Sep 25, 2007 04:27 AM
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If you are wondering what my title means, here it is: "If you don't read this, I will kill you!"(IYDRTIWKY)
This topic didn't have a single review. I initially had planned to write on'Advice on Internet Friendships' but this one sounded interesting. For one, it can be interpreted in different ways:
Concern about abusing Internet or more appropriately'misusing' Internet technology
Advice on abusing fellow netizens in different ways
Advice on protecting oneself against abuse over the Internet
Lets start with interpretation 1:
"Concern about abusing Internet or more appropriately'misusing' Internet technology"
Instance one:
My neighbour asked me the other day why I didn't reply to his scrap on the orkut. I told him that Orkut is banned in our office and at home I don't have Internet connection. I asked him if he could tell me what he had scrapped about. He said he didn't remember what exactly it was as he scrapped all his 78 orkut buddies everyday and it was virtually impossible for him to remember what he scrapped on each one of them.
*Instance two:
*I am surprised at the fact that while we are online, we are desperate to get offline so that we can come back and tell our online friends what is happening in our lives offline.
Equivalently, we also want to get offline to tell our offline friends about our life online.
I saw a psychologist to free me from this online-offline confusion.
He, philosphically said:
"O Online is Online and Offline is Offline
And never the twain shall meet"
Now, how is THAT possible? I have several online friends and several offline friends. And then I have several Online-Offline friends. I also have some Offline-Online friends. And then, I have some offline-offline friends.
*Instance three:
*There was a huge fracas recently at my workplace. A team member resigned without notice and the management didn't take it well. Immediately a mail was dispatched criticizing the way he had resigned. The guy got worked up, hit the'reply all' button and waited for the next reply to which he was already deciding what to reply. After several mails in our inbox, subjects of which read like:
Re:Re:Re:Re.Re: X$%^&*(XXXXXXX,
it ended with a freestyle WWF doing the rounds over the official e-mail protocol.
Lets now move over to interpretation 2:
"Advice on abusing fellow netizens in different ways"
In fact this is taking the word'abusing' with positive connotations. The Internet gives everyone a chance to blog(about anything under the sun), slog(late hours), hog(the limelight) and clog(the bandwidth). Now, here is your golden chance to abuse.
If you ever hated your high school teacher for making you write' I would do my homework' 100 times over and are not sure how to take revenge as you don't know whether she is still alive to suffer your sweet revenge, do this.
Join your batchmates group. Ask everyone where Mrs. Breganza has been nowadays. Smile your devilish smile when you have a batchmate telling you that she is in an old age home in Shillong. Don't worry if Shillong is too far away from where you live. Mrs Breganza must be having an Orkut profile for sure. Oh com'on. Even Ganesha is on Orkut.
Found her? Now just scrap this on her account:
"I hate you for what you made me do 27 years ago. Go to hell" - a 100 times over.
Take a deep breath. Feel liberated? Mission accomplished. Congratulations!
Replace Mrs. Breganza with your next door girl who hoodwinked you to marry a business tycoon, or your Boss who doesn't know your various avataars over Internet, the modus operandi is the same. Take any avataar and just give it to them! The enemy won't know what hit him/her.
Finally, the interpretation 3:
"Advice on protecting oneself against abuse over the Internet"
Now, this is actually a serious topic. There has been enough written about it. I have the following piece of advice which may work for you.
Dont take petty accusations, threats and jibes over the Internet too seriously. Ignore it. Laugh it off. Have a sense of humour to counter it. The abuser gets a thrill out of the predictable response he awaits. He logs on to check everyday if you responded. Block him, ignore him, be sporting but never ever REACT.
Now, that doesn't mean you sit and ignore something which really sounds sinister. There is a cyber crime cell for your rescue. There are innumerable online forums where you can report(A Google search took me to abuse.net for example). Increase your awareness.
And last, but not the least, don't make the mistake of making life over the Internet an alternate form of lifestyle. Internet is an just an extension of our real lives where we don't need smileys to smile, e-hugs to embrace and scraps to communicate.
Talk, Hug, Laugh, Sing, Dance, Play .
- Thank You! We appreciate your effort.