Haha... yeah, that's the kind of question I am hearing a lot nowadays. Well, those who know me closely probably aren't really surprised; they have other questions to ask. This post is just an esoteric answer to this FB question. In real life, if you happen to ask me, I won't be able to give such a cogent reply. But that's how it is for normal people. :)
So, what's the big deal about FB anyway? Why am I wasting so much time on FB? Or am I? Has anyone reviewed how much time I/we waste on Gmail? (yes, waste !! Because face it, you could have lived without the slightest effect on your life had you not received/read more than half of your mails) Or on Google services in general? Count in Android (installing, trying, deleting apps -- not to mention using them), and the figures sky-rocket !!
Firstly, let's be clear on one thing: Having a FB tab open among few others (someone like Nitin has few tens of them) doesn't mean I am spending all my thought, consciousness, and time on it. Recently, on seeing FB open in my browser, one of my friends exclaimed, "Saheel, FB is open, and Gmail is not ! That's preposterous. And it shows how addicted you are to FB." I was speechless, partly because even I was pissed at the cup DCF comps which have their system time screwed up due to which Chrome sites security reasons to open Gmail, and partly because it was true.
Secondly, let's do some real analysis. How many posts do you receive daily on FB, on an average, that even remotely interest you? 20? 40? Let's take 50 -- a fairly big estimate. Now, how much time do you spend on each post? Given decent Net speeds, 15 seconds to view + 5 seconds to like/criticize/appreciate/feel-mesmerized/nostalgic/etc. And if you are among the few people who share what they like, 10 seconds more; let us say, you share 10 posts per day. Everything accounted, it amounts to 20 minutes tops !! In addition, you might (rarely) end up reading a couple of articles (10 minutes) + a couple of videos (10 more minutes). So, not more than 45 minutes on any FB-max day. But then, why does it feel like we are spending hours together on FB? Well, that's because these 45 minutes or so are divided throughout the day, perhaps. But that doesn't beat the point that factually, you spend 10 times the time sleeping, than FB-ing. But nobody asks me the question: Saheel, why you sleep so much?!
But there is a catch in this analysis ! The phenomenon known as Visibility is unaccounted for. Ahh... anything done in today's world without thinking how visible your work is to the public, is at best, naive and at worst, foolish. Even before re-joining FB, I was very social (troll, if you wish) by nature and pretty "active" on groups that matter to me. It's just that FB makes me much more visible. Now, that answers my dilemma of why people keep on asking me that "Why you so active on FB nowadays?" question. But what about you? Are you convinced that this question is actually stupid? If you think you are FB-ing all (or most of) the time that you spend online, think again.
So, what's the big deal about FB anyway? Why am I wasting so much time on FB? Or am I? Has anyone reviewed how much time I/we waste on Gmail? (yes, waste !! Because face it, you could have lived without the slightest effect on your life had you not received/read more than half of your mails) Or on Google services in general? Count in Android (installing, trying, deleting apps -- not to mention using them), and the figures sky-rocket !!
Firstly, let's be clear on one thing: Having a FB tab open among few others (someone like Nitin has few tens of them) doesn't mean I am spending all my thought, consciousness, and time on it. Recently, on seeing FB open in my browser, one of my friends exclaimed, "Saheel, FB is open, and Gmail is not ! That's preposterous. And it shows how addicted you are to FB." I was speechless, partly because even I was pissed at the cup DCF comps which have their system time screwed up due to which Chrome sites security reasons to open Gmail, and partly because it was true.
Secondly, let's do some real analysis. How many posts do you receive daily on FB, on an average, that even remotely interest you? 20? 40? Let's take 50 -- a fairly big estimate. Now, how much time do you spend on each post? Given decent Net speeds, 15 seconds to view + 5 seconds to like/criticize/appreciate/feel-mesmerized/nostalgic/etc. And if you are among the few people who share what they like, 10 seconds more; let us say, you share 10 posts per day. Everything accounted, it amounts to 20 minutes tops !! In addition, you might (rarely) end up reading a couple of articles (10 minutes) + a couple of videos (10 more minutes). So, not more than 45 minutes on any FB-max day. But then, why does it feel like we are spending hours together on FB? Well, that's because these 45 minutes or so are divided throughout the day, perhaps. But that doesn't beat the point that factually, you spend 10 times the time sleeping, than FB-ing. But nobody asks me the question: Saheel, why you sleep so much?!
But there is a catch in this analysis ! The phenomenon known as Visibility is unaccounted for. Ahh... anything done in today's world without thinking how visible your work is to the public, is at best, naive and at worst, foolish. Even before re-joining FB, I was very social (troll, if you wish) by nature and pretty "active" on groups that matter to me. It's just that FB makes me much more visible. Now, that answers my dilemma of why people keep on asking me that "Why you so active on FB nowadays?" question. But what about you? Are you convinced that this question is actually stupid? If you think you are FB-ing all (or most of) the time that you spend online, think again.
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