Orkut, a community website - "network of trusted friends"! A truly bright idea conceptualized on the Internet - bringing the slam books; "college-katta"s (chat-places) of any college, short messaging all at one place on the internet! Access to the site is only by invitation, so only trusted friends can join your friend-list. One can create an online profile for display - similar to a slam-book profile, what youth used to create. One can create/ join different communities of people having similar interests, similar to any typical "college-katta" (chat-place) of a college…

Being a network of friends, it is possible to visit profiles of friend's friends' friends... Without any restriction, one can view the messages (scraps, as they call on Orkut) written for somebody else. The entire network is created to allow expression of feelings, creation of network of friends, developing business relationships, finding partner for dating, etc

Getting trapped on the network

In November'05, I joined Orkut and found that many of my friends are on active on Orkut – friends from school, college, workplace, home town and even I made some new friends on Orkut itself... Slowly, I started spending more n' more time on Orkut. Before I would even realize, I was getting trapped. I started spending hours n' hours, surfing the site. Orkut had a provision to know, which of your friend had logged in recently on Orkut. I appointed myself on the "mission critical" task of monitoring the activities of friends on Orkut! Now, I had no time to read newspapers, magazines, books, journals. Even after 12 hours of hectic schedule at B-school and dozens of assignments, I had stamina to be online at Orkut for at least for 2-3 hours. The devil was pushing me hard, stealing my entire free time……….

The Positive Side

Orkut opened entirely new world – virtual world where there were serious discussions on politics, arts, music… People were criticizing the wrong…. There was masty, fun! Even I started a community "Chinchwad", for uniting all Orkut members from my home town "Chinchwad". The effort was very well appreciated. Over 225 people joined the community and it kept growing. Old friends kept meeting after years… old memories were being rejuvenated… New friends were being added... Orkut was also giving lot of insight about the generation in colleges, 5-7 years younger than me. I was able to really sense the flavor of entire youth – their aspirations, preferences… I started writing a lot, on the communities and also on my blog…

People portraying imaginary identity

I even know few guys who have created a whole new identity of themselves in this virtual world. They are actually projecting themselves as ones, they are really not! In real life, these fellows can be big-time losers. They are the weak people, running away from the reality. They might have failed at every juncture of their life. Now, they are satisfying their unfulfilled needs, what they couldn't achieve in real life...

I am 100% trapped

I agree that one needs a break, a change after hours of work. But, if this "change" become the only thing in life, there is seriously something wrong. I tried lot of ways to avoid Orkutting. But, for me living alone in the hostel, with a laptop & high speed broadband at disposal, none of the efforts worked to avoid orkutting...)) On one hand, I was realizing that I am becoming addict of the site; but I was puzzled how to escape from the trap... I should have been more worried about the exams, beginning within 2 days; but still found myself spending time on Orkut...

The Conflict

Controlling the orkutting became very difficult. Then, there was an option of "DELETING" Orkut account. My mind immediately denied doing any such act. I could not imagine stopping all the fun being at Orkut, losing all contacts on Orkut. No… no… never! I reemphasized - "I will still try to CONTROL and reduce Orkutting"!! But… even after trying so hard, I was not able to reduce orkutting. 

I am free now

The conflict was increasing day-by-day. Day by day, I was experiencing lot of impatience for no known reason. Orkut devil was ruling me and for me, being there online was absolutely irresistible. The "Root Cause" was the Orkut account and the only Escape route was to delete the account, which was unimaginable!

All of a sudden, I determined not to let Orkut ruin my time, career… The Opportunity Cost of the time lost while orkutting was so much high, that actually I could have managed plenty of other productive things within the same time frame. There is place for fun and enjoyment in the life, but that shouldn't be the only thing you do.

I believe, it is never too late to rectify your mistake. Today, I decided to kill the root cause of all problems – the Orkut account itself and …. and I DID IT! I deleted the account itself, erased my online identity from Orkut. My friends are still puzzled and believe that it was a wrong decision and I could have easily controlled the orkutting. But, believe me - it is a really rational decision. 

I am still not sure whether this would backfire in any sense? Orkut has become inevitable part of my life and I am surely going to miss it a lot. I am going to miss my friends on Orkut. But, I am not worried now… I am free now! Feeling extremely positive, having control over what I want, sure about what I want to achieve! It was a great experience for me to learn how to - manage ambiguities, identify core/ root cause and eliminate the same…  Am I going to face some other trap? Well, I don't know n' I don't care! But, this episode has given me tremendous strength for Sure!!! Thanks ORKUT for the great Experience!!!

(The entire discussion may sound stupid, boring, and irrelevant for some people... But, for me, it was a huge EXPERIENCE!)