Everything I do, I do it for you

It was in the wee hours of a chilly November night on one of the Fridays. It was all silence outside except the insects stridulating. Inside in the room, with a mug full of hot coffee and listening to the soothing voice of Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali khan, “Mai Khayal hoon kisi aur ka, mujhe sochta koi aur hai”, I opened Facebook. On my wall, I saw status update from my “friend”: Awarded Productive Scientist Award 2017. Only that it was neither an award nor it had to do anything with productivity. It was a directory, which enlisted anybody who wished to be listed. Scrolling further down, another “friend”: Delivering keynote address at the International Conference. Only that he was just a participant who paid the fee and the picture at the rostrum was during the break when nobody was there!

I opened WhatsApp and since Facebook has acquired it, inevitably the status has to be there. One of the contacts has updated a status with Eiffel Tower in the background. However, in late afternoon, I had seen him in the campus. And I am sure he doesn’t have a passport yet! I turned to Twitter. There I saw a person whining about how her cousins have ruined her routine. In another tweet, she said she had coffee at Gloria-Jeans. Only that there is no Gloria-Jeans in the 100 miles radius.

There was another day; on my wall, I saw a post: “My best friend’s mother died. Her funeral is at 3PM at this place.” This was updated at 2.50PM at a place, which is 20 miles from the funeral. Instead of posting on Facebook, why you don’t go yourself, one may ask. And to top it up, there were actual people who “liked” the post! In the month of Ramzan, one afternoon, I saw a “friend” updating his status about the benefits of fasting and its reward in the afterlife. With his other hand, he was sipping his coke. At some other time, a “friend” status: Summer is too much so I installed AC”. And with this, there were a few pictures of the new invention. We were supposed to be in awe like if it were the 1917 instead of 2017. 

And why the friend is in inverted commas is because Facebook friends are not real friends. They are just random people. Some of them you never met or will ever meet. Still you will get requests from random people and sometimes you have to accept out of courtesy. But WhatsApp has since topped that where anybody can add you to any group and you cannot do anything about it. The only option is to leave the group, which will notify the whole group that you left, hence, creating a bad feeling.

The original idea behind the social network was to connect like-minded people who can socialize. It was a good thing for even those who are reluctant in their real lives. However, now it has become something like a cheap local paper which is full of everything from fake selfies of people to daily pictures of their children to the fake news of what they had in lunch and dinner to the updates about what movie they are watching or what songs they are listening to. From the friendships to breakups, from engagements to weddings. Sometimes, to the news of what car they ordered and then the next 200 days are full of the wait and when it is delivered, the wall is littered with pictures of every square inch of the novelty. Instead of enjoying, we do something solely for the purpose to post pictures and post these on Facebook. There might be people who are less fortunate and when they see such updates, they feel sad. Instead of bragging, boasting and posting fake pictures, we might be realistic and think about the less fortunate people in the society. Or else we may become people of the Facebook and in the words of Bryan Adams:

You know it’s true:
Everything I do, I do it for you.

P.S. I didn't include the persons who update their status with their "research" papers. How to publish a paper is an art and requires a full blog post. So next time.