Addiction to networking

I still cant forget the day I first sat in front of a computer running on the worldwide web. I guess it was in late 1998. I still remember Dr. Philip Thomas taking me to an internet cafe on TV Swamy Road (Coimbatore) after church one sunday, and we logged onto hotmail. I still remember the little IE globe revolving for long minutes before there was some sign of activity. That little browsing centre still exists today, expanded nearly three times it's old size, with jazzy black LCD monitors and superfast broadband routed through massive undersea cables. We used to go to check his mail and he helped me set my first email, though in those days I really didn't have anyone to send me mails. Then I started checking out websites. In those days websites were just text and some photographs. But still browsing stuff randomly became a fad, and it was an even bigger fad to come out after 'browsing' for two hours and shelling out 160 Rs. Yeah, it was 80 Rs for an hour in that age. Then I got my first long term mail id in Yahoo in 2000, it remains to this day. I joined Yahoo messenger in early 2002. It was the early version of messenger, but it was still something that held a lot of promises.. Look at messenger today! 10 versions have come and gone. today we have video conferencing, computer dialing and what not. The net became explosive in the early half of this decade. The advent of ISDN and Broadband enabled webmasters to explore the greater potentials of the net, and brought in signet delivery softwares like Java & Flash which forever changed the look and feel of the net. Interactivity bred in the open spaces of the net 1.0. FTP and sites that subverted the that couldn't be held on the Net, bloomed and it look a lot of legal deliberations before they were brought down. Today torrent websites rule the roost, and even though ideologies like the PirateBay were shut down, there are so many more which crawl by through the various loopholes that a fixed and aged judicial cover of the net provides. Then came social networking.. it all started with ORKUT which ran up the ladder to at one time be the world's largest social server. today of course, Facebook rules the roost, yet it is to these greats that all the social networking sites from Hi5 to fetlife to Zoopa have to pay their respects. Then we got Twitter, and all the blogs which became sensationalism in the last five years. If you wanted to talk, you went to a blog. If there was a place on earth where you could shout, without caring if anyone listened.. it was still a blog. Virtuality existed as an option even for those who didn't want to shut up. I am amazed at the SN scripts that are being developed nowadays. The concepts, and the amount of customization is stunning. You almost learn to market yourself in your late teens itself.
Unfortunately this is the state of the world, and the reason why I made an effort to write this. Humanity is lost in Virtual reality. I dont need to even go out to a bank to make a transaction, the days of waiting in queues at the Railway counter is done.. Now all i need is meet my OneShopStop guy and he does everything, from booking tickets, to arranging taxi, to maid services to even cleaning poop.. (just kidding!) Life has become so much easier, and yet we are still without time. I go to a park almost everyday. Over these months I see a resurgent interest, especially by the affluent community, who seem to have realised that however fast you are gonna travel the information superhighway, your life is more about cherishing these green trees and listening to the kids shouting in innocent delight.. Man in his search for happiness, and ease of living has made the world so much more complex and difficult, that there will come a day when Mankind will start to want 'yesterday' all over again. and by then... it will be too late!