Addiction of Orkut - The Phases!

The need to be Cool (Day 1)

You feel like a social outcast. You hear so much about it from other people and you think you are net savvy and still young and hip. You do not want to have a generation gap. You just create the account and have no friends on your list. You browse a little and soon see others having at least 200. You feel more depressed. Start searching for at least the ones you know and talk everyday or from the blogger list. (Mine reflects the blog roll in a way). Just a little ego boost when you add the first friend whom you know very closely and they reciprocate by accepting your friend request. You join a couple of communities

The Experimentation (Day 2)

You want to master the beast, explore the unknown. Determined to know more about someone from your past life and curious enough to search for that person. This person may not be a friend but yet you may be curious. Like you know someone was a major smart ass and you want to know what the heck is that person doing now. Tip for guys (and thats the first things guys do …. Losers!): Searching for females (your attractions, crushes or even just plain old sex appeal) of yesteryears are difficult. Reason - Last Names often change. You feel like a loser until you find the first of your old acquaintance. But once you see that person and see a photograph, see their profile, know what they are doing you feel confident. Now, you have got the taste of the drug. You feel happy and feel like you on a different cloud. Probably you may want to have a chat with that person. You leave a scrap. You add to your friend list.

The Habit (Day 3 to a Week)

Now you are hooked on it. You need to search new friends and old ones. You need to know the school you went too and search the school. You really wanted to be in touch with someone and you get connected. You find current friends and use it as a source of chat. You soon start scrapping and chatting. You see a blogger and want to give a name, a face to that blogger name. You start searching and adding. You visit people you know whom you do not want to be in touch but just curious. They know you have visited them and get in touch with you. You do not want to be rude and soon you realize they are not as bad as you thought they were. You have decent conversation and say why did I judge them. Soon you realize you have a long list of friends. You are happy once more. You are cool once more.

You cannot Quit (Next 3 weeks)

You see the need to log into orkut every 1 hour to start with. The drug affects you more and more. Now you also like to browse other people’s friend list. Read your friends scraps to know what’s been happening. Soon the need for the drug affects you more. You start logging in every 15 minutes, then 10 minutes and then just refresh. You want to scrap others. You feel relieved that others scrap you. It starts affecting your blogging as well as email checking. Now you are having conversation with bloggers on Orkut. Soon, you see photographs. You want to put your own or something you like. You want to write testimonials to your friends who mean a lot to you. You want it to be funny and yet show your thoughts about them. Now it starts affecting your work as you start looking over your shoulder before you login.

Withdrawal (After a month)

After a while the novelty has worn off. You have no one else to find. You look at your scrap list and decided that 3000 scraps are a little too much. You probably have attended one or the other meet ups of like minded desi people whom you have met at ‘Desi’s at xxxx (place your city/country)’ You have reconnected with long lost buddies. Added a few bad apples to your kitty. Now as soon as you see a name, you search on orkut but you don’t bother to add. You rapidly lose interest until a scrap comes along. You feel a little piece of life added to your body. You are disoriented as to why do they not scrap. You are tired with people. You decide to now start using the long ignored emails and blogs. But you know some part of your soul is altered with the drug. Your mind still craves of it and you try to write some scraps, reply to all scraps.

The Death

Soon you are dead in the Orkut world. You mostly get scraps, “Where are you? ” Not in touch from friends and relatives who feel that you are snubbing them anyways. You start using Orkut only as birthday reminders and send happy birthday scraps rather than bday cards. That marks the end among the online denizens and you are soon ready to join the other dead mortals in the real world.

RIP