The Need to Feed our Egoes

This blog started out as an effort to freely express my feelings, to share my thoughts, opinions and experiences. Over the past few months i have found it harder to contribute freely. The reason being, increased visibility and exposure to social media. Facebook, Twitter, Google + you name it and I have an account. I have become more conscious, i want to be a perfectionist in everything i put out there. I know people are reading and i want them to like what they read. I have fallen into the trap of feeding my ego.

Aren't we all in that trap, riding high on ego? Social media is a perfect way to satiate just that. When we post a picture on Facebook we don't post the ones which are just ordinary or make us look ugly, we pick the best ones. We spend time editing them to look the best. Why so?? Because we can achieve instant gratification. You post a good picture and within seconds friends, family and acquaintance will praise it, tell u how beautiful u look or what a great picture it is. Does that not feel great? It instantly gratifies your ego. You feel awesome about yourself.  

But what is it that we fear? We fear that we are not liked enough, or that we are not accepted by all or that my friend will gets 20 comments on her picture and i only 2. So we are constantly trying to prove to ourselves and (others) that look I am equally liked, I am popular, I look good too. We want constant and frequent affirmations and platforms like Facebook, Orkut does exactly that.

I read a great piece this morning by Ashley Turner on 'Keeping it Real on Social Media'. She talks about our need to live in the 'High Ego' and constantly compare and contrast ourselves to other people. What i really liked about the piece was her challenge for the week. The challenge to 'Keep it Real' on social media. She encourages people to be a little bit more transparent. Post, share or say something that brings out your vulnerability, shows your authenticity.

So let's all take up this challenge and be real. Let's not constantly try to perfect our images in front of others. Let's not only share our victories but also our failures. And let's see how that feels.

Cheers!

Are you infected by the tweet bug?

I have had a twitter account for over a year now. I log on it once a month, follow 14 people now and have 1 follower. I started an account just to see what the twitter buzz was all about but somehow have not been able to convince myself to make it a big part of my life. There are many reasons for it, the prime one being that i am not a celebrity, a reporter, a journalist or anyone significant who people would like to follow. I do not want to be under the constant pressure of thinking smart and witty things to say on twitter so that people like it enough to follow me.

I personally feel that twitter is a very powerful tool which can be used to help or hurt people. Today anybody and everybody is on twitter. Some tweets we follow by the second, some fail to fall on our ears. Thanks to twitter i now know which city Amitabh Bhachchan is in right now. What is he eating, how does he feel etc etc? Social networks like twitter and facebook give you a sense of closeness. Just because i follow Amitabh Bachchan on twitter i have started to believe that i know him better. That is a real friend to me. I have never met the guy, never spoken with him ever but yet there is a sense of closeness that i feel. I feel like he is tangible and within 140 characters away from me.

Is this sense of closeness or realism false? Shouldn't we be wary of the fact that outside the realms of this fake world of internet, life is a different reality? I am in noway implying that whatever he tweets is fake, but that just because i have the power to read his tweets real time and comment on it does not make him my close friend. Does twitter/facebook/orkut gives you a false sense of comfort and hope? A feeling like you are closer to someone (electronically not really)???

Well this then brings me to the questions why do we tweet, why are we on facebook? Some are to massage their ego, to satisfy the narcism that is breeding in them. Some genuinely like to keep in touch with people and find it convenient to open their lives online that offline. Some just use it as a tool to reach out to the masses. What is your compelling reason? Why are you add(ed/icted) to it? Why do we choose to follow someone on twitter or add an acquaintance to our friends list?

"With great power comes great responsibility". While you can reach out to million with just 140 characters be mindful of the fact that you can also piss them off with just those 140 characters. So i feel when we chose to be a part of such social site in some sense we are choosing to make our private lives public. We are giving our friends and followers the right to only only read what we want to say but also the power to comment on it. And how we react to their reactions in some sense shows the kind of a person we are in real life. That i feel is the real you. Not the twitter you, not the Internet you!!

I recently came across this very interesting and relevant discussion by Barkha Dutta which sparked off this blog. If you are a twitter user please share your experience with me. I would love to know what makes you tweet and do you feel sites like twitter / facebook/ orkut are just a passing fad which will be replaced over time with other Internet fads?

Here is the link to Barkha Dutt's show (courtesy Jaya)
http://www.ndtv.com/news/videos/video_player.php?id=157036