Jamshedpur, July 31: From friends to pen friends and then chat friends — the times are changing but not the meaning of friendship.

Come Sunday, celebrated worldwide as Friendship Day, youngsters are making a beeline for gift shops to buy soft toys, cards and friends- hip bands just to say how much they care for and love their dearest pals. But the owners of these shops said there had been a dip in the sale of gifts due growing use of the Internet.

“The craze of Friendship Day is not as much as it was after the release of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. Youngsters, especially school and college students, still come down to buy friendship bands and small nick-knacks. It is presumably because students are becoming tech-savvy and their prefer to send a e-card to a card through post,” said Manoj Kumar Vyas of Archies Gallery in Bistupur.

“Initially, we used to run out of stock of cards and gift items two or three days before Friendship Day. But in the last couple of years, it has not been so. Public networking sites such as Orkut, Twitter, Facebook are preferred to wish friends over gifts and cards,” said Neeraj, a sales boy at a gift shop in Sakchi.

Vandana Sharma, a student of Jamshedpur Women’s College, said: “I will wish friends who live in other cities through Orkut but will celebrate Sunday with the ones who live here with us.”

However, Sonia Roy of Carmel Junior College has a different take.

“Why spend money when you can send scraps, e-cards and emails? My friends know how much I love them. So, no point showing my feelings on a particular day.”