"David Robinson" wrote in message
...
On 20 July, 01:19, "Arfa Daily" wrote:

I actually think that Face-ache and the other clones, are one of the most
antisocial and dangerous offerings that have come out of internet
technology
in the last couple of years. I have three 'kids' all now grown up and
left
the nest, and they are all ardent Face-achers. Apart from the amount of
time
they waste on it, it causes a lot of trouble and ill-feeling among people
who are otherwise friends. I think this stems from several issues with
communicating in this way. First, it is very strange the way that some of
the postings are carried out using the third person, like "Fred is not
very
happy today" or "Sally had a stinking rotten day at work today". This
creates an immediate detachment from a 'real' communication between
people.
This is further exacerbated by the fact that many people now are
semi-illiterate, and use wrong words, in wrong contexts, and often with
wrong grammar. In a face to face conversation, they get away with this,
because the person that they are talking to 'understands' the true intent
because there are visual and implied cues from the facial expressions and
audible intonation applied to the words. When these same words are typed,
however, it becomes very easy to misinterpret the real intended meaning,
which may well have been intended to be a 'throw away' comment, or a
humourous or tongue-in-cheek one. This can then lead to heated
exchanges -
like mini flame wars - that often result in ended friendships, or awkward
standoffs. I have seen it time and again when my daughters have been
involved. When you ask them what is going on, and they read out what has
been said in these exchanges, very often with the benefit of being
detached
from the situation, you can understand what the unfortunate person at the
butt end of one of these exchanges was trying to say in their original
post,
before it got misunderstood, and out of hand.

I certainly won't be joining any of these sites anytime soon. To be
honest,
I fail to see the point of having a presence on them, except as a place
to
gossip. I can't understand what the attraction is of sharing personal
information about what sort of a day you've had, and what you are doing
with
your life, to all and sundry. Accepted, you can set some sort of privacy
that only makes you visible to selected people, but what's the point of
that
even ? You might as well write an email each night to a copy-list of
people

Sadly, I think you've just spent several minutes typing out something
which most younger people (and probably most _people_ in 20+ years
time) would simply read as "I'm old - there's this new thing - I don't
get it - it must be bad".

This is pretty much what "older" people have been saying about _any_
new thing for as long as people have been saying anything!

I don't say this to be rude or cruel. I catch myself saying similar
things quite often, and I don't think I'm old! But the world moves on.
This is the future. New generations will find it just as exciting as
you/we once found radio, or television, or home computers, etc. And
then they'll grow up and look back on "good old facebook", decrying
whatever the new "new thing" is.

Whatever _is_ bad about it will get sorted out. The sky won't fall.
People will enjoy it for a while, and maybe move on. Those that are
around will probably judge that the world was a slightly better place
because of it.

Those that are already old will still claim the world was a better
place when _they_ were young. Pre-NHS. With bombs dropping on them.
Poverty. Starvation. But they were happy days etc.

Cheers,
David.

Actually, you are quite wrong. I still have much the same attitudes as I had
when I was a kid, as does my wife. We have always been 'mates' with our
kids, especially since they have grown up, and they treat us and talk to us
no differently than they talk to any of their friends, and likewise their
friends do too. Huge great bunches of us go on holiday together, and get
along without any problem. I don't have a problem embracing change, and do
not continuously harp back to the old days. You are right, the world moves
on and things change, some for the better, some for the worse. Much of
today's technology and attitudes are a huge improvement over what prevailed
when I was a kid, but by the same token, much is not. People are not, in
general, so well educated as they were, and much of that is down to poor
parenting, and parents who are only marginally less thick than their kids,
and marginally more thick than the teachers. Social attitudes have declined.
People have a lot less respect for each other now, or for authority. It's
not hard to be pleasant to one another, but even smiling at someone that you
pass in the street now, often gets you a strange and hostile look, as does
saying "hello".

There must be a reason for this - or probably many. However, having watched
the usage of Faceache quite closely via my kids', and also the young people
who work for us, I think that it, and similar sites, are a major contributor
to the antisocial, and often quite hostile behaviour, that seems prevalent
among some social groups now. The Faceache pages that sprung up after the
shooting incident last week, are a good example of this. I bet that a great
deal of the kids that contributed, would not have said the same things in a
face to face conversation. The anonymity that hiding behind a persona in
these sites gives to them, allows them to carry on with this behaviour
without fear of consequence, and some of the anarchistic tendencies that
grow out of it, inevitably spill out into 'real' life as well.

So no, my comments were not a 'grumpy old men' thing, but carefully
considered as a result of observations of real life usage of these sites by
a number of people.

Arfa