There are an estimated 50 million Indians on Facebook. A few million also use Twitter. Disclaimer: I have active accounts on both. I imagine you do too. So, let’s not waste time on the number for YouTube, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Or Dave Carroll’s story on how he jammed United Airlines, the Goliath, for messing up his guitar. Suffice to say, the sheer number of those of us who’ve gone “social” is so large and the group-think so loud that it is insane, if not outright suicide, to question our beatific self-image of the social change we are bringing in.

But question we must. Let me get this off my chest. Does my ‘like’ on FB, part affirmation, part PR, change anything at all? I said it! I said it! Does my ‘like’ change anything at all? Does my RT lead to an iota of justice for my driver or the man knocking on my car’s window?

Phew! I only wish it did. Does yours? If you discount the embedded PR, did that ‘like’, before you’re back to the donut, change anything at all?

Granted that someone indeed may have got a unit of blood. I know the cause of age care did get its 40 seconds of due (thanks to Columbia don @sree). But aren’t the results miniscule, compared to the time and effort that we spent, on these ultimate time-wasting tools on the planet?

This isn’t a case for handwritten letters over snail mail. The intent is introspection over difference made (or not made) on the ground.

So, here’s my tuppence. Social media is mere time pass. Let’s not make it any bigger.

The pies (and darts) you and I throw are aimed at one of two walls. The ambitions vary.

If we’re a celebrity, say with a lakh or more followers on Twitter, our motive is to keep the brand alive, without the real effort needed to make a film, not to mention educate a child, or write a seminal piece of literature – post-facto apologies here to @SrBachchan, @SherlynChopra and @ShashiTharoor, respectively!

What folks like them do on the social media is basically post bits and pieces of client servicing. A cruder description would be indulging us, the aam janta, and using us: rehash one more line from Harivansh Rai Bachchan, paste yet another profundity about Hugh Heffner’s illusionary libido, RT another self-serving inanity on the wonders of god’s own country. Social change ho gaya!

Others, @sardesairajdeep and @bdutt notably, use follows to proliferate links to their news shows. Say something obsequious and the divas will reward you with an RT. Deed done, kaam ban gaya! Question the recurrence of Suhel Seth, with locus emanating from his social do’s, you risk even be blocked.

If @suhelseth is the conscience of our country’s social reality, you and I, my dear reader,  are Mahatma Gandhi. Yet, the man is omnipresent, explained to his 1,15,000 follows!

“Social” isn’t just about the celebrity. Remember, for each follow that Sherlyn, Suhel or @PoonamPandey have, it’s because there is the social media wannabe hanging out with a #JLT or #WTF as his middle name. With honourable exceptions, the search for instant fame remains our primal motivation. Almost nothing hangs on impact we are having in real life. Like little boys in the school john, our focus, lies in enhancing (and comparing!) our follows/fans/friends.

It isn’t my case that sophistication and humour are extinct. They exist, even rewarded. But anger works better.

From available evidence, destructive something-is-wrong-with-everything is driving our conversations. We remain in ready coalition with a million angry young men and women, unhappy with our middle-class lives, our parents and teachers, our failed ambitions, our spouses and children. So, we shoot for socio-political nirvana the entire day. Desperately!

Result? A molehill won’t do. So, politic we must to create a mountain of ‘shares’, ‘likes’ and ‘RT’. Follow up, the essence of worthwhile action, remains a yawn. Before we blink, the next hash tag catches our eye. Forget our last RT, even @swamy39 (Subramanium Swamy), the Prophet of Political Morality on this side of the Suez, doesn’t cry over what was a matter of life and death for the nation just two days back.

Seen through the prism of action over terra firma, angularity and exaggeration, stoked with narcissism and a deep lack of worth, just don’t add up. Good men are assassinated in 140 characters, without a care for detail. Legal follow through is rare. Tweet hi to tha!

Yet, we, Pankaj Pachauri inclusive, remain “social”. Not merely because we’re miserable junkies or in Pachauri’s case we want to impress the boss. We judge and are judged by way of our social scores on Klout, the aggregate of twitter RTs and follows, FB comments, and Google+ which I still haven’t figured.  Mine is 63. And yours?!