Frequently, the innovations in technology begin to frighten me. Shades of George Orwell in "1984" with "Big Brother" watching over us. My friend, Grumpy (grumpy-olddog.blogspot.com), commented in a blog today about ChatRoulette, a new website where you can communicate with total strangers and do all kinds of weird things, if you choose, like sex acts or dissing people. I suppose you can do good things as well, but the potential of such a website for the weirdos of the world to perform is tempting to deviated mentalities.
I'm old---and I know it---but some of the new tech stuff just doesn't grab me. I've not even joined Facebook or Twitter. I really don't want or need five hundred new friends. I have enough trouble keeping up with those I really care for. In true friendship, bit by bit as you come to know a person, you reveal your true feelings gradually as trust develops and common interests reveal themselves. I feel no compulsion to advertise those feelings on a website; I want to pick and choose those who appeal to me to be friends. I don't want to make a running diary of my days that would probably bore people to death. If I really like a person, he or she is in my address book and I communicate by email and, I confess, even snailmail. Very old-fashioned, I know, but there it is...
Blogging is quite enough of myself to expose in public.
I wonder what George Orwell would say today.
As a slightly younger member of the family, I joined Facebook in college. What I like about it, is that I can keep in touch with friends from home in Ohio and those from college in Florida since I'm not living in either place. What I don't enjoy are the constant updates on everyone (i.e. when they go to the bathroom, brush their teeth, eat dinner and all of the other daily activities)!
ReplyDeleteI do still use the telephone and send real cards in the mail to the select few I want to keep a closer relationship with. When you take that extra bit of time (and money) to send something tangible, there's nothing else that can replace that act.