Not at all, my good man

Good advice. I learned to do the same a while ago but get lazy sometimes and don't bother to copy it. It's my own fault

BlueRuby wrote:

You main point - I feel sites like these are good for the individual but take away from the collective good as the 'system' very often continues unchallenged. I noticed this arguement from you in that therapy exchange we had.
I suppose much of this point relates to the 'internet causes depression thread' and a recent 'should we protest?' type thread.
Mass tipping point? Possibly - I would like to believe so. You can be sure, however, that the 'system' is monitoring sites like these to ensure they keep ahead of the curve.

I guess that typed out exchanges act like permanent statements or proclamations. Its a very mechanical method of interaction obviously. Its similar to a group of deaf mutes in separate locked rooms, scribbling messages to each other and then passing them through a little slot in the wall.

The telephone link is a good one too. On the phone, you can hear the emotion, timbre, accent, gender, tone and so on of a persons voice, and you respond to pauses and prompts, which often allow a conversation to be steered off into another realm in a mutually coherent, very human way.

Typing messages is always constrained and tainted, by the restrictions of grammar and syntax, punctuation; having the time to select a 'correct' phrase or word, which is often unavailable during the normal vocal discussion - which makes the whole thing sometimes an exercise in prose styling rather than human two way communication.

No matter how much you like to think you and your avatar match up, there can only ever be a vague approximation at a superficial level.

The medium is the message.

Great thread Doggie and some ace posts peeps. Like it.

"as my typing skills are somewhat slow, I find it is best to use a word processor or word-pad, or even notepad to type all my responses then just copy and paste them into the thread,"

I do the same my self, but not so much for quick replys but more for longer more serious stuff on my blog or replys to others. The other great thing with that method is that I can spell check also so dont look like such an idiot

Just corrected 3 mistakes in this short note!

“Anybody heard that stupid poem about people born in the 40's (pre baby boom) who boast about not having central heating, double glazing, television, push button telephones, kettles that switch themselves off and computers so they don't want them now as they've coped without them.”

Don’t know about the poem but I am one of those pre1950 ex-Brits who lived with all of those things, frost on the INSIDE of the bedroom window, NO tv till well into the 60s etc etc!
Don’t want to go back there and am totally at wits end when my computer crashes and not much better when the internet connection fails. However there are days when I look at the Mennonites in the area who are still living in the self-sufficient horse and buggy era and wonder who has it right!

Yes, this is a good point. I came into the internet late, still remember my brother saying in the early days ' garbage in, garbage out.' There are two small but possibly interesting aspects that I have noticed. One is that the way it creates this permanent record of every utterance is strange, the trivial and the profound are all jumbled up together.
Regarding 'avatars' I did not understand why most people were evidently using what are digital pseudonyms when first viewing a site such as this. I have taken up one now, but there was a specific reason for this.
It is a very strange animal, I think its to early to tell if it will facilitate genuine social change.

GADGET wrote:
ok boring fact time
BezovecsHappyTwin
e-n-u-n-c-i-a-t-e when on the blower.

your showing your naval etiquette again bez, put your leg down, (your wearing a kilt)

If only you knew my terrible and guilty secret.


Bez

If only you knew my terrible and guilty secret.


Bez

oh you little tease, ok i'll bite !

ex navy, from Scotland, and you wear dresses!

I SHALL EXPOSE MYSELF

Jaron Lanier

Lanier doesn't like the passivity of human nature that's implied by Web 2.0 – that people are mere receptacles for advertising. He is especially scornful of Facebook: "Lenin said, 'Property is theft.' [It was actually Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.] Facebook says, 'Privacy is theft,' because they're selling your lack of privacy to the advertisers who might show up one day."

There is an assumption that kids "get" Facebook and adults don't. But Lanier believes it's the opposite. Adults get it. Kids don't.

"If you're old enough to have a job and to have a life, you use Facebook exactly as advertised, you look up old friends," says Lanier. "I don't think you're doing anything wrong. If you're 17 you're caught up in reputation maintenance in a way that's really unhealthy. You have to constantly be on guard. It's like you're running for office. The degree to which you have to be on guard is so total and so clinically precise that you're not given any off-time to try another persona."

In order to create a persona, people need to be able to forget, but nothing is forgotten online. There is no space for young people to invent a new persona and try it out.

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets...athetic-1894257.html