Internet : A Solitary Refuge ..?

Owing to the pitiable conditions of our electricity board, we are not getting power in daytime.. That's why I keep getting less time to work on my blogs .. :( .. Hopefully the conditions will improve soon ...

Recently, me and my friend were having a discussion over hobbies and areas of interest .. He asked me what I quote as my hobbies .. I said .. Surfing the Net .. Reading ..Listening to music .. Playing Cricket whenever my old chaps assemble... My friend told me not to include Surfing as a hobby in my Resume .. I asked why ..? He said surfing looks like a lonely act .. It gives the impression that you seek refuge in the Internet and turn your face from the "more social" things.. I did agreed to some of the points but later thought over it .. These are points that came to my mind .. Btw .. I had to bring "addiction to the Net" in discussion to elaborate my points ..

[Flashback]

I still remember when I first used the Internet in my life .. It was in a new Cyber Cafe that had opened near my college ..As my friends were busy playing Pool, I was trying to cope with the discoveries that were appearing .. I had used Email on my college LAN earlier but this new technology (WWW) was so much new for me .. I instantly felt the fondness for the Net ... I still remember the first website that I opened was Zeenext ( I think its closed now :-p ) .. I created my first email address on that site .. Then I learned that there is far more to the Net than just emails .. I found out Yahoo! which was emerging as the leader in Search technology those days .. I searched and downloaded a Cobol compiler for my studies... which later turned out of no use to me as it didn't worked on Netware and it wasn't a freeware .. .. But still .. I searched and prepared my study notes on the Net .. Soon my friends too started finding about the new "fashion' .. Their favorite websites ..? Of course porn ..:-p .. ( Honestly I didn't surfed porn cauz it was an expensive deal .. It was 60 Rs. an hour and I could see newest film for Rs 10 at my home comfort :-p .. ) .. My friends too realised it soon and then we started chatting ... We used to search girlish IDs in the chat rooms and then chatted with them for soo long .. Soon I realised I can create multiple IDs on Yahoo! and started fooling my friends with girls IDs ... It was fun ... Then when we were working on our project, I referred to many programming websites for my work .. It really helped me ...Then I joined many forums and communities .. (fortunately most of them are extinct now :-p .. ) .. I made many friends and met some of them too ... Later I got Internet at home and I started to use it for my studies and chatting ....

[/Flashback]

What is a society ..? Babylon tells me: human beings and the relations between them .. Loosely, society is everything we interact with in our daily life .. Being social (read not confining to your room for the most of your time) is considered good ( I cant find some other word for it) .. And someone who avoids social meets, parties, get togethers etc. is considered not normal ... ie its the normal behaviour of humans to meet others, interact with them .. And someone who (don't like,) avoids these meetings is considered a lonely fella .. Cauz man is a social animal it is his fundamental activity ... The "lonely ppl" often develop some complexes and tends to fall for darker world .. even commit crimes.. (So what turns out ..? Being lonely will lead you to be suspected of not normal activities ..) Now we move ahead ..

Now .. If people who don't take interest in meeting other people (Refer to them as "Hermits" hereafter) what do they enjoy ..? Usually their interests appears to be watching TV, reading novels, drinking and so on .. Normal people too do these things but the time they spent on it is far less than the hermits...Gradually they confine themselves to a solitary world ... Okay .. I got it .. Don't be a loner .. Now talk about Internet please ..

So what happens when the hermits enter the cyberworld ..? They quickly realise that this is a place where they can express their suppressed desires ... Now the Net is a place where you can interact with a lot of people .. you don't need any public speaking skills to chat (I know many people who are good at cyberchat but cant speak a word in debates or public speaking activities).. you can impersonate others .. You can become whatever you pleasure to be and yet remain anonymous ...
The hermits gets overwhelmed by this sudden freedom .. Now they can do whatever they always wanted to... They starts giving more and more time to the Net .. Some of them (the Geeky ones) joins communities ... Some (more Geeky and more suppressed) joins underground groups .. become virus writers ... the list is endless .. All in all they get addicted to the Net .. .. We will come back to this in a moment

Take another scenario .. What happens when a more social person enters the cyberworld ..? He too get the same experience of freedom .. But he thinks "Hey .. Here is another place I can interact with people .. " .. Now even if he sacrifice some of his time for his online life, he doesn't leave his offline life .. Even if he becomes a net addict too ..

So .. We meet all type of people when we surf the Internet.. The hermits .. and the socials .. How do we differentiate between them ..? I am tempted to say that people who give too much time to Internet can be hermits .. but I know its not correct .. Net has become such freely accessible that a person can be online from his office or mobile too .. So any other idea ..? I guess we cant conclusively determine someone's personality by his online Avatar .. We have to meet him to find what sort of person he is .. But what happened to our original point of discussion ..? Is Internet a refuge ..?

I guess Internet does offer a refuge to a person if he seeks .. I know many ppl who are called spoiled geeks who have no or very less public life but are active online .. But there are people who are active online and still are very social in their offline worlds.. So .. Internet is whatever one wants it to be .. If you come here to seek "solitary refuge" you will find one and if you are here to find more friends, you will find them too ... All depends on your attitude .. your personality ..

So Am I going to include "Surfing the net" in my resume ..? Yes .. I am .. cauz when my employer will see me, he can find out what kind of person I am .. and I am sure I don't look like a hermit ...

But this is nice topic to discuss ... Hmm.. Lets see ..