Dragging twitter over here

[Suff]

I have one last thing to say on the subject but I thought I'd take it off the Café as that is not really the place for extensive looking at a thing.

Besides all the personal preference, abuse of tools to do a bad job of something just because it already exists (happens in workplaces every single day) and despite the fact that it is a product which is in it's infancy, there is one other point that was not touched.

We are bringing up a generation who are instant junkies. They want instant gratification for minimal input and then want to repeat and chew things over constantly whilst looking for a response immediately.

I've been there in the early days of the internet and also in the gaming world. People become immersed in it to the exclusion of all else. Now we were working when we went through this transition so we could not really go that overboard with it. Although we did burn large amounts of night time which could have been used for more profitable pursuits like conversation or alcohol...

Nowadays our youth are addicted to information feeds. They can't stop looking at their phone or tabled, if nothing happens for 15 minutes then they think the world is starting to end. Obviously an overstatement but it is meant to highlight a trend and a worrying trend at that.

The big problem I see is that these information junkies are young. But in 20 or 30 years when they hit their 40's they are going to be totally burned out. They are burning too bright and we all know that the brightest lights never burn the longest. They are burning the candle at both ends and in the middle too.

A lot of this, I feel, is that the environment they are currently using lacks structure. It is one long chase for money and the best moneyspinners are from the addicted. Just ask any drugs dealer.

People do drugs out of "personal choice". It doesn't mean it's either good for you or that it's giving the return that is expected. Even then some people become addicted and others don't. The human species is remarkably resilient and able to change. It is how it has achieved the prominence in the animal kingdom that it has.

So whilst I recognise all the good in what we talk about with the instant communication of the day, I also see the downsides, the pitfalls and the long run consequences of what we are doing.

#1 son, during the run up to the Scottish independence referendum, replied to the hashtag of a comment from the Australian PM. He received about 40,000 tweets in response and he got them all because he was included in the group for the hashtag. His phone went crazy, his Twitter became unusable and it took him quite a while to sort it all out and to be able to use it as he wanted. That is the mark of a product which is being stretched beyond the original design concept. It is also the mark of a product which can be dangerously addictive and without limits to that addiction. There are 500m people on twitter and you can prattle on 24x7 with anyone from anywhere.

It's just my old, jaded and wearyingly experienced view of the world of technology thrust, unready and overly willing, into the space of human interaction...

[Workingman]

Reading today, there is an attempt by EUrocrats to stop under 16s using Farcebook, Twitface and other messaging services without their parental guardian's specific consent.

Good luck with that.

Children at primary school are now more aware than their parents about how to be connected.... and as they are addicted they will go to any lengths to be so. "Messaging" apps come and go every day and it is not as if photo ID, proof of address, and a birth certificate are needed to login.

Young people nowadays perceive there to be an absolute need, almost a human right, to be connected 24/7, and as addicts they will do anything to make it so. Ways to login will be found, and as they become blocked, so new ways will be found.

[Suff]

It just means that a whole ecosystem of websites offering to "forward" your access will spring up. Some will be genuine and some won't and will have your details and will probably ask for your card details too....

It has no chance of working and it will just drive a huge new industry to circumvent it. Just as the torrent trackers circumvent the UK restrictions..... isonunters dot com indeed.....

The only way to do this is insist that anyone connecting has an ID card and has to prove id. Which the sites will never go for in the first place (nor will the UK or the US) and a VPN will simply get around the EU location barrier. at $35 and upwards for a VPN for a year, it's in the price range of most kids.

As you say, addicts will got to great lengths to get their fix. Never mind the adolescents great pleasure in "sticking it to the man"....