Social networking goes mobile

NEW DELHI - Are you constantly on the move and don’t have time to log on to your computer to be in touch with your friends? Coming to your rescue now is your mobile phone through which you can access any social networking site, anytime, anywhere.

Take college student Ajay Kumar for instance.

On a holiday in Goa, Kumar was constantly glued to his mobile phone — not calling or texting but scrapping and walling his friends on their profiles on Facebook and Orkut.

“I like to remain in constant touch with my friends. I like to be updated on what is going on in their lives even when I am not in town,” Kumar told IANS.

For many youngsters like Kumar, the key to stay in touch with their friends is now to remain hooked to mobile social networking.

Corporate executive at a multinational company Pranav Sharma echoed: “I am often out on business trips and it is difficult for me to be in touch with my friends. Therefore, I log on to the Internet on my mobile phone and go to the social networking sites to know what my friends are up to”.

Kritika Negi, an undergraduate student at Delhi’s Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, added: “If I see anything interesting, or a celebrity for instance, I can immediately take a picture, upload on the site and update my friends about it.”

Mobile social networking is fast becoming a fad in India. Limited to the small mobile screen, one can use the tiny key pads on the phone to remain connected with friends anywhere anytime.

One can log on to popular social networking sites like Facebook, Orkut, Twitter and many more, using the GPRS technology on their mobile phones.

Cashing in on the trend, Indian social networking sites like BigAdda launched their mobile version late last year.

Chief Operating Officer of BigAdda Shivanandan Pare told IANS: “Social networking helps people to be in touch and helps them know what is going on in their lives”.

“The youth has become Internet savvy and mobile phones have just added to make these services easily accessible to larger audience,” he added.

Saket Agarwal, CEO of Spice Digital, a telecom operator company, added: “A person who does not have access to a cyber caf or a personal computer is also able to log on to these sites through his or her mobile phone”.

“It’s mostly people in the age group of 16-35 who access social networking sites more frequently. The youth today is sporting the best of mobile handsets which enable them to constantly stay in touch with their peer,” Agarwal added.

However, Navjot Kaur, a student, said that accessing these sites from the phone is both impractical and expensive, therefore she prefers to log on to them through the computer.

“I don’t like accessing these sites through my mobile phone. For one, there is a space limitation. It is also expensive and I would prefer to log on to these sites, if I had to, on the computer rather than on the mobile phone,” Kaur said.

Talking about the trend, psychologists said since socialising is a major need of human beings, there is a constant urge to find new means of communication.

Psychiatrist Samir Parikh told IANS: “Whatever forms of communication are available, the youth will tend to use it to stay in touch with their friends. The youth today wants to be a part of the social scenario and would use any means of communication to stay connected whether it is the mobile or the computer.”

However, he added that the youth need to be careful and responsible enough and should use the new technology “judiciously”.

Gaurav Gupta, another psychologist, cautioned parents to keep a tab on their children’s online activities.

“Parents need to be cautious while the kids access these sites on mobile phones because one never knows who they are talking to as when they are on the computer a parent can see what their child is doing. I feel that the youth must be more mature to handle this new technology,” Gupta said.