Schizophrenia and technology

I've not blogged for almost 2 years now... and every once so often i remember that this blog exists-and urge myself to pen some stuff. But somewhere along the line, i never bothered to update the blog.

I've been thinking of this topic for a while now. And couldn't find a place to air my thoughts till i remembered that i have my own nook to write my own stuff... Of course, i also did put in a 1 liner update on facebook on the topic...

I was quite frustrated one day - dont remember with what, was it life in general, work related stuff, people at home or anything else. And i wanted to vent out my feelings in public - kinda gives the comfort that people are listening. And i thought to myself, why dont i create an alias facebook profile which doesn't have any of family, friends or colleagues in the network? That way i can rave and rant to my heart's content and get sympathy from strangers.

Suffice to say, i never did go ahead with that plan, but it got me thinking that if multiple personalities or schizophrenic behaviour was tough to trace a few years ago, it would be worse now. I could create profiles, login from home and be completely someone else online with my own fantasy life, and noone in my real life family would know about it. - Boggles the mind doesn't it?

Another thing that added on to my thoughts on this topic was the fact that i had started using a second Sim card as a alternate mobile number. And this was helpful when we were doing some house hunting. I would call from my regular number and get all details, and cross check them from my second number using an "alias" personality. If i was doing this, with full cognizance of the reasons and rationale, imagine the folks who have discovered the anonymity that a mobile phone has afforded them. Unlike fixed line connections, there is no address/ name lookup facility for mobile numbers. Unlike fixed line connections, i can easily acquire a number and discard it as my whims and fancy tale me.

I know several folks use alternate email IDs for chatting with strangers, for signing up on websites which may tend to spam your mailbox etc. But i never realized it was symptomatic of a larger problem, which now can only grow larger.

On the positive side, what is the harm if we do have an alternate "online" or "mobile" personality? It may relieve the stress of daily life and provide some fantasy in an otherwise boring life... as long as we don't confuse reality with fantasy