, I made a very deliberate effort to find a little quiet time to write.The process of thinking about what to write and then the act of writing itself worked as an antidote to aggravations big and small. Five and half years ago, when I started Heartcrossings both my personal and professional lives left a lot to be desired for. The only real happiness I had was in being J's mother. While that was often enough to make me forget what I did not have, I sorely needed a third place to call my own and shape in the likeness of my dreams. This blog has been where there were no limits or constraints and that was absolutely exhilarating - it is the reason I have been able to nurture it for as long and as much as I have. A lot ...
25 comments
Read more