I'm aware of the self-harm in asking this question in a blog, but how did we waste time before the Internet?
In developing countries and under oppressive regimes, of course, they seem to use the Internet as positive tool, to gain important information, to organize dissent and work towards political change and freedom. My fear is that once they attain that freedom they'll use the net like most people seem to In Britain, to sell buy and sell crap we don't need, and to find videos of nuns being fucked by donkeys.
My guess is some of them aren't even real nuns.
I'm on Facebook, but I'm ambivalent towards it.
Feels a bit like joining the Hitler Youth in Nazi Germany.
You didn't have to join, but if you didn't, your social networking options risked considerable curtailment.
And we do get so much crucial information about our friends don't we? Don't know how I coped without it.
Status update: "Emma is really depressed because she's come to the end of the last box set of Heroes and she doesn't know what she's going to do with her Tuesday evenings. She may need chocolate to cheer herself up."
Really? Well Emma, fuck you. Fuck you and your self-indulgent cyber-extended pseudo-infancy. You're not ten years old any more. Time to grow up and engage in the real world. Your name is Emma, not Tinkerbell; that's a clue.
Stop clogging my Inbox with cack.
Maybe I'm being unfair. Facebook can keep you up to speed with important international events. Just depends what groups you join.
For example, don't know if anyone else is in the group "Who will OD first? Amy, Britney, Lindsay or Paris."
Because I like to have my finger on the pulse of what's really shaping our world.
But some people just can't be bothered. Don't know if anyone else has Facebook friends in Darfur.
But you send that invitation out to them, and do any of them join? Not one.
Don't they realize there are paparazzi in Los Angeles working 24/7, risking their lives climbing over walls into Rottweiler-infested gardens, speeding along freeways to get us the first pictures of an A-list celebrity vomiting blood all over her Chihuahua or throwing a fetus out of the window of the SUV...they're doing it for all of us.
But do you get back anything from Darfur, ever?
Status update: "Frightened of Being Raped and Murdered by the Janjaweed."
It's like "me me me" the whole time. Some people seem incapable of looking outside their own petty concerns for even a second.
I despair.
(ends)