Man. A social and sociable animal.

Man is a social animal. He lives to communicate more than he communicates to live. The former and overwhelming category tends to call the people in the latter category reticent. People in first category also quite casually put the reticent into a more extreme group of the Taciturn. However Silence is a powerful communicative tool if used correctly. Most western cultures react differently to silence. People from such cultures tend to become uncomfortable when they see a silent man in their midst. They are unable to understand whether the person is angry, unhappy or whether he is brewing a malicious plan. The main reason for such confusion is that usually in Western Cultures when people are happy they will try and communicate their happiness readily and naturally to the person next to them and at the same time they also share their unhappiness. Thats why a silent man is sure to make people confused.

Like I said earlier, Silence is good in socially tolerable limits and if used with good sense of timing. Social people which is the majority of the populace commonly exhibit qualities like gregariousness, extroversion and vocal friendliness. These are the acceptable qualities with which one gets stamped as Social.

In today's times when communication is considered as a vital path to success it also seems to imply that introvertness is a sure path to failure. Agreed that the world is shrinking. It shrank a lot when telephone was invented but people weren't satisfied. The concept of sharing was still incomplete. Something more was needed. Just voice didn't suffice. With the advent of computers and internet came the bridging of that gap. Vast amounts of information was being exchanged through voice, video and data-files. People who rarely opened their mouths were perceived to be gregarious when they started typing on chat. However with ever increasing channels of communication the human mind quickly gets bored and starts to feel lonely. Something more entertaining fun, educative, provocative etc. was required to keep their minds active. Essentially alive. Enter socio-networking sites. I akin them to interactive TV. Its still wastes a ton of your time but you perceive yourself to be actively involved and keeping your mind alive. I as a avid movie fan can't figure out how that is better than watching movies but experts say it is. Probably because at least some muscles like your fingers are moving other than just your eyelids.

It always strikes me as interesting when in an extremely fast-tracked life people can still afford to spend countless hours updating their facebook pages with minute details of their daily mundane life and commenting on equally mundane activities of other people's lives. When millions do it actively and I don't see the point, I am clearly missing the point. However a deeper question is in an increasingly shrinking world why is everyone becoming more isolated? Why are people becoming more reserved in real life and extremely garrulous online? All these new mechanisms of communication are actually in some way mutating our natural behaviour of real-life face to face communication. Thankfully the online emoticons can never replace the actual emotions and its impact on the participants of a face to face communication. Am I saying this as a fact? Hell no, I am just making a blog out of my personal experiences.