On 21 July, 18:08, "Arfa Daily" wrote:

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.

I think all the things you suggest pre-date facebook by many years!

....and you must know that your observations on the declining standards
of behaviour in the next generation are several hundred years old too,

Whether that makes them right or wrong, I don't know. The Welfare
State didn't exist back then, so some things have certainly changed. I
suspect Welfare dependency, rather than Facebook, contributes more to
some of them.

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.

....which is about as accurate as the reporting of that incident in the
news. Never mind the fact that facebook is anything but anonymous.
Never mind the fact that most of the people who joined that group (far
fewer than reported by the media) did so to post a message about how
stupid it was. Never mind the fact that the few posts supporting the
group were an interesting insight into the thinking of the UK's
underclass - saying the very things that these people say to each
other face to face.


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.

Well, you might be right, but I suspect we're stuck with it.

Cheers,
David.