Rage against the LOL, LAUL, LAWL, LOLWA

Today in conversations with friends, ok...with friend, we spoke about the concept of LOL or HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH or HEHEHEHEHEH or ROFLMAO and other such text expressions that are used to signify gales of laughter emanating from the receiver at something extremely witty or humourous that was sent by the sender. Now, usually it is a cut and dry thing, but because of my extremely keen powers of observation I have noticed that these expressions are not usually accompanied by the laughter that is being texted back. What is really being texted back is the appropriate response to what was said and this is the common decency of texting, at least what I see in my style and those who text to me...cause let's face it, I’m not the wittiest guy in the world.

But this brings me to another question, how has texting and technology changed us in general?

Has it made us colder?

More distant?

Has it reduced our ability to make new friends?

What i thought was, and i could be completely wrong, that technology has made us closer to our friends who have been there for a long time. Let’s take my example, my friends, and mind you these are good friends, are today in places like Delhi, Lucknow, Guwahati, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bhubaneshwar, Bellary, Ambala and international locations like The Netherlands, UK and USA...technology has enabled me to always stay connected to these guys with whatsapp, FB and obviously the phone. This has been a great boon for people everywhere and is a slap in the face of distance. But, something that i see very clearly is that this technology has severely curtailed our ability to make strong new friendships, because we are so strongly connected with our old friends that we don't feel the need for newer friends, and here i'm not talking about people whom you go drinking with, i'm talking about people whom you can call at 3 in the night to bail you out of jail or better still, people who would be sitting beside you in that jail. So, where was i, ahh yes i was trying to explain that we have stopped making new friends because of these conveniences and thus there is no influx of new in our lives, we are constantly recycling our old selves, reliving past glories (not that anything is wrong with that, but glories should really be glorious). All of us have seen it and done it at some point of time, at a social gathering where we don't know anyone, on the first day of college (or in my case, new college)...us standing in a corner with our mobile phones, texting or calling someone or secretly hoping someone calls us and saves us from this awkward situation.

We have become more distant....remember the time when we just wanted to run away from all of our friends because you can't stand the sight of those bastards, well distance did the first thing, the second one was technology...the knowledge that we can connect to our friends in an instant is what drives us insane...we want space..but we can receive texts, FB messages, calls and what not and switching off is a not a very good option...and then there are the thousand questions...

why didn't you pick my call?

why didn't you reply to my text?

you were online on skype, we could've group chatted?

so on and so forth. This feeling of not being able to get away, leads to more distance.

I hope you have made it here and are waiting for me to suggest a remedy, which you can rip to pieces. But see i'm dumb, so there is no remedy from my side...this is the truth we live in....so let’s get comfy with it.