Wow...
You know I was randomly surfing on my laptop with my new internet and all and yeah... I realized something... I haven't been here in ages. I don't really know why I stopped with the LJ love... Well yes I do, there's a new evil in town, a far greater evil than even that of Voldemort and Darth Vader (ever notice how the best baddies have a 'v' in their names?) combined.
Facebook.
I can't understand it, I mean, here we are, grown adults who have, or I should hope have, a life. And yet, everyday we log onto our computers and after having anxiously gone to check our e-mails to see that the inbox is still empty after we logged on two hours ago, just to make sure, we hurriedly type in that URL, tapping our foots as we wait impatiently for the page to load and allow us a glimpse of our quest. We log in, only to grow more antsy waiting for that home page to flicker on our screens so that we can surreptitiously look at whether our friend that we live next to has managed to do something different on their accounts. Has someone put up a note, or added an application they think we should check out? Or better yet, is there a new friend of a friend which we can spy on? And of course, there's the event listings. Rather than inform your friends verbally by phone or even electronically by mass e-mail, we post event listings and invite everyone on our list, and they invite people from theirs and so on.
Sociologists were right. Since the advent of the internet, people have become less likely to talk on the phone, or talk at all with each other. And why should we? There are new and more exciting networking tools just a click away, and while most of our occupations involve computers and the internet, it isn't hard to pop over to facebook while we're supposed to be typing up that report on the Robertson account. Not to mention that facebook has become available on mobiles now. With just a click, and a five cent charge per kb, we can check if anyone has commented on a photo that we posted of our dog chewing on a dead mouse while we drive to work.
I will admit I am guilty of all the above mentioned offenses, but what I came to realize was, often times I go there, and I don't do anything. Nothing has changed from my visit five minutes ago and nothing will change in the next five minutes. Really it's simply become a new addiction for people to obsess over. 'Hey Mark, I was on facebook yesterday...' has become even more common of a sentence of late than I care to see.
And in the process, facebook has started to kill some really good sites, this being one of them. Instead of posting thoughts and ideas for people to see and discuss, and often times people do get into long conversations over things I've posted, particularly my rants for whatever reason (not that I'm complaining, in fact, the way people talk about them has made me consider more than once a career in blogging). Conversely though, no one posts ideas on facebook. If we're lucky someone might post an article, but it's nothing like here. Very little discussion comes up, in fact notes on facebook are about as rare as good xBox games...
Really all I'm saying is that I miss coming online and being able to read something of interest. Facebook, in all it's networking glory (when really it's nothing more than a monitoring tool for the everyday person), seriously lacks that aspect. And why? I mean, the only people supposed to be looking at your account are people you know and want to. The reason however is very simple. Facebook is too open. Anyone who has an account there has the opportunity to look at your page and judge you, including the partners. Sure there's security measures in place but what's to say that they actually work? I don't trust it, and I doubt many of you do. The idea that it's open like it is makes me not want things on there. It's too easy for third party peoples to take my rant on the lack of cleanliness in the York University washrooms, or my rant about Go buses for that matter, as more than it is.
There was a story awhile ago, a few in fact but this one in particular stood out. A girl had been ranting constantly about how much she hated her mother and how she would kill her mother and all of that. She would also say this outside of the internet world bear in mind. One day she did it. She killed her mother as she had promised she would, how I don't remember as it was at least 3 years ago now. The police looked at her account, spoke to her friends, all of it and discovered just how messed the girl was. Finally people took notice to it, and her last post here ended up with about 1500 or 15000 comments I believe before live journal had to close her account to comments because of how many people were writing to say she was a sick person and all of that. It was amazing how many people began to fly off the handle about what she did and all that. I remember one of my friends, who now I don't remember, but someone I knew at the time blamed live journal for not stepping in, but at the same time someone outside of here should have stepped up and told her, 'you have a problem, we're going to fix it.'
I haven't the foggiest what that has to do with anything... It just sorta seemed to fit until now that I've re-read it... Anyway, the basic point of all this is that facebook has killed the internet amongst my friends for the ideas. I miss being able to come online and see someone have post an thought, it leaves me wondering whether we have at last been made completely unable to think. Has the ease of everyday life made us all completely devoid of intelligent, creative thought? Are we all so lax with computers telling us everything, how to dress and look and do, that we no longer have the capabilities to think for ourselves? I realize that I too have fallen deep into that pit of relentless monotony that comes of growing up, moving into the real world and accepting that this is your life now. However, the idea of failing to continue thinking about things in news ways, extrapolating on old ideas... Well quite frankly it scares me. With sites like facebook out there, where conversation is made all but obsolete, people will continue to drift apart.
My mother works for a bank, I think she said it's the seventh largest bank in the world, and she has mentioned to me, on more occasions than one, that she has an inter-office instant messenger. That's a great idea! Why bother having your employees get out of their desks so that they can talk to the person two cubicles away about a project or file when they can instead simply hop on this program and IM the person! Lets completely abolish human interaction, even in the workplace, one of the few last vestiges where people were forced to talk to each other. The biggest concern I have with this break through is that people are losing their social interaction skills.
