Technology is great, just think where we'd be if we didn't have washing machines, mobile phones, laptops etc, etc.
Yeah we'd probably still be using washboards, yoghurt cartons and string or carrier pidgeons. But along with these advances we also have to take into account the pitfalls we open ourselves up to by our over reliability and openness when using them, especially the modern tools of communication.
Take Facebook for example, a social networking site that has in excess of 200 million users across the globe. Everyday we go in and describe to an ever increasing audience what trivial impediments are affecting us that day.. Or how we're doing in the swings and roundabouts of life.
I'm as guilty as the next person of following the proverbial herd in this respect, almost daily I'll partake of the never ending stream of quizzes and social tests sent our way by well meaning friends, of which I now have over 100... Half of them I probably wouldn't say hello to If I saw them in the street. But social etiquette dictates that on Facebook even the one night stand you had 5 years ago is a confidante to your every whimsical thought.
But I've stood back when it comes to the amount of personal info I put up, like a lot of people. Not just to save me from having my identity stolen, but to stop a repeat of a funny incident that happened 2 years ago.
It's been that long since my last serious relationship, I'm glad to say that I'm back in a happy and loving relationship now. So what happened two years ago on Facebook? My then girlfriend updated her profile to announce to the world we were now an item(fairly innocent, and something people take great delight in doing). A couple of weeks later she gets a pang of guilt about the amount of personal info on the site and decides to cut it back a bit. In doing so she clears the relationship box too, which in this modern society has repercussions. After taking this action she goes into a meeting, while in there everyone of her friends was subsequently been emailed by the site to tell them she had just dumped me....
Her inbox and mobile where inundated with texts and emails expressing their utter shock at her totally out of the blue decision. When she got out of the meeting in which she had been constantly distracted by the vibration of her mobile, she irritatedly rang her sister who had been calling non stop. Her sister asked what happened and why she dumped such a nice chap? My then squeeze, said she hadn't but then checked the 200 emails from all over the globe, Asking the same question...(and realised what she'd done) Oh Shit!!! Had I seen it?
She rang me desperately hoping I hadn't, I was in a meeting too. but the terse almost tearful.... "Call me ASAP, don't look at Facebook.." message left me in no doubt that something dire had happened, luckily it hadn't been seen by my friends. This breakdown in electronic communication didn't kill it, it was the breakdown in her ability to verbalise a concern and my inability to read her mind... that sent that brief union to the knackers yard.
So this time round, I'm not going to indulge in the electronic roof shouting on Facebook, that I'm no longer single... If someone fancies me from a far and asks me out, I'll politely tell them I'm taken and bask in feel good feeling.
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