Sometimes when I'm trying to think of the best time to dump a dead hooker over the wall of the pub across the road, I prefer to remain anonymous. It's pretty easy, if you get the timing right and make sure the skip is open before you lift her up. Last week, I had to drag 'Susan' back into the house when the cleaner caught sight of me from behind the net curtains, but usually I find it's pretty easy to retain some level of privacy.
But lately, it has begun to feel that our privacy is not only under threat, but looked at suspiciously. Tell someone on Twatter that you've just evacuated your bowels after a particularly fragrant curry the night before, and you may get the odd 'retwat' or find someone as written "@savagereservation: you are lol funny, squeeze another nugget out for me". But if you so much as hint to anyone under the age of 30 that you don't update your Facebook status more often than you hug your own children, they begin to wonder exactly what it is you have to hide.
About a million years ago, social networking started with 'Friends Reunited' a quaint little website that might as well be from the middle ages. It let you connect with old school pals that you were so desperate to stay in touch with you didn't speak to them for twelve years. It was really only a success because you wanted to check that your own miserable life wasn't as bad as theirs. Funny that everyone I ever knew was either a pilot or had just been promoted to marketing manager for the Universe, while I was still stuck shovelling poo from the basement of a poo making factory run by Satan, Iain Duncan Smith and Danny Dyer (still, they had a good benefits package and free poo).
None of that is strictly accurate - if I was really honest I would accept that social networking similar to how we do it now, really began much earlier, even though it wasn't technology based. In Victorian times, mounted dispatch riders would send secretive letters to every corner of the county, especially when you had your eye on the old Colonels daughter because she waved a fan at you from the other side of a dinner party, before becoming overcome with the vapours and swooning at your impertinence when you tried to touch her quill.
When the Internet came into our homes, the way we socialised would change forever. It started as a bit of fun; meet some old pals, stay in touch with new ones and it's cheaper than texting. It was fun. We were young. We were foolish. But somewhere along the line it became a monster. It eats into your working day like an evil goat that feasts on time. You check it in the morning, you check it at lunch, you check it on the toilet, you tell people that you are in bed. I'm sure that by the time i'm an old man, there will be an in utero iPhone for up to the minute 'foetus updates'. I DON'T WANT TO KNOW. Go wash your hands.
Where did it all go wrong? When did it become the greatest insult you could ever give anyone to 'unfriend' them on Facebook? When did it become acceptable to write 'unfriend' unless you're a five year old practicing learning to spell by pushing brightly coloured letter magnets around a fridge door?
It's all over now though. It has us in it's grip, gently soothing us and whispering how much it loves us while squeezing our frail bodies until our eyes pop out of our heads and our brains are pushed out of our ears like Play-Doh. You can't stop using it - if you do, people Tweet directly to you. You can't ignore it - Facebook suggests people you need to get in touch with. It knows you better than you do, and it knows what you like... go on, try it... you'll like it... go on.... that's it.... there, there... mmmm.
We could do something to free us from this tyranny. If we could only get together to defeat our common enemy, we could get on with our lives. We'd be in a Utopia where the only people we talk to are our friends (real ones). People would have to search the Internet for interesting and exciting new links, blogs, chat, rather than suckling at the fat feted pig of the Twitterbook. I know we can do it people.
I'll get right on it. Better start by making a new group on Facebook. That'll show 'em.
Seeyouonthereintenseconds. xxx
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