think you may be an old fogy and don't "get" FB?

"JR" wrote in message
...
Try Twitter out. Nothing but a stand-alone "status update" deal?

"Followers" rather than "friends"......

- JR
(designing a site for collecting "sycophants.")



I think these trends towards always connected, somewhat Borg Collective-like
uses of the 'Net have 'potential' both for good and ill.

Certainly, humans are social creatures and need large amounts of connection
to be healthy, as humans.

But too consistently I see the following problems ( and others not
mentioned )

1) Cyber connection replacing instead of adding to real connection. It is
extremely common to see people texting and cell phoning and Blackberrying
when in the company of real people and AT THE EXPENSE of potential real
social interaction.

Calling people we've never met and probably never will, .... people that we
only 'know' by their 'status updates' .... a 'friend' is odd and, partly,
a redefinition of 'friend." But choosing to, say, sit in the Park on
lunch break and use an Iphone to check those cyber 'friends' when surrounded
by real people you could be having a short, but real, chat with is damaging
to our humanity and society, imho. The guy that sold you the hot dog
you're eating and the lady that has pushed herself to the other end of the
park bench to get as much distance as possible when you sat down both
actually live where you do, and have obvious things in common with you.
Why the hell not solicit their 'updates'?

If you "can't think of anything to say' ... If the inane twitter that we
all post to FB and ROFF seems too, well stupid and inane, for a real
conversation ... maybe that shows us what that twittering is actually doing
to our standards of conversation ... ?

Seems to me that if many FBers and Twitterers were to spend as much effort
trying to take an extra minute or two to 'connect,' just briefly, to the
many real people they encounter each day that the need to 'find singles in
your area' and 'meet people online' wouldn't be growing in a getting more
crowded world. Chicken then egg? Egg then chicken?

Checking our various 'Net social networks takes lots of time each day, when
it's time that might have led to more in the flesh and in this town friends
it's not time well spent.

2) Group think. I don't shake in terror at thougths of the "Borg
Collective" idea that comes to mind each time I see someone with one of
those cell phone receivers jammed in his ear, BUT I recently saw a short
article on Twittering in Congress. It turns out that Republicans use it
3 or 4 times as much as Dems .... makes ME wonder ... does their group think
cause the twitter, or does the twitter enforce and enhance the lack of
individual thought ? ( yeah, this might be a troll ;-) but dammit
Republican group think IS something obvious and I DO believe their
acceptance of twittering ( when they should be listening to chamber
business ) is connected to that Group Think.

Individual thought requires time spent being an individual. ( NOT part ot
the RNC platform ;-)


3) "Me, Myself, and I" Humans are social, we know that. However, I
don't trust people that are fearful of themselves ... I figure they must
have good reason to resist being alone with themselves. Time alone,
really, truly, alone is as needed for developing a healthy human-ness as is
social time. Turn off the Blackberry, the cell phone and the 'puter some
of each time. They can add to a real life, but I fear ( and I'm serious
about it ) that they are replacing life, not adding to it for increasing
numbers of people in our culture.