Focial, are you?

(sometime in the future … )

“Good morning facebook”, I greet rubbing my eyes as I wake up in the morning.

And the app on my phone picks up my voice. Meticulously it goes through the new posts of last 7 hours and ‘likes’ them alternately, taking care that within 2 or 3 such mornings, all my friends and family have at least one like by me.

This artificial intelligence based app keeps me in touch with all my uncles, aunts, siblings, nephews and close friends by ‘liking’ them all…, learns from me, and keeps me in the loop with regards to what it’s liking, etc. so that some day I’m not caught off guard.

(Really? Is there that AI app? 
Search for it – or – read the very first line – in italics)

Anyways the point is, we seem to be living in a ‘hurried’ sort of a world. There’s hardly any time to travel distances, meet people, visit friends, talk on the phone, etc –  which could now be defined as parts of the Old Socializing Approaches. Even writing emails somehow now seems archaic…

FB has spawned the New Socializing Methods. On one platform you can see what your friends and family are upto, what pics they are sharing, their current status, their current likings, etc. And if you are social enough, you will like them, may be even drop in a comment, and they’ll like and comment on your updates in return – the whole positive feedback cycle of liking starts thus. That’s the new social interaction method on Facebook – being Focial.

You like, they like. You comment, they comment. Congratulations! And you are now an important element in the fociety – you are a highly focial animal.

Well if you are the recluse type, you might not want to like anything or comment upon anything. In typical olden socialization methods, that would tantamount to you sitting alone on a sofa in a corner of a room while a party is going on and people are interacting with each other. People will still attempt to talk with you but eventually they will give up if they don’t have a good enough response.

In the new fociety’s focializing methods, this would be akin to you not liking their updates or posts, and vice versa. If you really hate someone now, for instance, just don’t like him or her. It’s that simple.

And if you are a realized person – the kinda guy who sees triviality in all things extant, or someone who wants to shed all relations and take up a harsh sanyaas… rrrelax.

In the new fociety, thanks to the focialization approaches it has spawned, you don’t really need to  renunciate stuff! It’s become much easier…

Deleting your facebook account or just not having one will suffice!

4 thoughts on “Focial, are you?”

  1. In media parlance, being 'focial' provides you reach as opposed to impact (read depth). Having said this, Facebook just provides you the reach, and a compromise to depth is often the refrain of those who consider being social a chore. A person's social circuit is very often a set of concentric circles, Facebook often providing the opportunity to increase your touch with the outermost few circles.

    By the way, I like the term 'focial'!

  2. hmmm… in future (sometime in the future), I see a possibility that virtual worlds would take over.

    We've come from a time when there was no virtual world. Social interactions defined us, shaped us. By the time FB and likes came in, we already had defined inner circles that we took to the virtual world.

    However in times to come, for the generations to come, fociety could very well be the answer both for reach and depth!

  3. Yep I agree with author and the superficiality of FB… But with our kids coming through FB and the younger generation too feeding of FB it remains to be seen how social interaction evolves if not evolved already…

    Nice read and good to see you back from a long hibernation my friend!

  4. Agreed, it is superficial. But, nevertheless an important medium of keeping in contact even with people whom you never thought you will ever meet again in life and reaching masses…

    liked the word focial!

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