Take for example your friendly local convenience store clerk, granted I'm not saying this is everyone of them, but I have noticed that they are becoming less friendly and more surly as time passes. I can remember as a child knowing the clerks by name that they would smile and chat with you when you came in. Now I find myself feeling lucky if they even say hello before ringing me through as quickly as possible, as though the idea of a customer in their store for more than a few minutes might taint the place. Perhaps I'm over-reacting, but look around and you'll see it too. No one smiles at you anymore, people rarely say thank you if you hold a door open for them, or even keep it from closing long enough for them to reach it.
Our society is degrading from one that could pride itself for being thought of as super polite to a group of neanderthals grunting and groaning our way past each other in an effort to get to the mammoth steaks first. Screw you Jack, you don't have the money I do. Fuck off Jill, I'm too busy and important to offer you the basics of social graces.
Every where I go, all I see is the effects of the internet ruining society. People believe what they read online and spread it as true, without even considering the possibilities of it being grandiosely erroneous. I had someone try to tell me that 'body snatchers' are real. For those of you who haven't heard of these delightful little buggers, body snatchers are an alien race that takes over humans in a b-movie from the 1950's. The modern day reincarnation are similar in that it is a microscopic-organism that takes over it's host and causes that host to behave in a manner that will bring about its early demise. Why did this person believe it? Because they had read an article about it on the internet and thought, 'oh my god, I have to tell everyone I know about this before it's too late.' No one stops to think, 'how plausible is this?' or, 'will I sound like a raving lunatic if I tell everyone I know?' There was a time when people would have something unbelievable to talk about and the would have sources, multiple sources. Now they read one article on a website written by a guy who has the literacy rate of a snail, and it is automatically assumed that it must be true.
This internet this is great, don't get me wrong, however there are many things out there that people have to watch out for. I have a list of friends on this site that runs approximately fifteen or twenty, if I remember correctly. Of which, two people have continued with posting. Yes we all lead busy lives, and unfortunately we've all moved onto bigger and better things. But facebook, with all its bells and whistles, is not one of them. In fact from my year and a half of being on the site, I've found that it is in fact simply a fad, though one with it's footholds much deeper than many others. The site contains little that makes it stand out from others. More often than not people on it are bombarded by pokes and requests to add applications that do nothing other than clutter up profiles.
People wake up, start to think again and enjoy life. Get away from the computer and stop worrying about facebook and all its glamour. So its a networking site. Try networking in the real world and talk to people. My days on facebook are limited. I am very quickly tiring of it. I want to go back in time a bit and see people enjoying life, not enjoying the artificial glow of a computer screen...
Later Days,
Spair
Facebook.
I can't understand it, I mean, here we are, grown adults who have, or I should hope have, a life. And yet, everyday we log onto our computers and after having anxiously gone to check our e-mails to see that the inbox is still empty after we logged on two hours ago, just to make sure, we hurriedly type in that URL, tapping our foots as we wait impatiently for the page to load and allow us a glimpse of our quest. We log in, only to grow more antsy waiting for that home page to flicker on our screens so that we can surreptitiously look at whether our friend that we live next to has managed to do something different on their accounts. Has someone put up a note, or added an application they think we should check out? Or better yet, is there a new friend of a friend which we can spy on? And of course, there's the event listings. Rather than inform your friends verbally by phone or even electronically by mass e-mail, we post event listings and invite everyone on our list, and they invite people from theirs and so on.
Sociologists were right. Since the advent of the internet, people have become less likely to talk on the phone, or talk at all with each other. And why should we? There are new and more exciting networking tools just a click away, and while most of our occupations involve computers and the internet, it isn't hard to pop over to facebook while we're supposed to be typing up that report on the Robertson account. Not to mention that facebook has become available on mobiles now. With just a click, and a five cent charge per kb, we can check if anyone has commented on a photo that we posted of our dog chewing on a dead mouse while we drive to work.
I will admit I am guilty of all the above mentioned offenses, but what I came to realize was, often times I go there, and I don't do anything. Nothing has changed from my visit five minutes ago and nothing will change in the next five minutes. Really it's simply become a new addiction for people to obsess over. 'Hey Mark, I was on facebook yesterday...' has become even more common of a sentence of late than I care to see.
And in the process, facebook has started to kill some really good sites, this being one of them. Instead of posting thoughts and ideas for people to see and discuss, and often times people do get into long conversations over things I've posted, particularly my rants for whatever reason (not that I'm complaining, in fact, the way people talk about them has made me consider more than once a career in blogging). Conversely though, no one posts ideas on facebook. If we're lucky someone might post an article, but it's nothing like here. Very little discussion comes up, in fact notes on facebook are about as rare as good xBox games...
