An "Alternative Fact" - Mark Zuckerberg has inadvertently creared an alternate Universe, a virtual planet inside the planet earth. It's called Facebook, the 10th Planet of the Solar system. Planet Facebook was discovered on earth, but soon Earth started revolving around it.
The living beings on this planet chat, discuss, share knowledge, news, jokes and feelings. They flirt, gossip, develop Crush (on Candies or otherwise) and use its fertile soil (on Facebook's twin Planet Whatsapp too) to plant rumors and lies. Their favorite pastime is bit**ing about others.
People here also get into needless fights, waste time and energy like their mere mortal counterparts on planet earth. They get jealous, celebrate marriages, mourn deaths and divorces (a few are known to celebrate them too).
Some fall in love with one other. A few even go a step further, getting into matrimony. A man travelled all the way from Pakistan to marry his beloved in Odisha, whom he stumbled upon on Facebook. Both, from nations not known to be exact friendly towards each other, took the extreme risk of tying the knot. For them, Marriages are not made in Heaven, they are made on Facebook - a place they dated first.
Not every dalliance on planet Facebook ends with Fairy tale ending. Few days back in Odisha, a College girl was drugged and raped by her paramour and his friends, when she went to meet him in preparation to elope. Both bumped into each other on Facebook, before the boy humped and dumped her.
But most keep their relationship on the virtual domain under wraps, some with a hypocrite veneer of "Like my real brother" or "Like my real sister" to shadow their real feelings. Not to mention Planet Facebook just mirrors the planet Earth - with plenty of Fake people, pandering to fake news and accoplices.
Hidden Tigers with false bravado and Slouching Dragons with their heads steadfastly buried inside Smartphones are very ubiquitous on this planet's surface. A recent cartoon depicted the Facebook warriors the best. When a guy was summoned by his wife, for the Army was looking to recruit him impressed by his bravery, was found hiding under a Sofa.
Last Christmas, a coworker of mine came up with this novel idea to parachute his family members from Planet Facebook to Planet Earth. It was holiday time. Last thing she wanted was her family, getting together after a prolonged absence, to spend more time with iGadgets than with live humans.
So, she took away their Smartphones and returned them only after the Party was over. Like a smoking addict looking for Cigarettes every now and then, over 30 minutes to an hour, all her family members exhibited reflex action, looking and scouring around, checking their holsters and pockets for the elusive devise.
The process of Detoxification was slow and arduous, but eventually effective. Post withdrawl sympom - they had some quality family fun time, at least for one evening. No sooner they got back their phones, than they buried their heads like Ostriches in sand. A time will come when smartphones will be taken away at workplaces to improve productivity.
Love it or hate it, the alternate universe is going to stay. "One day I believe we will be able to send full rich thoughts to each other directly using technology" said Mark Zuckerberg, hinting that facebook could enter telepathy space in future.
"You will be able to think of something and your friends will be immediately able to experience it too." he went on. Please Mark Z, don't go further. You will be breaking many hearts, not to mention many broken homes.
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