THE GOLDEN FLEECE

My dear, perceptive reader, I come back to you today with more of my inchoate musings about the mundane. Perhaps in no other thing is displayed as clearly incontrovertible proof of the takeover of the technological age and its associated social implications as in the morning routine of a typical IITian. Consider, for instance, yours truly, I wake up in the morning, thanks largely to a voice alarm which, trust me, is as irritating as it is effective. My first action in the morn is to yawn and sleepily toggle the switch on my desk onto the ‘ON’ position, do the same to my UPS device and switch on my computer. (Note that I make no mention of performing my morning ablutions prior to this)

Thankfully, I have a fast, reliable for the most part, internet connection available in my room at all not-so-unearthly hours. I shudder to think of how my life would be without the internet. For those as intensely private as yours truly, it is a godsend, no less!! It allows me to maintain the essential interaction with other members of the human race, but yet it allows me to have it on my own terms.

Consider, for a moment, my dear reader, the vast myriad of social networking websites and instant messaging (IM) services. I myself use way too many of the afore-mentioned for my own good. Anyway, I am reasonably certain that the creators of this concept had in mind not its use by people like me, but rather by those extroverts who like nothing better in life than to make new friends. But, foreseen or otherwise, my kind owes an eternal debt to the creation and its creators.

But I digress. The reason for this post was another. I wished to highlight the point that say, GTalk, provides an interface for interaction which is intensely comfortable. I do not have to subject myself to the actual presence of the person with whom I wish to converse or vice versa. (No offense intended, of course) There is an indescribable romance, a mystery to IMing which for some reason, chooses not to reveal itself to me. Yet, I sense that it is there, teasingly, tantalizingly just outside my reach. Don’t you feel it too, my dear reader? Don’t you feel the charm of the chat window, the mystique of multiple interpretations to every line typed, the incredible convenience (to those insecure few) of being able to consider what you say before you actually say it!! Aren’t you, with such a interface, much less likely to put your overly large foot in your mouth??

A case in point for this argument is the use of the call function of GTalk. How many of us actually use it? And when we do use it, it is rare to do so for a full blown conversation rather than a few terse statements, very breve and business-like.

And yet, it is not without its drawbacks. Over such an interface, you see but a façade, only that part of the other the other wants you to see in the first place. You have to inkling of the true nature of the man behind the words. (Or woman, I shall not be accused of sexism) IM is, borrowing from an old fable, the golden fleece which can make the wolf seem a lamb.

One wonders about the cause of this unprecedented comfort level experienced over this interface. As always, I have my own opinions. (Yeah right, big surprise!!) I believe that no one ever truly opens up in a conversation, be t face to face or otherwise. A shield is always raised, invariably. It is just that in a face to face conversation, your counterpart has many more opportunities to sneak peeks of the real you. On the other hand, in an internet conversation, the benefits are dual; the shield can be raised with less effort and also the other cannot penetrate it without substantial effort.

Well, I’m afraid I shall have to truncate this discussion abruptly. I leave it to you, my dear perceptive reader, to form your own opinions and, as always, live on the hope that you shall share them with me.