To tweet, or not to tweet?

Facebook is my cocaine. I will admit it, every time I log on my computer my fingers are tempted to type in that familiar address and let my mind wander through the many pages and applications that Facebook has offered to fulfill my procrastination needs. Why is it that I feel the need to continuously log on? Simple: that little website is a good place to waste time. As far as what the majority of the people in my age group are doing socially on the internet, I am well below the average.

I would have to say that when it comes to communicating with people I am much happier with actually maintaining a conversation face to face, as msn messenger and Facebook chat suck the emotion right out of a conversation. I like to be able to read into what people are saying by looking at the expressions on their faces. Another reason that I like to avoid the internet for fulfilling my social needs is the problems and the fights that are often a result of something being taken the wrong way. I’m not sure if this is because I am used to living in a small city where most of the people with whom I talk are close enough I can just go walk and see them, but the internet is not an ideal way to communicate for me.

The world of MMORPG’s does not tickle my fancy either, mostly because I am probably the most inept gamer that anyone could ever play with or against. Gaming over the internet never appealed to me, partially because that lifestyle instilled the image of some forty-year old in his underwear drinking Mountain Dew and eating cheesepuffs in his mom’s basement. I realize that this is just my opinion, but I really do think that you shouldn’t spend your life connected to a computer screen longer than you have to; there are better things to see than the world from a 15.6” flat screen.

Neil Postman wrote: “…the interaction between media and human beings give a culture its character and, one might say, help a culture to maintain symbolic balance”. (Postman). I believe that this is true, and I think that the lesser the interaction between us and the media the better character we will develop. As most people point out, it’s the lack of the things we rely on that builds character.

Works Cited

Postman, Neil. The Humanism of Media Ecology. Media Ecology Association, 2000. Web. 22 November 2009.