( Article published in The New Leader_August_2012)
Shadows of the Virtual World
Joseph
Shibin SJ
We live in a new world created by the latest development in the technology. The
new world is the reality in which we live. The old generation is very much
confused before the sudden changes in the technology and they feel jealous of
the younger generation who are rather fast at computer. The reality of the
virtual world is not something strange for us. A paradigm shift happended in
the world during the last five years and that resulted in the formation of a
new world called a virtual world. This virtual world is beyond the reach of our
senses but it exists as a reality. This
new world is the result of the advancement in technology in the recent years. People
aspire to own a little space in the virtual world and to have friendship and
relationship in a virtual world. People find it more comfortable to express themselves
in a better way in this new world where they need not meet the other person
face to face. People are willing to live in this virtual world and to stay
connected with the near and dear ones.
The
recent developments in mobile technology, information technology and social
networking sites led us gradually to a new life in a new world. This world is simply amazing. Facebook and
the other social networking sites are there to help us to connet with people
and to share with them our precious momemts. Many youngsters expressed their
joy that they are able to find their lost friends through facebook. The children
of today find it easy to sit before facebook than to sit before their book. ‘Have
you got a facebook account?’ This is the question asked by the people when they
say bye to a person after a few minutes of interaction with him. A new kind of
friendship also has emerged and that is called facebook friendship. What is the
relevance of facebook friendhip?
And what is the depth of
a facebook friendship? These are the questions before us remain unanswered.
I
came across a mother who told that
her child is an expert in computer and she is not able to understand
the new language of technology spoken by
her son.Later I heard that the child is
in the world of facebookand find it
difficult to focus on his studies. This is what happening to many of our children.
Our children can easily create a facebook account and open up themselves to the
mysterious world of social networking and new kind of emotional problems are
arising as a result of the use of facebook. The happiness of a
child is proportional to the
number of ‘likes’ he received on any photos he uploaded.Many children
and youth are addicted to facebook to
the degree that they become restless if
nobody likes the images or videos uploaded. In a virtual world the feelings and
emotions of people bounce and reach different places. We can make friends with
somebody by a mouse click. Many people send reply to the friends requests
without knowing many details about the other person.This results in the
formation of a facebook friendship.One student from a major school in Kottayam
shared that he has more than five hundred friends in facebook. But he is not
sure that the virtual friends may come to help him when he is going through the
difficult situations of life. He also shared that he doesn’t have any close friends
from his own class. Even the concept of friendship has undergone a drastic
change over the years. Personal care and
the loving care among friends are replaced by a few moments with facebook.
People
hardly find time to talk with their friends when they meet each other and they
leave the other by saying that they will keep in touch over phone or facebook.
Greeting cards are replaced by SMS, e-mail or writing on our facebook wall.
Then what about the warmth of a loving words on the memorable day in our
friends life?
According
to Emmanuel Levinas, we need to understand and affirm the otherness of the
other and shold not limit the other to the same. He believed that the other may
enjoy his or her own otherness. Understanding the other happens in a deep
friendship. But in the era of social
networking sites we tend to limit the other to the same. It will be the
loneliness and the alienation experienced by present generation drag them to
the world of friendship in a virtual world. The great German thinker Paul Tillich
makes a clear distinction between loneliness and solitude. “Loneliness
expresses the pain of being alone and solitude expresses the glory of being
alone.”
The
present day generation lives in a world of deadlines, cut-throat competiotions,
noise and the life becomes chaotic when they find difficult to do justice to the
deadlines. As a result most of them are not in touch with the self and the
reality which led to the disappearance of warm friendship and lack of
commitments in relationships. Friendship has just become a facebook friendship
and sharing became limited to the sharing of a video or an image in some social
networking sites.
The
more we go for a virtual world and the relationship in a virtual world the more
we become alienated from our own immediate neighbours. Let us not be controlled
by the virtual world we have created and its own emotions. Human feelings and
friendship cannot be limited to mere facebook interactions or text messages.
According to Jacques Derrida, we need to give warm friendship to all the people
we meet in our day to day life. Let our lives be meaningful and let our love be
genuine. We should not allow ourselves be guided and controlled by the
technology we have developed. We need to transcend them that even in the world
of technology today we may feel better and be more focused. There must be an
attitudinal change that we are not lost in the virtual world.
