Let’s Have a Meeting, Face to… Facebook?

Used to be that when two people met, it was a personal thing…

 Now, with all the social networks around and a “data base” growing soon into the billions, the concept of the personal contact is going the same route as that of being able to buy milk in a bottle. Some people gloat about the amount of “friends” they have on Facebook. Often, they number into the hundreds, or even thousands. But, if they were to really let you know how many of these are physically known, the list would most likely shrink by a resounding 90-98%.

Some years ago, in order to call someone a “friend” there was supposed to be actual contact and some sort of mutual consent and knowledge about the other person and a direct exchange once in a while. Today… well, I guess this is why we call them “virtual” friends.

[Hi… lol… ++lmao…cn u cm hr 2 mt me?] No, this is not some sort of codex encoding wrung out of a spy by way of unimaginable torture; this is actually what a text (txt) message from a regular living, breathing person may look like. What does it say? After consulting several experts, mostly in the age range of 10-15 years and being looked at like some sort of ancient dinosaur, the following emerges: [Hi, “lots of laughs” … more yet, “laughing my ass off”… Can you come here to meet me?] Experts tell us that the ability of the coming generations to actually write complete sentences, let alone some sort of coherent paragraph, is in danger of being seriously impaired. 

Then again, language does evolve with new uses and applications. Terms like the above mentioned “texting” have a different meaning than it might have had just 15 years ago… Social networking has nothing to do with social places or even social graces, for that matter; and what about “vidcasting” or “netcasting”? This last one used to be a fishing term and, not to be outdone, we now have to contend with a different kind of “phishing” altogether… this one will not put food on your table, but  may actually take it away…  

OMG!!! … Shakespeare must be twisting in his grave…

FB ( that’s Facebook, for you uninitiated folk) has become the window of the soul(less)… There really is a lowering of general standards when someone feels that he/she must let the world know at what time they go to the bathroom, or get dressed, or get drunk and spew out whatever the content of their guts were at the moment… The pictures and the “Fwd…Fwd…Fwd…” that plaster the screen every time I open my FB (Yes, I do have one) force me to erase half or more of the content… Not really worth it or the time spent going through it.

Looks like most everyone who has retired from a productive working life, has found a secondary life and a way to occupy free time by writing all kinds of nonsense every time they open the computer… Little gems of household wisdom that, neither does it come from their household nor can it be considered to have much wisdom… just repetitious nonsense. This is now fast replacing the email chain letters. Seems like less and less people are actually forwarding these foolish emails, usually coming through with a trail of no less than 100+ names and addresses. So, in its stead, now we are getting the FB chain of “re-postings”, and they are just as obnoxious.

And then… we have the “Tweet” syndrome. Public figures use this as a way to stay in front of their “followers”; some of these people have well over one half million followers… This following (along with You-Tube viewings) has become a measuring stick for the level of popularity of the individual. The only thing is that, when you get to these figures, then you are forced to write something every few minutes, or the fear of being “untweeted” borders on the paranoiac. So what we then have is, again, something that is done, not to inform, educate or even entertain, but only to occupy space and time, keeping a name in front of my face… well, my phone. I have taken the time to actually “follow” a few of these folk and a lot of what comes through is really incredibly dumb. Sample posting from a TV personality… “My new poster just arrived”… Huh??

Actually, what I do get from this, is that these people have learned to gainfully manipulate the “social networks”, while I just sit here and complaint about it… well, free speech and all that… Just jealous really…

Anyway… the new social order, along with the new communication skills to go along with it, will most likely change the content and context of what future generations will read… and how this will be done.

They will read “Gn wth th Wnd” and “Wr ‘n Ps”… or perhaps “Th Lrd f th Fls” and this will not be done by pushing paper pages, but by passing the electronic pages on the “E-reader” (or, should it be “E-rdr”?)… I wonder if the electronic index finger has to be “wetted” to pass these pages… Hmm…

Change is beautiful when done to improve our present status… although sometimes change, for the sake of changing, is less meaningful. I guess this is what our parents said at some point , right? About whom was it that was said: “he is a bad influence… the way he moves his body and what he says in the songs… It’s INDECENT!!!” Choose: Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Rolling Stones, Run-D… or, all of the above?” If you chose the last, “all of the above”, you win the prize. Goes to show, the more we change, the more we remain the same. Every generation made the one before suffer with their changes…

Now it’s our turn…

“B  Wll … B Bk!!!”     ;-)

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