"Virtually" yours

I can still recall the times when Facebook was launched and people were going all crazy about it. I always used to wonder why this sudden immense need for networking. I am anyways connected with friends and family via phone, emails etc. Then why do I need Facebook? Such thoughts coupled with ignorance about how to use social networking sites made me kind of wary about Facebook and I conveniently dismissed it as another random, useless website. It was not until I moved to the USA that I realized what I was missing on.

Moving away from home to a faraway land, Facebook became my prime resource to keep up with things happening back at home.  Any interesting book, any new movie; I would instantly get a review from friends on Facebook. News, good or bad would invariably reach me first through Facebook. With family and friends living all over the world, we could share our lives through photos, videos and occasional chat sessions on Facebook. Facebook has become an integral part of my life; so much so that I felt a certain emptiness when I was unable to log on to Facebook while flying for more than 36 hours to India this winter.

But is it all good about Facebook? Well, I keep on wondering as I have come to realize that these days I sometimes tend to value my virtual friends more than the real ones. At times, I feel a kind of reluctance to meet up with people in real life and would prefer much more to socialize virtually. And I am convinced that this would increasingly become a trend where the whole concept of socializing would get a new meaning owing to the social networking sites.