We are living on and for a social networking site and there’s no point denying it
Every morning, as Zohran Sheikh wakes up, he is faced with a dilemma. It strikes him as soon as he logs on to the Net and gets on Facebook. What should be his status message today? “I am known for the funny one-liners and I know there are friends who check my profile every day to see my status message,” he says. It’s a lot of pressure. “There are days when I can’t think of a single smart thing to say and I spend minutes wondering,” he says.

Facebook is extremely important to the 23-year-old journalist. “It helps me land interviews, make new contacts and get a social life as well. How I appear on it is very crucial to me,” says Sheikh. It’s important to be cool on Facebook and young, urban Indians are trying to do just that. At every party, every concert, every event you attend, a bunch of people with digital cameras and camera phones will capture the revelry on high-resolution and upload the photos on Facebook. Sure as the sun will shine, the next day, everybody present at the previous evening will be tagged and those who’re not looking particularly good will untag themselves. “I don’t untag myself if I’m looking bad or paunchy. I use it as motivation to work out and look better, in time for the next party photos that will feature on Facebook,” says Sheikh. He is thankful that Facebook is kind when it comes to the feedback options, there is the “Like” thumbs-up option and a “Comment” option, which can be deleted if you don’t like the comment, but no thumbs-down option. “No matter how gung-ho and self-assured I am, a Facebook thumbs down logo would be quite ego-deflating,” he says.

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