Social Net-working or not-working?

This was about a year ago. I got the shock of my life one sunday morning when my inbox welcomed me with 60-odd new mails. Being a sunday, I had time on my hands to go through each one of them before I could decide whether to retain it or delete it. Most of these mails were 'invitations' from different people, known(Read: jobless friends) and unknown. These were invitations to join and be a part of their friend circle on some not-so-popular social networking sites. I tried my hand at accepting the invitations, which involved filling lengthy registrations forms like the ones normally enountered while filling applications to uiversity programs.Then you were to choose ur 'cool' IDs and passwords. I did all of this and then all of this disappeared into oblivion for me.
Then a new batch of invitations to yet newer sites would find their way into my mail-box. Over the period i have got smarter and have reduced the burden on my already grief-stricken mailbox.
But social networking is here to stay and it is the in thing. It was a phenomenon which kicked off about 3 yrs back in India and since then ther has been no looking back. The e-mail rendered the letter useless, the instant messaging 'chat' replaced the e-mail and now its the 'scrap' which reigns supreme. Orkut and Facebook take the cake, though orkut is the more popular one in India. Most social networking sites have a structure which resembles the bio-data often submitted during job-interviews which includes:
The professional,
personal,
'About me' section and the 'interests ' section to top it all
On an average a startling 75% of the male population uses social networking to hook up (or make an attempt at hooking up) with a person of the opposite sex. The reason is simple,these sites link different people through list, circles,mutual friends etc and a lot many people project themselves openly. Well for once, even the most shy or dumb guy got his 'chance'.

Things most common on social networking sites, especially orkut:

1) Each guy has the current hot actor's pic as his display picture to avoid any embarassment while inviting any girl to join his circle.

2) For girls the display picture features either their favourite actress or things like flowers/puppies/kittens/ or anything according to them that qualifies as cute.

3) Most people are proud of the number of scraps they own. Some cant even count the number of zeroes in the number of scraps they own.

4)The worst friendship invitations a.k.a pick-up lines cane be easily discovered here. Sample it for yourself:


hey sweety i went thru your profile/....and then traced this community of thy....
1).u look damn sweet n say

2). hi wanna be my friend?

3)WOuld u like FRIENDSHIP with me .

4)If u wish and like then reply fast my friend.

5)hey girly u got a nice smile haaa

6) hi dear
u dere?
can i be ur fri?
my name his XYZ

7) so dear,
u like pets lot write ?? note the 'write'

8) hello, thx fr acceptin the request....

9)hi dear,
i need ur help.....pls scrap back into my scrapbook too

10) "Hey i like your smile/eyes/ears/nose. so, can we be friends?"

11) " Hey, will you please accept the hand of friendship from me?" (I can't see any hand)


5) Most of the so-called pick-up lines are hoplessly loaded with grammatical errors and the result of it is completely distorted and meaningless lines.
( I am a compete fan of these lines and there are many 'communities' n groups which are dedicated to celebrate these friendship lines.)

6) On the flip-side, if it weren't for orkut, no girl would get requests/invites and she wouldnt feel like a princess.


7)Orkutting is now the most sophisticated way of time-pass.It involves a lot many features and add-ons these days.

8) Most school students score really bad in English thanks to the poor quality/hip language used in such sites.

"Watcha Doin" replaces "What are you doing"
"Ssup" replaces " What is up with you?"

wa88, gr88 etc have done their bit of damage.

So if u bleve in orktn pls. dnt frgt to read this.it ll do wndrs to ur alredy spoilt languge and ll mke sure u dnt join oder social ntwrkin sites and waste ur prcious tym.

Regards

Vish