Web Wars: Attack of the Social Network
Due to the inventions of Facebook and Twitter, the minute details of our everyday lives have suddenly become our favourite things to mention on these social networking monsters.
If Neil Postman thought in Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985) that television would dumb down our society, I wonder what his thoughts are on the effects Bebo and Facebook are having on our lives and our attention spans.
“Ow,just stubbed my toe on the door!”.
“Just had the nicest ham sandwhich.”
Social networks give a false sense of community: that we are living our everyday lives together when we are not.
Did we feel this way when the mobile phone was invented? For the most private happenings of our day now to be broadcast to all our friends who can see our profile page. “Friends” is a debatable word for Facebook to use for all the people you have added and have added you as a friend, though the majority of them you probably don’t even see in your weekly routines.
It may be argued that social networks are good way to keep in touch with long-distant friends and relatives, which it is. But it’s a way for us to keep “out of touch.”
It’s satisfying our social needs without having to meet people in person.
And now that we have the all-knowing Facebook to tell us when our “friends’” birthdays are approaching, we need not remember them ourselves.
Now that we can chat instantly in the comfort of our own home, we needn’t meet up and have real conversations, and see how good of friends we actually are.
I’d also like to point out that even if you have hundreds of contacts at your fingertips while social networking, essentially you are still at home sitting at a computer by yourself for possibly hours at a time, and not in real contact with anyone, which is ironically one of the most anti-social behaviours I can think of.
These side-show games don’t help either; Farmville, Mafia Wars etc.
It’s becoming to people what World of Warcraft is to nerds: a social fun zone with scarily little awareness of privacy.
“Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life.”
A more appropriate slogan would be “Facebook helps you sit a computer for a long time, where you can build up a contact list of people you may or may not know very well, while you’re friends are probably sitting at home doing the same thing.”
If Facebook wasn’t a profit-making machine, I’m sure they would be telling us to get a life and stop wasting our time using this shambolic form of non-communication.
Now, to get off my computer before I get that FB itch.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Blatter's got a point
Just what did FIFA President Sebb Blatter mean when he said John Terry’s alleged affair with an ex-teammate’s ex-girlfriend would have been “applauded” in some Latin countries?
I was shocked to see the John Terry affair was even being covered by the broadsheets. When does a private matter like this become “public interest”? Surely it is nothing more than red top gossip.
And to make matters worse, it has affected his playing career as he was stripped of his England captaincy last week.
In terms of covering the national football team, the English press are like a suffocating swarm of stinging bees.
The over-attention international footballers receive in England means that they are not permitted to live anything other than a perfect life. If they want to avoid scrutiny, these men aren’t allowed be normal men, the reason supposedly being because they are the heroes for millions of children.
But the real reason is because of their nation’s hunger for gossip. Gossip is gospel, or at least when it comes to selling the tabloids.
Though, it is unfair to single out tabloids now seeing as our good, serious broadsheets have succumbed to the power of the Terry Affair.
Blatter, already known for the outlandish comment or two, and certainly not a favourite among Irish fans since sharing a joke with the media about the FAI requesting a replay with France after the “Hand of Henry” incident, has once again made some heads turn and not for the right reasons as usual.
Although this time I must say I agree.
England manager Fabio Capello has blundered this one in style. If Terry no longer “qualifies” for the England captaincy because of this alleged affair, then surely next in line would have to be Liverpool pride and joy, Steven Gerrard, who had his assault charge dropped after all.
Not a chance. Let’s give it instead to Rio Ferdinand; he has fewer games under his belt this year than David Ngog, he had been notably poor for Man Utd before his injury, and to top it all off, he once served an eight-month ban for missing a drugs test. Surely not skipper material.
The criteria for the armband under Capello’s watch must be something like this: be a centre-back, don’t be too stupid, but a little stupidity is ok. Fair enough?
It is true that something like Terry’s affair may have received less negative attention in somewhere like Brazil, where the (not Cristiano) Ronaldo-transvestites affair only received attention because it made football fans fear for the masculinity of their most loved sport, and not for the behaviour of their children’s role models, oddly enough.
He’s on a “recovery” break with his wife in Dubai at the moment, but Terry would have received a real cheer up holiday in Buenos Aires. Even if he put on four stone, developed a cocaine addiction, became manager of the national team and made a balls of it, Argentina would still love him.
As for “Ingerland”, it remains to be seen whether John Terry will ever be held in the same regard again.
I was shocked to see the John Terry affair was even being covered by the broadsheets. When does a private matter like this become “public interest”? Surely it is nothing more than red top gossip.
And to make matters worse, it has affected his playing career as he was stripped of his England captaincy last week.
In terms of covering the national football team, the English press are like a suffocating swarm of stinging bees.
The over-attention international footballers receive in England means that they are not permitted to live anything other than a perfect life. If they want to avoid scrutiny, these men aren’t allowed be normal men, the reason supposedly being because they are the heroes for millions of children.
But the real reason is because of their nation’s hunger for gossip. Gossip is gospel, or at least when it comes to selling the tabloids.
Though, it is unfair to single out tabloids now seeing as our good, serious broadsheets have succumbed to the power of the Terry Affair.
Blatter, already known for the outlandish comment or two, and certainly not a favourite among Irish fans since sharing a joke with the media about the FAI requesting a replay with France after the “Hand of Henry” incident, has once again made some heads turn and not for the right reasons as usual.
Although this time I must say I agree.
England manager Fabio Capello has blundered this one in style. If Terry no longer “qualifies” for the England captaincy because of this alleged affair, then surely next in line would have to be Liverpool pride and joy, Steven Gerrard, who had his assault charge dropped after all.
Not a chance. Let’s give it instead to Rio Ferdinand; he has fewer games under his belt this year than David Ngog, he had been notably poor for Man Utd before his injury, and to top it all off, he once served an eight-month ban for missing a drugs test. Surely not skipper material.
The criteria for the armband under Capello’s watch must be something like this: be a centre-back, don’t be too stupid, but a little stupidity is ok. Fair enough?
It is true that something like Terry’s affair may have received less negative attention in somewhere like Brazil, where the (not Cristiano) Ronaldo-transvestites affair only received attention because it made football fans fear for the masculinity of their most loved sport, and not for the behaviour of their children’s role models, oddly enough.
He’s on a “recovery” break with his wife in Dubai at the moment, but Terry would have received a real cheer up holiday in Buenos Aires. Even if he put on four stone, developed a cocaine addiction, became manager of the national team and made a balls of it, Argentina would still love him.
As for “Ingerland”, it remains to be seen whether John Terry will ever be held in the same regard again.
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