The Social Networking Conundrum

[Strawb]

There was soap...

All you could see was my chest (admittedly not appealling...)...

there is the complaint as we all know poms do not use soap.

What about South Africans???

Regards
JAS

LOL JAS we know he is a Saffa but he plays for the poms. So he is English now.

[Mic]

Valid point JAS, but somehow actually taking time to write to each other, rather than just click a mouse button, made it seem somehow more real.
There was a substantial interaction with time invested in the relationship.

Exactly. There are myriad reasons why I hate fakebook (sic), and the above is one of the better reasons.

Communication with other human beings - if it is worth having - takes time and effort. One does not enter into communication unless one has something worth saying; and then one takes care to assemble words in such a manner as to convey that message. The information content of the message must be nonzero in order to have something worth saying, and the inherent signal-to-noise ratio of the communication must be sufficiently high for the message to be received and understood.

The current fad of social media has, contrary to the claims bandied about by the various media providers, destroyed meaningful communication between people. It has done this by making it all too easy to get behind a keyboard and share your thoughts with the world. Any cretin with minimal social skills can tell the world what's on their mind all at the touch of a button.

And they do. No longer are idiots discouraged from opening their minds by the need to physically pick up a pen and spend time writing. Now they can simply log on to wankbook and tell the world what they had for breakfast, liberally dousing their sentences with TXT SPK and 733t sp33k, giving scant regard to outmoded ideas like grammar and punctuation. Information content near zero, any vestige of signal drowned thoroughly in the noise.

At least back in the day when one had a penpal on the other side of the globe, whom one never saw and was unlikely to ever meet in person, one had decent communication with them. Was there ever a case where one opened a letter from distant lands only to read "Eated frosty flakse for brekky. Gots a tummy ache now! W00t!" ?

Those of you who do use social media for meaningful communication - and I'm sure many of you do, although you are merely islands in a vast sea of banality - consider that tossbook provides no extra functionality than you were already provided via email. The only salient difference is that email makes it difficult to include every other human being on the planet in the "CC:" line. With social media it is trivial to make your messages visible to all and sundry. I suggest that this is Not A Good Idea.

I seem to be grumpier than usual this morning. Time for a tea break...

What about forums like SA Footy?

[Q.]

What about forums like SA Footy?

Unlike Facebook, here you can at least take part in open prosaic discussion!

[Big Phil]

Perhaps facebook friends Fisho McSpaz, Big Phil, and Westcoastpanther, saw the lovely picture I posted of me in the bathtub the other day...

This photo was removed after someone reported it...

What annoyed me is that I also reported a photo, of someone who was "pulling a bong."

So whats worse? A photo where you can see someone wearing no shirt, and holding a beer (of which there are many pics), or someone actually doing something illegal...

I saw the pic of Media Park and didn't see much wrong witrh it...

You looked very relaxed and comfortable and that hat really suited you

[Barto]

What about forums like SA Footy?

Unlike Facebook, here you can at least take part in open prosaic discussion!

More like prozac.