Facebook, Listen and Learn

Remember the days before social networking websites? Those happy days when it was perfectly excusable to avoid those people you never really got on with at school because, hey, you're not gonna see them again are you? The days when people could pretty much do without sticking "is at a loose end." after their name. Or when people didn't try and evangelically enforce film quizzes and other such useless "apps" on you? Yeah, it was a simpler time really. But the Facebook generation is constantly becoming that bit more and more ridiculous.

Yay Facebook! ZOMG!

Very recently, two friends of mine split up with their girlfriends. All very sad, but the manner in which I found out was absolutely hilarious. 'I see [names removed] have split up.' 'Really? How, what happened?' 'I don't know but his relationship status on Facebook is now single and the other half thing on Bebo is gone.' Aaaah, of course. I think what made it more hilarious was the fact that we here in Aberdeen got a text from a friend in Glasgow asking what we knew about the break up because he had read about it on Facebook. Truly a wonderful age. So where does it end? It's interesting that people will now go on to a social networking site almost the moment their relationship breaks up, changing their status to single and putting a "is feeling crap" after their name in an effort to...well an effort to what? Inform their friends? Make the ex feel bad? God only knows, but where is it going to end? Are we soon going to get people changing their status on Facebook when they receive some terrible news? Mark Donaldson has been diagnosed with Lupus for example. Are we going to get to a stage that parents will use social networking when something bad happens? Mark Donaldson has been killed in a car accident, funeral takes place next Thursday? Growing up in the late 80s and 90s I expected 2008 to herald flying cars, cool robots or making contact with aliens, instead we seem to just have a quicker way to find out when the girl or boy we've been after has become single. God bless technology.

This week: Is Sport Relief so don't expect me to be bigging up any of Fridays TV, this week has also seen me be accused of having an affair, debating sex with Kirstie Allsopp, avoiding writing 6,000 words for courses I don't understand, and preparing to be disappointed by Romero's new movie. Mark has also been shocked by the decision to change Doctor Who's United Nations Intelligence Taskforce to the Unified Intelligence Taskforce. What's the Brigadier gonna think?