One good thing about social media and other Internet services is that things keep changing fast.

If Facebook changes its chat design, Google+ follows suit, and vice-versa. If you are addicted to social media, you spend half the time scouring Twitter for news of changes. Once you spot one, you spend the other half (of the time) waiting for the change to hit your account or device.

Last week, Google+ got a revamp. Google also integrated its chat apps under Hangouts. Just as we were getting used to the changes, Facebook came up with a minor change. I was surprised to see all the pages and chat list had move to the left. It was nothing great, but the fact was that I had got the update before others in my office. What these changes do is to enable us get vicarious pleasure whenever we get these updates first - before any of our friends do.

These small pleasures may last a few weeks, a few days or even a few hours. It depends on the roll-out schedule. We go around asking other whether they have got the updates. We post screenshots in Twitter, Facebook and Google+ asking other whether they have got the updates; and get upset when someone says “Yes, I too got it”.

But unlike social media, there are sites and applications not many use. One day you find a major update to a chat app and discover that none of your friends use it. After asking a few people, you get fed up and end up deleting the app. A similar thing happened when Flicker underwent a major redesign. I discovered that only two or three of my friends used Flickr, and only one had the app in his phone.

But today’s Facebook update is different. Almost all of my friends are in Facebook, but none of them have got the new design. My day has been made. I can go home and sleep contentedly till some service/app comes out with a new update.

dinakaran.rengachary@thehindu.co.in

Related Topics