I hate technology.

Let me be more specific, actually.

I hate technology that brings people together.  I don’t mind fancy new toys or new medical devices or sexual robots, these are the things that are making the world a better place – I hate technology that not only PUTS me in contact with other people but KEEPS me in contact with other people.  For instance, the most hated thing I have on my person, aside from taint stank, is my cell phone.   If my parents’ bottomless wealth and charity didn’t allow me to own needless gadgetry, I certainly wouldn’t have one at all (but it’s free, and it’s essentially expected that a grown man will have one, so I oblige.)

The next thing I Hate is Facebook, of which I have an account, because it’s essentially obligated of a socially networked person.  Invitations for events, birth announcements, birthdays and anniversaries are all announced over Facebook and if you walk into a conversation about “oh, what are you going to wear to the Tron convention?” and I’m like “huh?” and they’re like “Didn’t you get my Facebook Friend Habilitation Request Poke?” and I’m like “Shut your cum dumpster” but then out loud I say “oh, I don’t check that very often” and then I get this blank look.

The problem is enhanced even more because it seems like entire labs are migrating to facebook style networks where, out of a thirty some people lab, groups of 10 facebook users will cluster into facebook super cliques, which have clique powers that extend beyond the confines of the office.

So, while walking along the beach with my dog, Poopiebutt, I thought back to the olden days of my youth – back to the 1990’s, about how I managed to live my life without these social inconveniences.  Then it hit me.  I JUST HUNG OUT WITH PEOPLE!

Granted, back in the 1990’s, being a teenager was hard.  If I wanted to know what my friends were doing, I had to actually WALK inside my house FIND my phone, DIAL it with telephone numbers I had MEMORIZED and ASK THEM how they were doing.  The chances of them being home were uncertain and if I couldn’t reach them by phone, I’d have to talk to whomever answered and see if they were around.

It was the social equivalent of using an outhouse.

Anyway, you can see where I may be taking this.  Our parents comic lamentation about having to use the television before the advent of the remote is a little more disingenuous when compared to the change of the social norms.  One won’t (or shouldn’t) truly miss the intimacy of a television thanks to the remote, whereas I can easily see a dangerous reduction in real human contact with social networking.  It’s taking us toward a Philip K Dick style meta-reality.