I asked these questions to myself today. Why everyone with net access want to be on facebook? What is so peculiar about FB and other social websites like youtube or blogs on internet? Why the virtual world has become so important in our life? What is the biggest difference in our life in virtual world and real world? and the answer that came in to my mind was "Equality". It's this quality of equality that has made social media so popular. No one is no one's boss or superior or subordinates...their are just friends or friends of friends or friends of friends of......friends. And in Equality, a sense of empowerment is inherent. Here everyone is important. Of course all of us has raised ourself to the status of a mini celebrity, which has its side effect too but yet, a common man (and woman and children too of course ) of real world is a really important person. And those who are not so good in real world can very well pretend to be as good as they want to be. The social media on internet give us an opportunity to fill the gap between our 'real self' and 'ideal self', which is certainly a very important factor in giving us a sense of identity. There are certain anomalies and negative sides of this virtual reality, be it net addiction or compromise to our privacy, we still don't want to give it up. This probably tells us what we actually want from real world...a little sense of importance, a sense of care and of course a sense of equality and empowerment. The distance and limitation of the physical world disappear in the virtual world. The freedom of expression be exercised so vividly on the internet. You can say anything about anyone or anything so candidly. The virtual world has transcended the geographical and political boundaries. We have a platform to know the people of the rest of the world, (even if we don't know a person living on the next door but that's a different aspect of the story of our ever changing society). We tend to share our life, express ourself and want to about everything happening to everyone everywhere in this world. At least virtually we are unified.
