Has It Come To This?

This morning, while I was having my coffee and catching up on the news, I came across a story about a 24 year old woman who is just about as deep into online networking communities as it gets. You can read the story here.

You really need to read the whole thing first, trust me, it will give you chills - at least for those of us born in the early 1980's or earlier. For those of you who might be freshmen, you'll probably completely miss the point and I'll feel all the more pity for the current condition of humanity.

For those with ADD, here's the short version. A 24 year old woman with a successful job has no life. But she has a rocking digital life! She networks baby! Facebook, Myspace, Match.com, and a host of other sites that I've never even heard of keeps her "in touch" with a litany of "friends". From her first waking moment, to her last act before bed, she is networked to thousands of people all day long - even tracking their movements in town and plotting them on her Google Map. That's right, she has so many friends that she never even sees the vast majority of them in a given day, let alone in a month. Who needs human contact, she asks, when facial expressions and actually talking (God Forbid!) are just too taxing on the human psyche. For this hip, networked, connected, digital babe of the New Millennium (can we still use that?), it's all about living vicariously through your PDA, your cell, and your notebook. And as long as those friend requests keep rolling in, and the pokes pile up, life is pretty damn sweet.

The image of a hamster in a wheel comes to mind - running feverishly, with a sense of purpose, spinning ever faster, and getting absolutely nowhere.

Now before you fling rotten fruit at me, I am on Facebook - guilty as charged. And in all honesty, I probably should never have let it get that far. However, Facebook is where it ends for me. My only friends are just that - my actual friends - people that I know or at the very least have met at various times. There are no strangers, no "Who the hell is that?" type people on my list of friends. When I see that I have some 130 odd friends, I beam, because I know that there are at least 130 people who know of me and would at least have an idea of who I was if the need to identify my corpse ever arose.

But this girl is really taking this whole online lifestyle thing a little far.

It's disturbing, to be honest. A 24 year old woman, (my age) - young, successful, and obviously a university student at some point, prefers the social interaction of "poking" "winking" or "pinging" over actually sitting down and having a cup of coffee with someone? Mind you, I have no fault with her, to each their own, but have human beings become so socially uncomfortable that they would rather have a machine do it for them? We're quickly evolving into a world filled with automated spam, self check-out lines, ATM's, and a host of "networking" sites to fill the void left by a complete lack of human contact during our days.

I wonder what the pages of history will tell us about the era we're currently in, and the times we're moving into. Will we be remembered as the most freakishly anti-social humans to ever walk the earth, or will the human race have dissolved into so many pale, wide-eyed, mouse wielding, network surfing, blogging, information maniacs, that we simply won't care anymore.

I remember a 1995 interview with Bill Gates on the Today Show. When asked if he calls or emails his wife about dinner, he replied "Oh I usually just email her". I knew we were all in a lot of trouble then... and so far, I seem to be right. Humanity seems to be in a collective trance, and I shudder at the thought of what it will take to wake us up.

It's time to go back outside folks, time to take in some sunshine, good food, drink, and the people who are made of flesh and blood around you. Human beings don't bite (unless you're into that sort of thing), and social interaction, unlike facebooking, is a healthy thing. Try it. Smile at the next person you walk by, hold a door for someone, walk over and talk to someone new. Life is far more rewarding than being poked or tagged.

Life is also far too short, and our days are melting away in front of our monitors, and behind the wheels of our SUV's as we chatter away on our cell phones. It's time to wake up.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to check Facebook again - I think I've just been poked.