Social networking saves the world...

It’s funny. Despite being the vitriol filled sod that I am, I have never really had any problem with the idea of social networking. I suppose this is mostly because it used to be so easy to ignore, it seldom crossed into mainstream media and the exceptions tended towards the exceptional - the occasional celeb crying for help while being stuck in a lift (a la Stephen Fry) or someone sharing their nervous breakdown (a la too many to list).

The tide of banality appears to have turned.

Most of us started by reinventing ourselves with a brief profile on Friends Reunited, however, this was too limited in its scope. Few of us used it to do much more than cry for the nostalgia of the past with people we knew at school or college. For me, this meant having a look to see who was continuing to shine with the promise of mediocrity that was shown ‘back in the day’. But Friends United lied to me. The people on were not my friends - separated or otherwise. If they were my friends we wouldn’t have lost touch, we would have made the effort because we wanted to be BFFs. They were an accident, they were flotsam, they were convenient acquaintances due to location and access, but mostly they were not my friends.

Although a large number of social networking sites popped up at around the same time, MySpace seemed to be de rigueur for a while. Not only did I now have access to keep up with all my old not-friends, I can chose to become “friends” with new virtual people (or “friends”) I have never heard of! This was revolutionary...

I could soon chose between a whole host of service options to enable me to not really engage with my “friends” – MySpace was joined in the list by Bebo and Facebook which really took this disengagement to a new level. I could now look at photographs of the lives of my not-friends, I could listen to their music, I could contribute comments to their musings, I could wish them belated happy birthdays and coo over their children and admire their cats, and I could feel the growing pains of their virtual angst.

But by far the most important thing was that I could do all of this whilst naked in front of my computer and in the comfort of my own home. I could still be a part of a community of real people without all that pesky physical interaction where I would have to look into their eyes, laugh with them (other than LOL and LMAO), touch them, smell their body odour, read their body language, insult them, be insulted by them and generally touch lives with them.

And then, whole new level of non interaction... I can further streamline my non- communication with all of my non-friends, I can follow people without being accused of stalking, I can even have followers (praise Lord SpiderBoz), I can tell the whole virtual world my deepest, darkest thoughts – as long as it’s done in 140 characters or less. Good god, I can Tweet...!

Twitter just makes the whole process of not communicating even easier, I barely have to think and I can tell the virtual world all about what I’m not thinking... Wow! How did I cope when I had to make an effort to try to like people, or to make an effort to love or hate people, or even to leave my house.

Bring the virtual revolution on. I can’t wait to see less of the ones I love, I can’t wait to further isolate my life whilst keeping it open to the world, I can’t wait to not meet new and interesting people and not interact with the world around me. Bring it on...

Actually, no. I'm going out. I feel the need to see someone real...