Social networking

I've neglected the blog lately, yes. My second ever blog post dealt with my hesitation to get involved with online interaction again, but a few weeks ago - while under the influence, I freely admit - I found myself signing up on Facebook in my 'real' name. I'm here to admit to its addictive aspect.

My working life started in an old-fashioned printing factory. When I say, 'old-fashioned', I mean that we cast lead type there. Fresh from college, I was tasked with dragging the place over to photo-lithography. Not many years later, we were dragging the place over to fully electronic systems and buying Macs as if they were going out of fashion. But even with the most modern methods of putting ink on paper, there's a real lag between composition of text and pictures, and seeing the end result in its published form.

Not so with the internet and digital photography. Seconds after your first draft, there's your material up there, visible to a bazillion people. How cool is that? And it fits so well with our age of instant gratification - something for which I'm an unashamed advocate. Life is so pitifully short, let's have our fun quickly, while it's warm.

Blogging has been great fun, and I have no intention of stopping. (That may or may not be good news for some readers. Howsomever.) Facebook, though, has the extra appeal of remaking links with old friends. I know some will say - as I have myself - that real friends are the ones you stay in touch with in real life, and you don't need to be arsing about on Facebook or MySpace or whatever. I wouldn't argue. But there's a range of people that are, let's say, more than just casual acquaintances, if not so close that you meet regularly. The sort of people you'd enjoy bumping into at the local, even if you seldom if ever take back for dinner and to stay the night. (For any reason.) Most of us have friends in that category, I think, and Facebook can have something of the 'virtual pub' about it at its best - casual comments and brief touches of contact which leave you feeling part of a community of sorts even if you're separated by many miles.

Now, I will say straight away that I'd rather be down the local getting this sort of social interaction, but my liver won't take it.

I've also decoded the real appeal of Facebook. It's like inviting all these old friends and acquaintances round to your house, and while they're having a chat amongst themselves, you excuse yourself, saying you're going out for a fag or something, and you nip round to one of your friends' house and surreptitiously look through their address book and their photo album. "Ooo-er, he's put on weight... blimey, she used to be blonde... that's never their child, surely?"

And once you've had that pleasure, you look up one of their friends - someone you don't know from Adam - and trot off to their house, and do the same there. Now really, is this not enormous fun?

Mind you, at some point, it will occur to you that the friends you invited round are busy going through your address book and your photo album, and making equally rude comments.

Fair enough. Facebook makes voyeurs of us all. Which takes us back to the 'On watching and being watched' post a couple down, in a way.

And now, if you'll excuse me, someone's just commented on a photo I posted to my album. I must go and see who they're friends with at the moment.