Just now, while washing the dishes, it came apparent to me that, more and more, I’ve started thinking in tweets.  These blips that run through my brain have become the majority of my absentminded thoughts.  I am forced now to ask myself about the affect that facebook, twitter, and social networking in general has had on our brain function, and perhaps even our brain chemistry.

Evolution is a many splendid thing.  With the invention of the typewriter and the personal computer, the brain was forced to think differently and the fingers were now required to move and operate in ways that seems unfeasible.  Is it then enough to only refer to the biological tendency to evolve physically?  Is it not possible then with the creation of social networking, our sharing of these status updates, these tweets, some of us might soon find ourselves thinking and behaving in a manner more consistent to life on the internet?

At the moment, for me, this is a delicious quandry.  It is a question that has me thinking deeper than the 160 allowable characters on facebook and twitter.  For me, it an exercise in something that is beyond my next hiccup on the page, and healthy, living proof that I am above social networking to some degree.

Critics of this form of communication ask questions about the value of the information that we so easily share with one another.  They wonder about the degree to which some of us share our dirty little secrets.  They ponder about the value of privacy and personal safety.  Many simply state: “Who cares about all the boring shitty little things that you are doing, why do I give a fuck that you just ate cherry pie, or petted an iguana?”

Well, I kinda do.

Weirdly enough, it brings me great satisfaction, from the comfort of my home, to know the little things that people are doing.  I suppose I believe that one of the greatest assets our society has is the information that we each hold in our heads, and our ability to share it with each other.

Sure I’ve thought about the sanctity of tradition and the loss of romance in communication.  Where once there was a phone call there is now the ever ubiquitous text message.  We’ve lost a lot of faff in some areas and introduced a whole slew of it in others.  Like the slow transition from traditional corks in wine bottles to the twist off cap, there is a romantical past that we have begun to leave behind us.  Even this blog, this plethora of thoughts knows nothing about the pen and paper.  This blog will never know the grace and distinction of being hand written, it will never feel the seductive slide of paper on paper as it is slipped out of an envelope, it will never know how truly exclusive it could have felt to be tucked away on a shelf somewhere, hidden and out of reach.

These things are all slowly being lost and I suppose, in turn some of us have become less uncommon because of it.  In a sense we have become something scandalous and are sitting with our legs wide open to the world, waiting for the wandering hand to slip its way down our knickers.

But, you know, as much as I’m aware of all the downsides to this loss of romanticism, and as much as I’m aware of all the trivial things that I could continue to keep to myself, I’ve never been much for keeping my legs shut, and frankly I love a stranger’s hand down my knickers.

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