Skip to main content

Are Online Social Interactions making us more awkward?


In reality, this is the "righteous" path that all of us have already trotted onto. The mediums of communication, that help us substitute physical interactions, keep on flooding our ecosystem. Be it virtual classrooms, virtual conferences or even attending virtual concerts, they are all there.

And every now and then, there is something disruptive, or let me rather call it confusing, something that is Yo! Let's not try and get into the super high valuation that the app is getting. But, some of the use cases that have been developed, like the alerts that Israelis have been getting whenever there is a rocket strike back home. With some of these apps raising insane amount of bids, with the likes of Whatsapp ($19 Billion), Instagram ($1 Billion) and Snapchat ($3 Billion), even when the base itself has no angle for justification, we can probably place a bet on the way Yo is headed. The game changer though remains, if at all, the app will be able to break into the stock that mobile OS's have, and change the way notifications are delivered onto these platforms.

Now, Do all these social platforms, and continuous disruptions, have an impact on the physical interactions also? I feel, yes.

It is almost impossible to keep the two worlds separate: the online and the offline worlds. And the way our communication has seen a transition from: Hi, How are you today? to Wassup to A simple poke, it is a little disconcerting that when we actually have the need to be a little verbose, we can't really be.

Its not only about saying stuff though, is it? Its about how you behave in a room. Will you be the person who's standing in a corner and feeling I am absolutely ok here, and don't feel the urge to interact with 5 different people, although the purpose of the room was to network. Quite a lot of folks do.

There is a flip side to it too though.
These days, if you are sitting in a group of 10-15 people, that you know well, and if you look around the room, you'll find atleast 25-30% of the people who are awkward, socially awkward. But this isn't necessarily a bad thing. The quirks that each of these people display, in the interactions that are happening, are really the gems that create the dynamism of the group. These people might struggle during the initial rounds of interactions, but once they open up, is when you realize, the hidden wealth of the group.

And that is really where you ask the question, "Are we really getting socially awkward?"

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Google Allo - And its Content Ratings on iOS

Google just launched their new messaging app Allo in an already overcrowded market. Now there are plenty of opinions online, that you can read, talking about what are the chances that Allo succeed, so we are not going to talk about it here. However, when trying to download the app on iOS through App Store, an interesting thing caught my attention. The content rating that was given to this messaging app was 17+ with further click ins such as: Nudity, Profanity etc. On the other hand, a simple comparison with WhatsApp (the debatable leader in the market), you'd realize the same has a rating of 4+. Screenshot Dt. 23rd Sept 2016: Taken on India App Store on iPhone Similar to PG ratings on entertainment contents, App Store has the following scale : 4+, 9+, 12+ and 17+ with the varying scales of nudity, profanity, violence and other such adult (not "child" safe) references. But its simply baffling to have such a huge gap between the content rating for tw...

Euro Trotting - The Beginning

Stepping into the 'developed world' for the first time definitely felt strange. I just bring that distinction out simply because it is omnipresent, or atleast made that way by plenty'a people. There is this thing that I really like to do. Always taking a detour on my way to the final destination. What ensued was a layover in Helsinki, Finland. And the view out from the plane window of the Finland landscape covered with snow and what looked like scattered pine trees, was beyond words. Glad that the city had the season's first snowfall just the day before, everything around was much brighter. The thing that struck me the most about Finnish is that they are as 'direct' people as you'd ever find, and they'd call a spade a spade with the straightest possible face. You try and bullshit them, and you'd definitely be sorry. And all this, was not just a passing observation, it's been ratified  by the few that I know out here in Grenoble. Getting back...

The first 31st on an 'alien' land

Dear Blog, One thing you don't want on a 31st is for your day to start with work. And o'course I ain't that lucky. But at-least I got a 'half day' (will someone inform the management that if you reduce 2 working hours from 10, it does not become 'half day'). O'course the thumb rule in such cases says " you take what you get, and be happy  or else you will end up either very miserable or getting fired", neither of which interests me much. The Idea There is a thin line between "A Plan" and "An Idea". I had neither. I only knew this for a fact that no way I will spend this night in my camp. In came Mr. Tejaswi, with some ' amoeba like shit' in his head, to my aid. I will still refrain from calling it a plan, since you cannot be sure of things here in Qatar on days of holiday (family day and stuff like that), although no once can stop you if you are really stubborn and a little innovative. As for The Idea, it had a...