Facebook, Twitter, Etc.

David Berner let go with a good rant about the current crop of social networking tools. I added my thoughts:

I'm actually on Facebook. I resisted for a long time but a very pretty Italian woman from Montreal convinced me to join. Hey, I'm weak, I'm weak!

With that said, I view it as a simple social networking tool, not a whole lot different than e-mail. And in point of fact, it has sparked several new friendships amongst my friends, which otherwise wouldn't have ever likely occurred.

As for Twitter, I have a special term for those who are obsessed with it! (It won't take you long to figure out what that might be! LOL)

Being a technology guy, I fully understand the power of Twitter to keep a vast number of people updated instantly but I refuse to accept that it's necessary or even useful to do so. Those who have convinced themselves that the world needs their regular updates is truly in need of a good psychologist!

What's much more disconcerting to me are those people we all see out in the "non-virtual world" who can't seem to muster even 30 seconds of continuous silence and time to ... wait for it ... think. Listening to them talk on their cel phones almost always illustrates the truly shallow thinkers that they clearly are. I surmise that the text messages they send out are even more emblematic.

I'm not looking forward to the future when these same twits (there, I said it!) are the ones responsible for paying the taxes to pay for the services in society when I'm retired.