Virtual friendships@electronic intimacy

A genial face with a "tin-grin" (powered by braces) stares back at you from the computer screen. This is "Lisa", the first cousin of Pamela's friend's aunt's sister-in-law.

Lisa (14) loves lasagna, is fond of country music, goes for ballet lessons, likes Labradors, always wears pink on Tuesdays, is superstitious about a black cat crossing her path, has two older sisters and one younger brother, lives in Florida, United States, and dreams of becoming a rocket scientist.

Phew! Isn't that an awful lot to know about a girl whose existence I wasn't even aware of about a second ago and am not likely to meet in this lifetime?

Welcome to the world of chat rooms and face books where you find a whole lot of unnecessary details about complete strangers that launches you into yet another stranger dimension of the art of communication with digital dot pixels.

There are several paradoxes in life and one that I find fascinating is the one about technology and communication. As the world shrinks technologically bringing person miles away to a hair's breadth distance of you in a metaphorical sense, the people who live next door to you move farther away.

Cynics argue that technology has made every individual an island by himself. You often find people who may stay an apartment or a street away from each other and yet the only time they exchange greetings is over e-mail.

People in offices often communicate through electronic mail with their colleagues. However, as technology makes our world impersonal, there is this need to get closer and chat with people who may be miles away.

Total strangers

Yet, you find people entering chat-rooms to talk about their deepest, darkest secrets with total strangers. And sites where often pictures and information of a person who you never knew come your way by default.

Personally, I have always declined requests to conspire to be a member of such sites. I don't particularly fancy posting my photograph and inviting all and sundry to comment on my failures, achievements, foibles and follies.

However, I do not understand what is it with youngsters these days. They might shut their door and brood all day long, even as they launch into the most intimate chat on backslapping terms with people who they haven't met and are not likely to meet either.

I think as communication enters new dimensions; gradually the only intimacy we might find is the one that will be available to us on the virtual reality plane. Among the five sensory elements of our lives space or ether is going to gain prominence over the others.

It just goes to prove that conversation or a need to reach out to another person exists strongly among the new evolved human race, but it has acquired another hue.

It has got to be happening with digital projections of people halfway around the world. As for those that share the same space are greeted with monosyllabic replies of "yes", "no", "ah", "um" and "duh".

The next style of greeting amongst youngsters is likely to change from the usual: "Hi, how are you?" to "Hi do you face book, yahoo, msn or e-mail?"

That's because youngsters don't believe in "looking straight" into your eyes and establishing friendships with a warm and firm handshake.

On the contrary, they take comfort in the "electronic boudoir" that helps them hold conversations in the closet that allows them to lower all their guards and be intimate in virtual reality.