No - Seriously, How Are You Doing?

There was a recent study that I read about through The Daily Telegraph's website called "Art of Chatting Face to Face Dying"

As you will read, psychologist, Harvard Business School researcher and etiquette columnist Robin Abrahams quotes 

"In the past, only about 40 per cent of people reported being shy in social situations." Now she says it affects half of our society due to technology. Furthermore, recently, Larry Magid, a syndicated journalist questioned technology and the complications that come with it here. 

Finally you also see the rise (Today's article in The San Jose Mercury News by Dean Takahashi states that "recent surveys show two-thirds of U.S. Internet users already visit a social networking service at least once a month") of the social networks (Disclaimer - I work with them and use most of them very frequently including this one), we see the rise of individuals with hundreds and thousands of friends. It is indeed ironic that as technology enables us to "add friend"s (Definition of Friendship according to Wikipedia), we are losing the art of chatting face to face and we are becoming less social - at least in our 'first life'. According to a nice contemplative post by Steve Rubel - The Web Changes How We Define Friendship.

One of the things that appealed to me most when I was fresh off the boat, leaving India in 1999 for the first time, was the opportunity to smile at everyone and share a joke or two. Little did I realize in the beginning that 'How Are you Doing" did not solicit a real response - it was a greeting only. I was not meant to actually stop and respond with sincerity. With time, I also realized that there were many people whom I met, at coffee shops or a grocery store, who were ready to disclose it all - we did not know each other. I believe they had a sense of security from that very fact that we did not know each other - their privacy was not being intruded since we would probably never meet. It feels a lot like that now - but online.

It does concern me a bit since America's culture of privacy with real people we know and the often small talk with strangers can easily lead to a lonelier slope for many. Social networks and the ability to sit alone and 'add friend's is a path of least resistance where there is no serious commitment to the relationship. It is all asynchronous and at one's own convenience. Recent studies further show this decline in the American culture.

Being a person who strongly believes that I am who I am and live a very fulfilling life because of the people around me (beginning with family), in my humble opinion, the single biggest power of these online resources is:

• The ability to enhance your reach to find and meet people (offline) whom you could not get to before.
• It compliments your face to face (pun intended) relationship and helps you sustain them on a long term basis
  
• It empowers you to surround yourself with people smarter than you
• And finally and very importantly, it enables you to be interested rather than being interesting 

Step back a little - do you have at least 2 confidantes (that an average American has)

Imagine: You are Connect-able