The World is Flat or it isn’t

Room 67: Let us go to Canteen and have some quick snacks?
Room 68: Oh, I just went and come back. BTW you planning to go out for dinner, today mess food is bad :(
Room 67: Let me chk and I will confirm in about an hour.

Thomas L. Friedman has written “the world is flat” where he has mentioned how beautifully the emergence of internet as a means of communication and information exchange has facilitated the birth of Indian IT industry where the projects are executed offshore without jeopardising on the quality but with reducing the costs. I was having this discussion with my friend yesterday about the evolution of Web 2.0 and user forums like mouthshut.com etc. The common starting point is that internet is so easily available that it is the first choice if you want to communicate to your friends, peers forget the unknown people.

The starting of the post is common form of communication between two rooms physically 5 ft away. I was wondering that whether the internet has increased or decreased the distances between individuals. If at one side it has made possible the interaction between two unknown individuals in different continents but at the other side it is replacing the personal communication between other two individuals would have met in person had internet not been in the existence. How do you evaluate the impact of this on human behaviour?

Man is a social animal, a lot is happening on the basis of personal rapport and relations that an individual develops over time, the relationship builds on trust and confidence when you physically meet and talk to someone. Verbal communication is just 1 criteria, you judge an individual by his body language, facial expressions, appearance and related physical surroundings etc. What implications will the internet have on the personal communications with the ‘known’ and ‘near’ people?

Let’s say 5 years down the line I want to watch a movie with my friend and he lives nearby but we do not want to take the trouble of physically going to a cinema hall and stand in a queue, take tickets and then watch the movie with 100 other people. Instead both of us log on to a movie streaming site on internet, enter into the same screen room, connect to the some personal instant message (or voice) window and start seeing the same film at real time and discuss it over the chat/voice window. But what do we do at intermission, I can't tell him that lets go and try some ‘crisy corn sandwich’? Or can I? Well I am talking 5 years down the line and surely we dial the same fast food chain, order what we want to order and it will be delivered over to our doorstep. “Hey do you think that guy has put a little extra cheese in the sandwich today?”

Room 68: Arey, wake me up for 3 pm wala class?
Room 67: Abe kya…. Put an alarm instead na?
Room 68: No bhai, I never know when I will put it off and sleep again, look you don’t have to take any additional trouble, I am leaving my chat window open and speaker on full volume, just ping me until I ping you back saying “yes, I am awake and ALIVE” !!!!

Wait a sec, did you say alive? I mean ALIVE !!