TMI

Like everybody else that uses facebook and twitter, I frequently complain about the shallowness of facebook and twitter.  But, GIGO and it should come as no surprise.  Conversations between human beings have always been 90% banal (Whatcha doin’?  Hangin’ out.  Whaddya wanna do?  I dunno, what do youwanna do?  I dunno.)  Why did we think that expanding our social network to include everybody in the world would make things any different?

Most of these I've never heard of

I was hoping that the internet would allow us to communicate on a higher level, to connect with  great minds and learn important things, to link great ideas with other great ideas, to create a salad of great ideas, a mulligan stew of great ideas, a steaming, frothing chemical mix of great ideas interacting with each other and growing like fungi until they reached a critical mass and humanity went soaring into its golden future, its high tech Periclean age.

It still could happen some day.  But facebook isn’t it.  Instead of boring conversations about the weather with people I meet face to face, I get boring updates on the weather from people on different continents, invitations to events I couldn’t possibly attend and vacation pictures of people I don’t really know that well, if at all.

And twitter is mostly ##@@wxj16blah blah blah.  When you actually find a comment that’s in real words it’s more often than not something quoted from that day’s inspirational calendar page.  “It’s hard to beat somebody who won’t give up.”  I read that today.  I’ll try to remember it next time I want  to kick the crap out of somebody.

Still, I enjoy facebook and I leave my  one tweet per day on twitter, with my own additional rule (it must be a rhyming couplet), to advertise my blog.  I kind of enjoy it, although I certainly don’t read all of the posts.  Not even 10%.  Life’s too short.

So, I keep looking for something better.  I’ve signed up for Quora and LinkedIn but I haven’t actually started using them.  Unless somebody adds a few hours to the day I’m not likely to,  either.  I actually sort of like the idea of Pinterest but I’d feel weird joining.  Sort of like being the only guy in an aerobics class.  You’d think it would be a great way to pick up women, but it’s not.  They just look at you funny.

I read about one today that sounds interesting: Newsle.  It sounds a bit newsier than facebook and not as spammy as twitter.  I may get around to trying it some day.  But, I’m not in any hurry.

The way I see things now, if it’s any good it will still be around in a couple of years and there’ll be a motivation to join it because all my friends will be there.  If  it sucks, it can come and go without  me.

I’d be happy  to hear anybody’s recommendations.