Facebook and Manipal

FB Addiction and Social Life
Yeah! That gives me a high!

You are in Manipal? You don’t have a Facebook account?

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT???

Yes, every single student here breathes Facebook. Eats Facebook. Drinks Facebook. Does Facebook. And if you are not on Facebook, get a life!

Such is the sheer impact of this online phenomenon that it is a norm to log onto it for half hour each day at least. And ask anyone who has been in Manipal for more than a year, Facebook matters. A lot. Facebook and Manipal – They’re made for each other!

With Wi-Fi connectivity across campus and free laptops provided to all students, it is no wonder that Facebook is so big here. And the best part is, you don’t even have to TRY to get addicted to it. Just get past the first and only hurdle of setting up an account and understanding how the thing basically works. That’s it. You will be hooked. Bad.

FB Addiction and Social Life
Yeah! That gives me a high!

If we are in the same class, or I have heard of your name mentioned more than once among my friends or you are just one of the many popular people around campus,then trust me, I have checked your account. For sure. And if your account is locked to unknown people, then I have surely gone down the “mutual friends” list. I might have also drawn some mental conclusions by looking at the total number of friends you have.Or the number of pics you have uploaded. And if by any chance your account is open, then you could only wish that hiccups don’t occur when someone thinks about you. Otherwise you will be dead from them at that moment.

Want to trace someone up? Want to track someone down? Or just want to check out your latest crush? Then Facebook is where you should be. From photos to info to latest wall posts (it’s the space where you can post your status messages, or answer random questions about friends who you don’t even care to say hi to or find out “What god wants you to know” that day etc.), it’s all there.

Above all, it’s very very useful to keep in touch with the friends you have left from your previous school/college. With a handy chat feature embedded into the user interface (which will almost all the time make your browser hang); it is the perfect tool to keep your social quotient from dipping. Moreover, with a hard to miss “Birthdays” column, almost everyone will admit that remembering birthdays is no more required. Facebook to the rescue. Likewise, on your birthday you will get wishes from people you didn’t even remember existed.

And Beware! Everything you post/update/change/do on Facebook is noticed. And by a lot of people. And you are judged by it. And you are praised/ridiculed by it. It is talked about among people you didn’t even know were on your friends list. Yes. You are under the magnifying glass. But so is everyone else. And that’s the best part.

Especially with the various college clubs organizing so many events all year around, Facebook amazingly transforms into a nifty marketing strategy. A big one at that. So don’t be surprised to get invitations asking you if you are going to attend a theater or if you are taking part in the latest seminar. Open the requests column and you might find yourself staring at an invitation from someone asking you to help him grow his farm or build his Mafia gang i.e. if you already are not building yours.

So if you already haven’t started using it, where have you been?

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*


This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.