"The one with the cyber-communities..."

I'm sure most of us are deemed guilty of being a part of at least a cyberspace community. It's evolved into much of a necessity rather than fashion nowadays, where the absence of time and space become evidently clear in this 'www-dot-age'. Just minutes ago I was successfully registered to facebook.com, the latest baby rave on a block already hugely populated by streams of friendster and myspace users. Subscribing to each community is virtually as easy as breathing, and offers the ability to be engrossed in both keeping in touch with old friends as well as making new acquaintances. Of course, there'd always be the occasional one-or-two freakos' online for the wrong reasons but on the surface of things I guess its sole objectives bodes well for the masses.

But the burning question remains - do we really need a virtual community to keep in touch? Are we really that lazy to keep track with friends, or just that our methods for keeping up a relationship has blossomed into these such usages? What happened to simple phone calls or even get-togethers every now and then to update each other on recent ramblings? Are we really taking things for granted? Do we really need friendster, myspace and facebook?

Probably the simplest answer we could give is time, and space. We get to be constantly in touch with numerous people at the same time, within different places at the click of the mouse. Sure, why not substitute substance for anonymity? Replacing spoken words with the tapping of words for utterance. Using pictures to keep up-to-date on any face-lifts, slim-downs and gain-ups rather than the traditional eye-to-eye contact. Possibly, could the existence of these sites revolutionize our social behaviors leading towards a future generation who knows not how to mingle in public nor express their ideas in the open? We already hear amassed media coverage on the outcry for graduates who are capable, both in written and spoken qualities? Probably, it isn't too mad to say that one day we'd need not speak at all to commune with others. All we have are machines that help us do the talking.

I mean not to disband nor diligently oppose to either sites, for I avidly not forsake their pros over their apparent cons. I'm a member of each cyber-community and consistently update myself through them but I also supplement these facilities with the good ol' traditions of call-ups and hook-ups. It's nice to see through our own eyes, to hear from our own ears and to speak using our own lips. I'm a believer that these sites, when used appropriately could be the most powerful social tool that enables the far to be closer and the missed to be remembered.

With that in mind, add me up at facebook people! Power to the masses.

p/s : Sometimes we forget to concentrate on reason, rather than use. Objectives are different from goals.

-JeP