Really all I'm saying is that I miss coming online and being able to read something of interest. Facebook, in all it's networking glory (when really it's nothing more than a monitoring tool for the everyday person), seriously lacks that aspect. And why? I mean, the only people supposed to be looking at your account are people you know and want to. The reason however is very simple. Facebook is too open. Anyone who has an account there has the opportunity to look at your page and judge you, including the partners. Sure there's security measures in place but what's to say that they actually work? I don't trust it, and I doubt many of you do. The idea that it's open like it is makes me not want things on there. It's too easy for third party peoples to take my rant on the lack of cleanliness in the York University washrooms, or my rant about Go buses for that matter, as more than it is.
There was a story awhile ago, a few in fact but this one in particular stood out. A girl had been ranting constantly about how much she hated her mother and how she would kill her mother and all of that. She would also say this outside of the internet world bear in mind. One day she did it. She killed her mother as she had promised she would, how I don't remember as it was at least 3 years ago now. The police looked at her account, spoke to her friends, all of it and discovered just how messed the girl was. Finally people took notice to it, and her last post here ended up with about 1500 or 15000 comments I believe before live journal had to close her account to comments because of how many people were writing to say she was a sick person and all of that. It was amazing how many people began to fly off the handle about what she did and all that. I remember one of my friends, who now I don't remember, but someone I knew at the time blamed live journal for not stepping in, but at the same time someone outside of here should have stepped up and told her, 'you have a problem, we're going to fix it.'
I haven't the foggiest what that has to do with anything... It just sorta seemed to fit until now that I've re-read it... Anyway, the basic point of all this is that facebook has killed the internet amongst my friends for the ideas. I miss being able to come online and see someone have post an thought, it leaves me wondering whether we have at last been made completely unable to think. Has the ease of everyday life made us all completely devoid of intelligent, creative thought? Are we all so lax with computers telling us everything, how to dress and look and do, that we no longer have the capabilities to think for ourselves? I realize that I too have fallen deep into that pit of relentless monotony that comes of growing up, moving into the real world and accepting that this is your life now. However, the idea of failing to continue thinking about things in news ways, extrapolating on old ideas... Well quite frankly it scares me. With sites like facebook out there, where conversation is made all but obsolete, people will continue to drift apart.
My mother works for a bank, I think she said it's the seventh largest bank in the world, and she has mentioned to me, on more occasions than one, that she has an inter-office instant messenger. That's a great idea! Why bother having your employees get out of their desks so that they can talk to the person two cubicles away about a project or file when they can instead simply hop on this program and IM the person! Lets completely abolish human interaction, even in the workplace, one of the few last vestiges where people were forced to talk to each other. The biggest concern I have with this break through is that people are losing their social interaction skills.
Take for example your friendly local convenience store clerk, granted I'm not saying this is everyone of them, but I have noticed that they are becoming less friendly and more surly as time passes. I can remember as a child knowing the clerks by name that they would smile and chat with you when you came in. Now I find myself feeling lucky if they even say hello before ringing me through as quickly as possible, as though the idea of a customer in their store for more than a few minutes might taint the place. Perhaps I'm over-reacting, but look around and you'll see it too. No one smiles at you anymore, people rarely say thank you if you hold a door open for them, or even keep it from closing long enough for them to reach it.
Our society is degrading from one that could pride itself for being thought of as super polite to a group of neanderthals grunting and groaning our way past each other in an effort to get to the mammoth steaks first. Screw you Jack, you don't have the money I do. Fuck off Jill, I'm too busy and important to offer you the basics of social graces.
Every where I go, all I see is the effects of the internet ruining society. People believe what they read online and spread it as true, without even considering the possibilities of it being grandiosely erroneous. I had someone try to tell me that 'body snatchers' are real. For those of you who haven't heard of these delightful little buggers, body snatchers are an alien race that takes over humans in a b-movie from the 1950's. The modern day reincarnation are similar in that it is a microscopic-organism that takes over it's host and causes that host to behave in a manner that will bring about its early demise. Why did this person believe it? Because they had read an article about it on the internet and thought, 'oh my god, I have to tell everyone I know about this before it's too late.' No one stops to think, 'how plausible is this?' or, 'will I sound like a raving lunatic if I tell everyone I know?' There was a time when people would have something unbelievable to talk about and the would have sources, multiple sources. Now they read one article on a website written by a guy who has the literacy rate of a snail, and it is automatically assumed that it must be true.
This internet this is great, don't get me wrong, however there are many things out there that people have to watch out for. I have a list of friends on this site that runs approximately fifteen or twenty, if I remember correctly. Of which, two people have continued with posting. Yes we all lead busy lives, and unfortunately we've all moved onto bigger and better things. But facebook, with all its bells and whistles, is not one of them. In fact from my year and a half of being on the site, I've found that it is in fact simply a fad, though one with it's footholds much deeper than many others. The site contains little that makes it stand out from others. More often than not people on it are bombarded by pokes and requests to add applications that do nothing other than clutter up profiles.
People wake up, start to think again and enjoy life. Get away from the computer and stop worrying about facebook and all its glamour. So its a networking site. Try networking in the real world and talk to people. My days on facebook are limited. I am very quickly tiring of it. I want to go back in time a bit and see people enjoying life, not enjoying the artificial glow of a computer screen...
Later Days,
Spair