How’s your typical e-day? Most of us semi-retired technophobes gently lust after the latest over-priced techie-fads, soak up our daily fix or three snippets of ephemeral online information. And, of course, we simply MUST make sure we don’t miss out checking in with our Facebook friends perpetuating their fantastic lives. Not only that, we are now legally required to spend an inordinate amount of time each day relentlessly tapping away on our social media keypad in order to enlighten an increasingly neurotic world; it doesn’t seem to matter the form of interaction: LOL / Like / emoji hashtag {send} ROFLMAO. Some now even gif-speak an entire conversation on Viber or Messenger without using actual words. Hmmm…. words becoming superfluous now? I don’t think George Orwell could have seen that coming in 1984.
And can our e-day really be complete without sharing at least one cute animal video? You know you all do it. And who hasn’t been tempted to share a political meme, but at the last moment backed off in case you offended any of your Facebook friends, so instead you shared a 5-year photo of a memorable meal that Facebook reminded you about this morning?
For those with an a-vocation in personal development Lessons in Life have now been e-reformatted and condensed into bullet-point lists. So your online life coach is now a perpetual PowerPoint slideshow, filling in the alarming gaps in knowledge with such core essentials as
10 things you never knew about your microwave’s inner feelings
5 ways paperclips can enhance your love life
45 things you never knew about your microwave’s inner feelings
15 absolute worst times to offer a high five (e.g. at a colonoscopy or a funeral).
And yes, this last list really IS genuine.
We all know these inane, lazy digests represent stupid knowledge for stupid people who can’t cope with too many words. But as stupid people are usually too stupid to know they’re stupid (it’s true – it’s known as the Dunning-Kruger effect), we can read the bullet point lists with a clear conscience. After all, we can all peer-review offerings with which we can readily identify, such as “5 reasons why we should never marry” (what happened to the other 129?).
And who could resist such endearing invitations, such as “People sexually attracted to food.” That one made me wonder if anyone has compiled a “10 ways to know if you are a wanker?” – and guess what? There are HUNDREDS of them. I bet you’re Googling that right now!
I was going to begin this blog with “10 reasons not to forget how useful books can be”.
But I had too much fun wandering off at this tangent. Maybe next time. Meanwhile, I am off to see if I can find some interesting articles that DON’T feature 25 colour clickbait photos of overweight celebs in bikinis after the first sentence.
